Dairy Farms
dairy farms
Does any-one know if there are Free Range DAIRY farms in Australia? Are any dairy farms using ethical methods?
Or are all dairy cattle in Australia subject to a “Factory farm” environment?
You can’t really get an answer to that because only you can define what you mean by “ethical”
I agree with Carousel, most dairy cattle are grazed on pasture for a significant portion of thier time.
However, all bar the smallest hobby farm do the following, regardless of whether they call themselves ethical, organic, free range or whatever….
You can decide if this is “Ethical” by your standards:
Artificial incemination every year
Cows would naturally calve every 2-3 years. Dairy farms artificially inceminate them every 11 months. This causes excessive stress on the cows body, increses the chance of prolapse and generally “wears them out” in a few years, rather than a natural 20 years.
Protein enriched feed
The feed they are given is enriched with artificial growth foods. these are generally made with cattle meat protiens.
In the USA and some parts of Australiasia they use a hormone growth agent called recombinant bovine somatotropin. Its brand name is POSILAC® and its made by Monsanto. This increases milk yield and beef growth. This is a synthetic hormone. Its banned in the EU since 1988
The main mechanism these hormones work is by re-directing dietry nutrients from peripheral body tissue to mammary glands. effectively, they are slowly killing the cow.
70% of US cattle are injected with this growth hormone ( 2007 stats ) that the majority of the world will not entertain because they believe its too dangerous.
Bribe/feed caged carousels
These suck. They are large rotating carousels where the cows are caged in a space where they cannot move. They have “black boxes” on thier legs which communicate with the main operating computer. They are fed just the right amount of food depending on how much milk they gave yesterday. They have added growth food if thier production drops
One person can milk about 400 cattle on a carousel so there is no time for checking the animals health – they just milk them dry and kick them out.
killing bulls, excess calves and free martins at 1 week old
All bulls are killed at 1 week old, although some farms iin the UK started ( in 2006 ) shipping them to Continental Europe for veal again. They do not keep any back for breeding as they bring in new blood lines. In the UK we don’t use dairy bull calves for veal anymore in country. They are either killed, or shipped out. Bull calves go to make low quality leather products such as cheap sofas.
They kill all free martins as there is a good chance they will be barren.
Strangly, they feed these animals with colostrum at birth to keep them alive, but then kill them a week later.
excess feeding to produce 60 lites of milk per day
The growth food is all designed to produce excess milk. Cows are naturally designed to produce about 15 litres. The european targets for 2009 are set at 90 litres, i don’t think it need me to tell you if this is heading the right or wrong direction.
intensive rearing means low husbandry checks
As mentioned above, most automatic dairies have one milkmaid per session, thats it. I know a dairy farm with 1200 cattle and 3 employees. Tell me how they can ever check the cattle….
removing calves from mothers after colostrum feed
This is stressful, cows bawl for weeks for thier young, calling them to be fed. Obviously the calf cannot “run to mom” because its in dog food by now.
killing the cow at 7 years old
Cows can naturally live to 20 years old. Production dairy cows are killed after 4-6 births so are never kept after 7 years old.
Fair Oaks Farms Adventure Center – America’s Heartland
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Dairy Farming $70.1 Dairy farming is a class of agricultural, or an animal husbandry, enterprise, for longterm production of milk, usually from dairy cows but also from goats and sheep, which may be either processed onsite or transported to a dairy factory for processing and eventual retail sale. Most dairy farms sell the male calves born by their cows, usually for veal production, or breeding depending on quality of the bull calf, rather than raising nonmilkproducing stock. citation needed] Many dairy farms also grow their own feed, typically including corn, alfalfa, and hay. This is fed directly to the cows, or is stored as silage for use during the winter season. Additional dietary supplements are often added to the feed to increase quality milk production Author: Miller, Frederic P./ Vandome, Agnes F./ McBrewster, John Binding Type: Paperback Number of Pages: 88 Publication Date: 2010/07/24 Language: English Dimensions: 5.98 x 9.01 x 0.21 inches |
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Crafar Farms $58.94 High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles Crafar Farms was, according to New Zealand Farmers Weekly, New Zealands largest familyowned dairy business. It consists of 22 farms with 20,000 cows in the North Island and it was owned by Alan, Beth and Frank Crafar. From 2007 to 2010, the Crafar Farms become notable for multiple prosecutions for pollution offences, incidents of poor animal welfare, high indebtedness, receivership and the attempts of overseasbased interests to purchase the farms from the receiver. Author: Miller, Frederic P./ Vandome, Agnes F./ McBrewster, John Binding Type: Paperback Number of Pages: 64 Publication Date: 2010/08/21 Language: English Dimensions: 6.00 x 9.02 x 0.15 inches |
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The Production and Utilization of Manure on Illinois Dairy Farms $15.51 This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts – the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. |
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Aurora Organic Dairy $42.92 High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles Aurora Organic Dairy is an American company, based in Boulder, Colorado, which operates large factory farms, each with thousands of dairy cows, in Colorado and Texas. The company supplies and packages private-label, store-brand, organic dairy products for many of the country’s largest grocery chains, including Wal-Mart, Safeway, Target and Costco. The company was founded in 2003 by Mark Retzloff as a combined farm and bottling plant situated on a sloping plain north of Denver. In 2005, this had 5300 cows. At this time, the organic standards of the new company were already causing squabbles with other organic producers. |
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Sustainable Dairy Farming in Bangladesh $103.56 Azizunnesa. 2002: Economic opportunity survey on subsistence dairy farm Mymensingh. MS. Thesis. Department of Surgery and Obstetrics, Faculty of Veterinary Science, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh. The aim of the present study was to focus on the fertility management and economics of subsistence dairy farms. The survey schedule was designed in collaboration with the Department of Surgery and Obstetrics, Faculty of Veterinary Science, Bangladesh Agricultural University, Mymensingh and School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Wisconsin Madison, USA. The survey was carried out in 171 small holding dairy farms. There were 5.4 cattle heads per farm. In total, the number of lactating cows, dry cows replacement heifers, male calves and other male cattle were 271, 68, 274,129 and 207, respectively. Different production and fertility related parameters were studied with regard to the economic opportunities. The mean SD age at first calving, calving interval, lactation length and milk production per day per cow were 45 8 months, 18 5 months, 290 91 days and .2 2.2 kg, respectively, against the targets of 30 months, 15 months, 305 days and 6 kg, respectively. Author: Azizunnesa, MS/ Omar Faruk, Mohammad/ Shamsuddin, Mohammed Binding Type: Paperback Number of Pages: 60 Publication Date: 2011/01/14 Language: English Dimensions: 6.00 x 9.02 x 0.14 inches |
Filed under Dairy Farming by on Mar 7th, 2009. 