This is how female calves live on #dairy farms; Confined in isolated pens like this one from the day they are born for the first 2-3 months of their life. Dairy farmers love to call this lonely, deprived, motherless existence “individualized care.” — their mothers were trapped behind, able to smell their babies but only see the back of these glorified dog crates. They will never be together again. Eventually, these daughters will be transferred to the group pen and on to the dairy herd of suffering mothers. Their mothers will have already been slaughtered. To keep up with the absurd and unnecessary human consumption of her cow milk, she will be forced to give birth before she is 1 year old.
Life of Cows- Replacement Stock
Female calves are either born on farms or may be bought from a market at a few weeks old to be reared on the farm as replacement stock. Replacement stock means they exist to replace older dairy cows as they are killed, or they themselves are sent to slaughter at around a year and a half just before they are old enough to become pregnant for the first time.
Calves in Tie-Stall
Tie-stall are usually used for small herds with less than one hundred cows and may be used as winter housing or all year round. Each cow is kept in place by either a chain, stanchion or rope tied around their neck; this is very restrictive to their behaviour. With a rope or chain the calves are only able to stand up and lie down. Many tethered animals are not given any daily exercise.
Each Day and Night
This is how they spend their time. Each day and night. On a schedule until their number is called and their life-time is up.
Gentle Giants
A young calf is so gentle as he nuzzles my hand and licks my finger tips.
How They Spend Their Days
They spend each day in the swealtering sun and heat.
They Want Their Moms
Desperate and desolate. I am nothing but a substitute for the love they should share with their mothers.
Cows Are Affectionate
They are so affectionate and loving; Reaching their necks through the bars so that we could be closer.
See Through Her Eyes
Imagine that’s your eye you are looking out of; out into a world that doesn’t understand. You stay inside day after day, standing in the same spot as you watch your life go by. They shove their fists inside you, 9 months later you give birth to a magnificent baby. You think it may have all been worth it— until they take her away. You never seen her again— yet her cries haunt you at night. They pump your swollen breasts dry and they spray paint them green. You are suddenly surrounded by other mothers who are as exhausted as you. You’re together in that truck, wondering what more they could do. Arriving at the slaughterhouse, where they take you for the rest of what they think you’re worth. Your last moments make your entire life of suffering only a drop in the bucket. Just when you think it can’t get any worse, it is. I wonder what last thought passes through their mind as their eyes search to meet our own.
She Just Wants Her Mom
A baby calf desperately sucks on my fingertips that resemble her mom's nipples. I wish they were together. "I'm so sorry Tinkerbell."
Lambs Only Hours Old
Newborn Lambs, only hours old, suckle on their mother's nipple. The way it should be. They have yet to be separated in time for Easter dinner.
Retained Placenta Afterbirth
Despite suffering a retained placenta after just giving birth a mother is hooked up to a milking machines and forced back to her place in the milking line. The incidence of retained placenta in healthy dairy cows is 5 to 15%. The problem may be increased by abortion, difficult calving, milk fever, twin births, advancing age of the cow, pre-mature birth, inflamed placenta and various nutritional disturbances. It is normally easy to diagnose a cow with retained placenta by looking at the degenerated, discolored and unpleasant-smelling membranes hanging from the vulva more than 24 hours after calving, one can confirm a case of retained placenta.
Baby Calves Crying Out For Mom
Baby calves cry out for their moms. Their cries are returned from the next room full of milking mothers hooked up to machines, yet they will never see one another again. I can't imagine the day her cry isn't returned because her mother has dried up and its time for this girl to take her place in the milking line.
Cotton Wool
A young baby on display each and every day. She will remain here until she joins the mother herd of milking machines.
Little Mouth
Born only two days ago, her tongue and mouth have yet to develop full function. She suckles like a human baby without a soother.
Dinosaur is Down
Dinosaur was laying there the entire time I saw her. She appears so defeated. What happens next? They'll spraypaint her breasts green and she will be separated with the other 'dry mothers' unable to produce milk or reaching exhaustion. Soon they'll all be on those terrible trucks heading for the last horrific moments of her already suffered life.
Heidi and Hannah
Could she be more affectionate? These animals are so forgiving.
Baby Brown
A newly born brown baby calf suckles for her mother. I feel devastated to have this opportunity to connect with her; an experience her mother has been deprived of moments after giving birth. The bond between a mother and child extends beyond our human race and is inherent in the sentience of all beings.
Her Soul is Suffering
They say the eyes are the window to the soul. Her soul is suffering.
Bored Baby Calves
Given only the space of a small closet to live their entire lives, these baby calves are only days old and showing signs of boredom and frustration. Pacing around in circles, trying to play, reaching for one another. This will be their entire, too short and suffered lives.