Where Do Beef Cattle Begin Their Life

Social, Contemplative Cows

Farm Sanctuary'due south most wistful residents, cows (Bos taurus) are deeply social and interact with one another in complex ways—fostering collaborative relationships (they grade "preparation partnerships," just like chimpanzees), learning from one some other, and making decisions that benefit other members of the group.

When not contending with fearful captivity, cows spend most of their time wandering, foraging, socializing, and chewing things over, as did their aboriginal ancestors the aurochs—creatures whose stature and force were depicted in the earliest cave paintings and human mythologies. Over time, humans' breeding and handling of cows as commercial goods ("cattle," "chattel," and "capitalism" all derive the aforementioned Latin word) has led to abuse of these animals on an enormous industrial scale.

After spending time ambling the pastures with our cow herds at Farm Sanctuary, visitors are ofttimes struck by the meditative temperament, placid nature, and sheer size of these gentle giants.

A Brief History of Cows

~5 million years ago to ~2 million years ago

As Earth's terrestrial surface grew cooler and drier during the Pliocene Epoch, vegetation adapted to survive. Forests gave way to prairies, and marshlands transitioned into grasslands. Grazing species acclimatized accordingly, and the beast believed to be the primary progenitor of the mod cow—the sturdy, wide-horned auroch—began its roam across Eurasia and Northern Africa. The earliest fossil evidence of aurochs dates back ii meg years.

~11,000 BCE to ~viii,500 BCE

Aurochs were beginning domesticated by humans roughly ten,000 years ago, probably in more one location. Near present-twenty-four hour period Bharat, some were bred into the modern zebu. Separately, populations of Eurasian aurochs were being domesticated in the Heart East and Far Eastward, creating the taurine (or "humpless") cows of today. One study of fossil DNA suggests that all taurine cows were bred from a population of merely eighty animals.

~2,500 BCE to Nowadays

Ancient Egyptian art depicts female forms with arms upraised or headdresses worn to mimic the shape of cow's horns—the goddesses Hathor and Isis embodied the divine cow who created the stars and the sunday god Ra. In Germanic mythology, Auðumbla the cow licked salty stones into the shape of a man, Buri, who became Odin's grandfather. In Hinduism, cows have been venerated in part to honor the goddess and mother of all cows, Kamadhenu.

~ii,500 BCE to ~300 BCE

Homer'southward tales and Aristotle'south histories tell of armor fabricated from moo-cow leather, soldiers fed on moo-cow meat, and the necessity of the force of oxen to effectively plow fields. Across the globe, humans were inventing and modifying better harness systems. Padded harness collars that didn't cantankerous an brute's windpipe began to appear in China around 300 BCE, allowing oxen and horses to pull more weight over longer distances than they ever had earlier.

~100 BCE to 1250 CE

By the peak of their empire, the Romans had increased the size of the boilerplate kept cow through "comeback" techniques, including specific feed types and cantankerous-breeding. 1 archaeological study of European sites found that, as the Empire declined, so did the rigor of husbandry—herd-tending labor was expensive, and isotope tests suggest that medieval cows, foraging and relatively free, grew temporarily smaller as a outcome.

1765

The nursery rhyme that gave a cow astronautic abilities can be traced in present class to a 1765 Mother Goose collection, simply its components may date back centuries further. The rhyme, which gave us the idiom "over the moon," is alluded to frequently in popular culture: Bilbo Baggins recites a long variation in The Lord of the Rings, and Kermit the Frog interviews the cow from the launch pad before and later on her spring for a Sesame Street News Wink.

1864

Earlier industrialization, cows were kept in urban areas to keep milk'south production shut to consumers. As cities grew crowded, dairy herds were moved out, increasing the time between product and consumption—that gap revealed raw milk equally a carrier of disease. Louis Pasteur'due south 1864 experiments exposing foods to low-level to kill unwanted bacteria were not the get-go of their kind, only by 1910 New York Urban center had mandated the "pasteurization" of milk.

1870 to Present

As early on as 1870, farmers were trying to automate milk pumping, inserting tubes directly into milk-duct openings to increase menstruation. Vacuum systems were an early advance, and in 1922 the "surge milker" appeared, mimicking the natural tug of a calf's nursing. Since and so, dairy owners take increased production by using multiple vacuum systems within ever-larger "parlors"—some modern rotary units tin empty more than than 100 cows in less than 10 minutes.

1916

"Ox" and "oxen" describe any domesticated bovine used equally a draft animal, including cows and bulls. Babe the Blue Ox, the giant travel partner of mythical lumberjack Paul Bunyan, originated in 19th-century stories told by American timber workers in bunkhouses and around campfires. Babe's fame grew after a 1916 ad campaign for the Red River Lumber Company credited Paul and Infant with stomping the holes that became Minnesota's x,000 lakes.

1938

"The No. one animal of 1938 will nigh certainly turn out to be Ferdinand," wrote Life magazine subsequently the release of Ferdinand the Balderdash. Preferring the olfactory property of flowers to the thrill of a fight, Ferdinand brought themes of peaceful power and individual identity to a troubled era. In the aftermath of World War II, Jella Lepman, a Jewish author, translated the volume, then had 30,000 copies printed and distributed as gifts to deprived German children.

1962

Born in 1962, "Pawnee Farm Arlinda Master" was a bull whose breeding sired xvi,000 daughters and 2 1000000 known great-granddaughters. By 2016, roughly 14 percent of Holsteins in the U.S. were his descendants. In 2011, USDA researchers found a genetic trait in Holsteins that, when inherited from both parents, would impale a calf in utero—and traced that trait to Principal. The written report estimated 500,000 calves had died as a result worldwide in the preceding three decades.

2013

Aurochs singled-out from cows continued to rove eastern Europe in minor populations until the Middle Ages, and may have gone extinct as late every bit 1627. However, because large grazing mammals are vital to maintain biodiversity, European scientists in 2013 began the TaurOs Project. By crossbreeding and selectively "back breeding," they are working to constitute a hearty species similar to aurochs that might repopulate Europe'southward wild grasslands.

2019

Almost dairy cows live a lifelong cycle of pregnancy and giving birth with little rest. One 2019 written report institute that depriving cows of sleep decreased milk production and protein content. Another identified overcrowding as a primary stressor during "the transition menses" (late pregnancy). And the Russian Ministry of Agriculture deployed virtual-reality headsets for cows to notice out whether only seeing images of grassy fields might help.

2019

The American agricultural manufacture slaughtered 33 million cows in 2019 according to the USDA—about 90,000 on an average day. Also in 2019, over ix meg cows were kept to produce dairy. The federal government's subsidies for beef and dairy farmers—over $30 billion each year, according to 1 study—have helped consumers to view cows, their body parts, and their milk as cheap necessities.

Photograph: Hemis / Alamy Stock Photo

~five 1000000 years ago to ~two meg years ago

Equally Earth's terrestrial surface grew cooler and drier during the Pliocene Epoch, vegetation adapted to survive. Forests gave fashion to prairies, and marshlands transitioned into grasslands. Grazing species acclimatized accordingly, and the animal believed to exist the primary progenitor of the modern cow—the sturdy, wide-horned auroch—began its roam across Eurasia and Northern Africa. The earliest fossil bear witness of aurochs dates back two million years.

The Someone Project: Cows

The Someone Projection is a Farm Sanctuary-sponsored research-based initiative documenting farm animal sentience through science. Download our white newspaper on cows titled Thinking Cows: A Review of Cognition, Emotion, and the Social Lives of Domestic Cows at the link beneath.

Download

Cow Facts

• 

• Cows focus more than fourth dimension grooming sick or injured cows than other members of their herd.

• Cows swing their tails when they are feeling happy.

• Cows rely on the bonds they have with each other to cope with stressful situations.

"Cows have a secret mental life in which they bear grudges, nurture friendships, and become excited over intellectual challenges…"

- The Sun Times (United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland)

Suffering for their Meat, Milk, and Skins

These typically playful, nurturing animals endure immense suffering on mill farms.

• U.s.

  33,703,400 cows were slaughtered in the The states in 2018.

• Global

  302,128,109 cows were slaughtered worldwide in 2018.

Photo: Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals

Photo: DedMityay/shutterstock.com

Photograph: Valerio Pardi/shutterstock.com

Photograph: Jo-Anne McArthur / Brute Equality

Photo: Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals

Photo: Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals

Photo: Farm Sanctuary

Photo: Jo-Anne McArthur / Animal Equality

Far from "Happy Cows"

Opposite to the "happy cow" caricatures depicted in dairy industry advertising, these nurturing animals suffer systematized suffering on factory farms. Cows used by the dairy industry are intensively bars, continually impregnated, and bred for high milk production with little business organisation for their well-being.

Millions Imprisoned and Slaughtered

The scale of mill farming is difficult to fathom. In 2017, more than ix.3 one thousand thousand cows—roughly the number of seconds in a four-month catamenia—were used to produce milk in the Us. In the aforementioned twelvemonth, more than 3 million dairy cows—slightly more than than the human population of Chicago—were slaughtered for meat.

Constant Impregnation

Cows, like all mammals, must be impregnated to produce milk. Cows used to produce dairy milk spend their lives in constant cycles of pregnancy, withstanding repeated artificial inseminations, giving birth and having their calves removed, and indelible nearly continuous mechanized milking with only a few short months of residuum between pregnancies.

Families Separated

Most often within hours of birth, calves are detached from their mothers. Such separation volition oftentimes cause calves—who would in a natural environment be deriving nutrients from their mothers' milk—to become sick, consume less, lose weight, and cry so much that their throats become raw and inflamed.

Veal Results from Dairy Production

Male calves, because they will never produce milk, are of footling value to dairy farmers. Millions of male calves are sold to be raised and slaughtered for beefiness, while hundreds of thousands of others are destined for before deaths to exist sold equally veal. While many people consider veal production to be brutal, likewise few understand that veal producers and the dairy industry are almost entirely interdependent.

Miserable Weather

Cows in the broad majority of dairy facilities spend their lives indoors, typically on abrasive concrete floors, frequently connected to a milking apparatus. In 2019, the average cow in the U.South. dairy manufacture was forced to produce more than 23,000 lbs. of milk in a year — more than than double the amount produced twoscore years before. Breeding cows to produce at such unnaturally high levels, combined with damage caused to the udders by milking machines, contributes to high levels of mastitis. This common, painful swelling of the udder glands tin can increment the presence of leaner or fungi in milk.

Normalized, Unnatural Cruelty

To dilate milk production and profit, some farms inject dairy cows with bovine growth hormone (BGH), a genetically-engineered hormone that has been shown to increment the risk of wellness bug similar mastitis and lameness. Though cows use their tails to swish away flies and can endure immensely during fly season, dairy producers routinely exercise "tail docking," the act of removing a cow's tail either by cutting information technology off or by strangulating information technology with a rubber band until information technology withers and falls off. Each method can cause chronic pain. Cows who collapse because they are besides sick or injured to walk or stand, known equally "downers" inside the industry, are oftentimes prodded, dragged, and pushed effectually before slaughter.

Lives Cut Short

Nearly all cows used for dairy in the U.S. are eventually killed and butchered for human consumption. While cows in a natural setting tin live for two decades, the exhausted cows kept for dairy tend to produce less milk equally they approach the age of 5 years and are commonly considered "spent." After being slaughtered, they are most often sold and eaten as hamburger.

Photo: Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals

Far from "Happy Cows"

Opposite to the "happy cow" caricatures depicted in dairy manufacture advertising, these nurturing animals endure systematized suffering on manufactory farms. Cows used past the dairy industry are intensively confined, continually impregnated, and bred for high milk product with piddling concern for their well-existence.

Photo: DedMityay/shutterstock.com

Millions Imprisoned and Slaughtered

The scale of mill farming is difficult to fathom. In 2017, more than nine.three million cows—roughly the number of seconds in a iv-month period—were used to produce milk in the United States. In the same year, more than than 3 million dairy cows—slightly more than the human population of Chicago—were slaughtered for meat.

Photograph: Valerio Pardi/shutterstock.com

Constant Impregnation

Cows, like all mammals, must exist impregnated to produce milk. Cows used to produce dairy milk spend their lives in constant cycles of pregnancy, withstanding repeated artificial inseminations, giving nascence and having their calves removed, and enduring virtually continuous mechanized milking with only a few short months of rest between pregnancies.

Photo: Jo-Anne McArthur / Animal Equality

Families Separated

Almost often within hours of birth, calves are detached from their mothers. Such separation will frequently cause calves—who would in a natural surroundings be deriving nutrients from their mothers' milk—to become sick, eat less, lose weight, and cry and then much that their throats become raw and inflamed.

Photo: Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals

Veal Results from Dairy Production

Male person calves, because they will never produce milk, are of picayune value to dairy farmers. Millions of male calves are sold to be raised and slaughtered for beef, while hundreds of thousands of others are destined for earlier deaths to be sold as veal. While many people consider veal production to be fell, likewise few understand that veal producers and the dairy manufacture are almost entirely interdependent.

Photo: Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals

Miserable Conditions

Cows in the broad majority of dairy facilities spend their lives indoors, typically on abrasive concrete floors, frequently connected to a milking apparatus. In 2019, the average cow in the U.South. dairy industry was forced to produce more than 23,000 lbs. of milk in a year — more than than double the corporeality produced 40 years before. Breeding cows to produce at such unnaturally high levels, combined with damage caused to the udders past milking machines, contributes to high levels of mastitis. This common, painful swelling of the udder glands tin increment the presence of leaner or fungi in milk.

Photo: Farm Sanctuary

Normalized, Unnatural Cruelty

To amplify milk production and turn a profit, some farms inject dairy cows with bovine growth hormone (BGH), a genetically-engineered hormone that has been shown to increase the risk of wellness problems like mastitis and lameness. Though cows use their tails to swish away flies and can suffer immensely during fly season, dairy producers routinely practice "tail docking," the act of removing a cow's tail either by cutting it off or by strangulating it with a rubber ring until it withers and falls off. Each method tin crusade chronic hurting. Cows who collapse because they are too sick or injured to walk or stand, known as "downers" within the industry, are ofttimes prodded, dragged, and pushed around before slaughter.

Photograph: Jo-Anne McArthur / Animate being Equality

Lives Cutting Short

Nearly all cows used for dairy in the U.S. are somewhen killed and butchered for human consumption. While cows in a natural setting can alive for two decades, the exhausted cows kept for dairy tend to produce less milk as they approach the historic period of five years and are usually considered "spent." After being slaughtered, they are most frequently sold and eaten as hamburger.

Hell for a Hamburger

Though they may begin their short lives on rangeland, young calves are nearly always separated from their nurturing mothers and often suffer a series of painful mutilations including branding, dehorning, and castration. Within their first twelvemonth, calves endure the long, stressful journeying to a feedlot, where they volition be fattened on an unnatural diet to reach an optimum "market place weight" and be sent to slaughter. In 2019, 33 million cows were slaughtered for beef in the United States.

Castration past Cut, Burdensome, or Strangulation

Castration is thought to improve meat quality and tenderness, so male calves are most often castrated inside their beginning few months . Testes can be removed surgically with a scalpel, spermatic cords can be crushed with a clamp, or blood flow to the scrotum can be constricted until the testes die and fall off. Each method causes hurting that can last for days.

Branded with Fire

So farmers can easily and cheaply place their cows and claim buying, they will still intentionally scar their cows (often on the same day as castration) , by pressing branding irons as hot as 950 °F into the cows' skins. Castration and branding are each known to cause fearfulness and pain, merely pain relief is rarely provided.

Human being-Fabricated Growth

Between half dozen months and i year of age, cows are moved from pastures to feedlots to be fattened for slaughter. Ruminants similar cows have chambered stomachs because they eat primarily grasses and foliage that need to be softened and re-chewed every bit cud, only on feedlots they are most ofttimes fed a corn- or grain-based diet that includes antibiotics and anti-bacterial agents (and, occasionally, aftermarket human being food products, including candy). Such practices bring most cows to a "market place weight" of one,200 pounds in just six months.

Isolated From View

In the U.S., 4 out of 5 cows grown for beef are fattened in big, isolated feedlots in just 5 states—Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas. Since calves are built-in all over the state, they often suffer long and stressful trips from their places of nascency without nutrient, h2o, or protection from the elements. Most urban center-habitation Americans, unless they travel on trains or interstate highways, rarely see these cows in truck trailers, in rail-transport cars, or at the vast feedlots for which they are destined.

Sent to Slaughter

When they accomplish a sufficient "market weight" (usually before 3 years of age) , cows in the beef industry are trucked to slaughter. In the U.S., the Humane Methods of Slaughter Human action requires that livestock be rendered insensible to hurting before shackling and slaughter. "Captive bolt stunning"—the explosive driving of a metal rod into the cow's brow and, often, into the brute'due south brain—is ordinarily used to render cows unconscious. However, investigations have constitute that some animals are still conscious when their throats are cut.

Photo: Winui/shutterstock.com

Photo: CLP Media/shutterstock.com

Photo: FlyBMW/shutterstock.com

Photo: Brandt Bolding/shutterstock.com

Photo: rthoma/shutterstock.com

Photo: Jo-Anne McArthur / Eyes On Animals

Photograph: Winui/shutterstock.com

Hell for a Hamburger

Though they may brainstorm their brusque lives on rangeland, young calves are nearly ever separated from their nurturing mothers and often endure a series of painful mutilations including branding, dehorning, and castration. Within their offset year, calves suffer the long, stressful journey to a feedlot, where they will exist fattened on an unnatural diet to reach an optimum "market weight" and be sent to slaughter. In 2019, 33 million cows were slaughtered for beefiness in the U.s.a..

Photo: CLP Media/shutterstock.com

Castration by Cutting, Crushing, or Strangulation

Castration is thought to improve meat quality and tenderness, then male calves are most frequently castrated within their outset few months . Testes can exist removed surgically with a scalpel, spermatic cords tin be crushed with a clamp, or blood flow to the scrotum tin exist constricted until the testes die and fall off. Each method causes hurting that tin terminal for days.

Photo: FlyBMW/shutterstock.com

Branded with Burn

So farmers tin hands and cheaply identify their cows and merits ownership, they volition nonetheless intentionally scar their cows (often on the same mean solar day as castration) , by pressing branding irons as hot as 950 °F into the cows' skins. Castration and branding are each known to cause fear and pain, but hurting relief is rarely provided.

Photo: Brandt Bolding/shutterstock.com

Man-Fabricated Growth

Between 6 months and ane year of age, cows are moved from pastures to feedlots to be fattened for slaughter. Ruminants similar cows have chambered stomachs because they consume primarily grasses and foliage that need to exist softened and re-chewed as cud, but on feedlots they are nigh ofttimes fed a corn- or grain-based diet that includes antibiotics and anti-bacterial agents (and, occasionally, aftermarket homo food products, including candy). Such practices bring well-nigh cows to a "market weight" of 1,200 pounds in only vi months.

Photograph: rthoma/shutterstock.com

Isolated From View

In the U.S., iv out of 5 cows grown for beef are fattened in large, isolated feedlots in merely 5 states—Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas. Since calves are built-in all over the land, they frequently suffer long and stressful trips from their places of birth without food, water, or protection from the elements. About city-dwelling Americans, unless they travel on trains or interstate highways, rarely run into these cows in truck trailers, in rail-transport cars, or at the vast feedlots for which they are destined.

Photo: Jo-Anne McArthur / Eyes On Animals

Sent to Slaughter

When they reach a sufficient "market weight" (usually earlier 3 years of age) , cows in the beef manufacture are trucked to slaughter. In the U.Southward., the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act requires that livestock be rendered insensible to hurting earlier shackling and slaughter. "Captive bolt stunning"—the explosive driving of a metal rod into the moo-cow's forehead and, oft, into the animal's brain—is commonly used to return cows unconscious. However, investigations have plant that some animals are however conscious when their throats are cut.

"They are all individuals and all have their own characteristics. They are tremendously curious. They have emotional storms."

- Tim Sell, chair of the UK's National Farmers Union

Featured Moo-cow Rescues

Transcript

Well, heed to this. A cow on the loose in New Britain.

Everyone'due south tagging me and saying, Mayor, in that location's a cow on the loose in town. Mayor, what are yous going to do? At that place's a cow walking downward my street?

I heard through social media that there was a moo-cow wandering around, what appeared to be my neighbour.

Mayor Stewart says it's somewhere on the New Britain Water Department property.

He'd been on the run for weeks-- for several weeks-- successfully evading people that wanted to get him.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I would love to get it up there and figure out where we're going to ready up. Because in that location'southward no room for fault on that ridge, and if this thing slides out, we're done.

His name came about, I should say, when nosotros realized this was real.

Nosotros figured if we named him, he couldn't be eaten.

Then I thought of Finn. He's this piddling adventurous boy in the woods.

He'south been successful, for a month, hiding from people that desire to find him, so.

Wow. OK.

I did see him walk in the ridge and there was tracks going that mode.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Seeing everybody come together to help Finn, has been really one of the most special things most this whole feel.

I wonder what Finn is thinking right at present.

Am I good?

Yeah, yous're still coming to the right.

OK. So it stays here.

OK.

OK, absurd.

You did it, man!

My knuckles are white.

[LAUGHING]

Now we've got to finish.

Mario, you know, kind of rallied the team, as darkness vicious, to put up all the gates, and bring out the feed, and gear up the whole matter upwardly. And right as nosotros were wrapping upwards, nosotros await down this path where Finn had been sighted earlier. And Mario says, there's Finn.

Information technology's like he wants to be here.

You can do it, Finn. Please, come up on. Come on, infant.

Maybe we'll get lucky this evening. That'd be awesome.

I promise so.

He was in my backyard. I don't call back when you lot're that shut, you can overlook information technology. And I've read and so many stories where animals were spared from slaughter because they escaped. I wanted his story to exist that.

Awww.

You take no idea what this means-- I have no idea what this means to me.

What it means to him, that's the important role.

His best life started last dark. Then, I'1000 just then grateful to all of you.

Finn did save himself. If the billions of animals who aren't so lucky could, they would.

[UPBEAT MUSIC]

I will probably transition to no meat at all. It volition take me some time. Simply I retrieve, based on this, I couldn't look into his face today and think that there could exist anything else just a sanctuary for him.

I would similar to call back he feels super safe right now. You know, shouldn't be anybody chasing him anymore. So he should have a happy life.

For Farm Sanctuary to volunteer to come up out here and do this and choice up on Finn'due south story, we're eternally grateful to you. I know Finn will be as well.

[MOOING]

[MUSIC PLAYING]

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Source: https://www.farmsanctuary.org/cows/

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