Bought Milk???

[Don M.]

I came across this today, and thought I'd pass it along. There has been a lawsuit against dairy producers in several states, and the courts have issued a verdict against them. They are now offering a small settlement to the people in those states. Here's the link.....

http://www.boughtmilk.com/

 

[OneEyedDiva]

My state (N.J.) is not included but I'm in forums on other sites where I have friends across the country, so I will share this with them. Thank you for posting.

 

[Debby]

500,000 cows killed in the prime of their sad lives.....by farmers who love their animals.

 

[Robusta]

Where are the half million dead cows Debby? You do realize that if we did not eat cows, cattle would be extinct don't you? The sole reason for a bovines very existence is to provide humans with sustenance . They do not make good pets, they are so far from their genetic origin that they could not be wild.
So we either continue our one sided arrangement with them or let them die out.

 

[Debby]

Did you read the accompanying article(s)? 500,000 healthy dairy cows slaughtered to create a fake shortage and inflate the price of milk. And this in the face of a naturally occurring reduction of milk consumption by the American public. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dairy-industry-cows-settlement_us_57d1a4ade4b03d2d459926e4?

'....The federal government just bought the world’s most expensive omelet — one Americans didn’t even want. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently announced plans to buy nearly $32 million worth of eggs and cheese to bail out the dairy and egg industries. It’s clear our country has a cheese problem. More than a billion pounds of unwanted cheese — one and a half Empire State buildings’ worth — are stinking up storage facilities across the United States. We have an egg problem too. Production is far outpacing demand, and prices for both commodities are sinking to new lows....'

I am also concerned for the wildlife that are going extinct and in large part because of our decisions to support the animal agriculture industry. A recent study shows that the greatest threat to the wildlife of the planet lies at the doorstep of poachers and animal agriculture. Also those cattle are a man created species and if the concern is that they will go extinct and we won't get to see a real one again, perhaps we could retain a few healthy examples in a park somewhere, but to keep them and continue to abuse them for the sake of several products that we can live without is unfair to them.

But the wildlife that is gone because of animal ag cannot be brought back. Even if their forest homes were allowed to regrow, they will not. I saw a National Geographic documentary that showed that Brazil has lost 20% of the Amazon rainforest with another 20% projected to be gone for the sake of animal ag, in the next 15 or 20 years. How many species will either disappear or be threatened in that region and as a direct result of the destruction of their forest homes?http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/brazil-deforestation_us_583fb115e4b09e21702cbc09?section=us_science






'...Major United States dairy producers will pay $52 million to settle an antitrust class action lawsuit accusing them of slaughtering more than 500,000 cows to reduce milk supply and inflate prices.
"This cow - killing program exploited both the animals and the consumers, and resulted in the early deaths of half a million cows," attorney Cheryl Leahy told The Huffington Post in an email.....'http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/nathan-runkle-government-rotten-egg-cheese-bailout-article-1.2782005




'...A new analysis of threatened wildlife has provided a much-needed dose of perspective, showing that age-old human activities, including logging, hunting and farming, continue to pose a greater and more urgent threat. Despite a “growing tendency for media reports about threats to biodiversity to focus on climate change,” over-exploitation and agriculture are “by far the biggest drivers of biodiversity decline,” the authors write in a comment published Wednesday in the journal Nature....'
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...ddce4b06e52746ede76?ir=Green&utm_hp_ref=green


Have to hand it to Huffington Post, even while they regularly carry recipes and recommendations for meat/dairy inclusive dishes and restaurants, they are very balanced in that they continue to give the other side of the story. Which explains why several of the above links are all from that publication.

 

[Debby]

One more thing to think about, for all those 500,000 cows, the American tax payer subsidized the cost of their feed and you will continue to subsidize the farmers who grow the feed that they would have been fed had they lived, even though they no longer do. And you continue to subsidize the cost of the feed that all the remaining billions of animals will consume. Cheap meat right? Those farmers will not cut back on the acres that they plant to soy and corn because they are also looking at their bottom line. So you subsidize the feed, you pay for the surplus milk and cheese that those farmers are producing and we are all paying in GHG emissions and the changes and damage that climate change is causing and we all miss the wildlife that is no more.

 

[dog lover]

Where are the half million dead cows Debby? You do realize that if we did not eat cows, cattle would be extinct don't you? The sole reason for a bovines very existence is to provide humans with sustenance . They do not make good pets, they are so far from their genetic origin that they could not be wild.
So we either continue our one sided arrangement with them or let them die out.

Actually, cows are very sweet, bond to individual humans, are easy to teach and make great and useful pets - they are very strong and used to plow our soil for us.

Their trouble is that they taste good.

There is no reason why animals raised for food have to spend their life suffering. A good life and a pain and terror free death - that is what any decent human would offer them. Unfortunately most people have never met cows, gotten to know one, and seen what they have to endure for us.

I love myself a good steak, but I do buy locally from small farms that treat their animals well.

 

[Robusta]

Actually, cows are very sweet, bond to individual humans, are easy to teach and make great and useful pets - they are very strong and used to plow our soil for us.

Their trouble is that they taste good.

There is no reason why animals raised for food have to spend their life suffering. A good life and a pain and terror free death - that is what any decent human would offer them. Unfortunately most people have never met cows, gotten to know one, and seen what they have to endure for us.

I love myself a good steak, but I do buy locally from small farms that treat their animals well.

I am a small farmer( not for profit but raise my own beef and poultry) that treats my animals well. Nothing is more dangerous than a bottle fed calf. Cattle show" affection" with head butting and leaning. You do not want to be between a cow and a wall, never get into a position where you don't have an escape.
Cows can be trained,I object to the term taught. Cows know when it is milking time and head for the barn, they know their own stanchion,and all hell breaks loose when another gets confused and takes the wrong one.
Cattle trained for tillage require almost daily reinforcement of their skills,or they will be forgotten, no where close to the trainability of a horse.
When I open the gate and go into the pasture, the cows come running,not because of affection,but because of curiosity and the fact they have been trained that the presence of a tractor indicates food.

Yes Debbie I did miss the article, I clicked on the link and was brought to what appears to be an attorneys page soliciting clients for the settlement.

 

[dog lover]

I am a small farmer( not for profit but raise my own beef and poultry) that treats my animals well. Nothing is more dangerous than a bottle fed calf. Cattle show" affection" with head butting and leaning. You do not want to be between a cow and a wall, never get into a position where you don't have an escape.
Cows can be trained,I object to the term taught. Cows know when it is milking time and head for the barn, they know their own stanchion,and all hell breaks loose when another gets confused and takes the wrong one.
Cattle trained for tillage require almost daily reinforcement of their skills,or they will be forgotten, no where close to the trainability of a horse.
When I open the gate and go into the pasture, the cows come running,not because of affection,but because of curiosity and the fact they have been trained that the presence of a tractor indicates food.

Yes Debbie I did miss the article, I clicked on the link and was brought to what appears to be an attorneys page soliciting clients for the settlement.

Most bottle fed livestock is dangerous when hormones are flowing. I spent much of my childhood around cows and yes, they do file into their spots in the stable (this was a plain stable, no stanchions, just a long troth for food and they would line up along that). I got between them and walls 1000 times and more, we were totally unsupervised playing with the cattle. We petted them and cuddled them and at time slept with them. This was in Austria though, where cattle had been trained for centuries, those cows have what amounts to a "culture" and require zero training or coercion. I loved riding the lead cow up the mountain when they moved from the villages to the summer meadows on the mountains.

It's nice to hear that you treat your animals well. We used to raise pigs and poultry - the pigs had an acre to roam and a small house they lined with straw, building some sort of igloo inside. (Probably that's where the story of the 3 little pigs comes from). They played soccer and rolling tires. In the heat of the summer they had a mud spot with water spray and they enjoyed it lots. They had a great life. When it came time to go, they never knew anything was wrong. The butcher would come to the house, go next to them and shoot. It was instant. None ever ran or panicked.

We had pigs for some 20 years. Wish I could still handle it myself. But I did find farms run by animal lovers and so I am happy still.

 

[Kitties]

I heard about his. What can I do but keep buying my non dairy milk. Too bad dairy farmers.

 

[Debby]

I am a small farmer( not for profit but raise my own beef and poultry) that treats my animals well. Nothing is more dangerous than a bottle fed calf. Cattle show" affection" with head butting and leaning. You do not want to be between a cow and a wall, never get into a position where you don't have an escape.
Cows can be trained,I object to the term taught. Cows know when it is milking time and head for the barn, they know their own stanchion,and all hell breaks loose when another gets confused and takes the wrong one.
Cattle trained for tillage require almost daily reinforcement of their skills,or they will be forgotten, no where close to the trainability of a horse.
When I open the gate and go into the pasture, the cows come running,not because of affection,but because of curiosity and the fact they have been trained that the presence of a tractor indicates food.

Yes Debbie I did miss the article, I clicked on the link and was brought to what appears to be an attorneys page soliciting clients for the settlement.

Having a cow is no different than having a horse. Big animals that do learn what 'works for them' and what doesn't. There is a saying when dealing with horses that could be applied to any animal, 'it is never the horses fault'. They only do what they've been allowed to do or encouraged to do and can be taught that 'comfort' comes as a result of certain behaviours. So yes, we habituate them to behaviours of all sorts and we accustom them to a certain environment. Maybe you've just never given them the opportunity to be affectionate and so wouldn't recognize what passes for affection in a cow. But really, are we looking for affection from them to give us a reason to give them just treatment or are we giving them respect and justice because they have the same interests in safety, food and shelter that we do, and it's the right thing to do?

It seems to me that you had to scroll down quite far to the bottom of that page to find the articles where it was reported in Huffington Post and Bloomberg. I think there was a third but I can't remember what it was.


Here's a sweet friendship. A young German girl who has trained her Hereford as a show jumping cow and also a photo of her getting a little loving

.

http://www.odditycentral.com/news/german-girl-trains-cow-as-a-show-horse.html

 

[Debby]

I think that may be one of the reasons that there is that huge surplus of milk that the government bought to support the industry. More and more people are turning toward the nut milks and so on. I do the same thing as you Kitties. Always stock up on rice milk for our cereal in the morning and soy milk for the smoothies in the afternoon. And the ice creams and cheeses are getting better and better. Once upon a time they were kind of awful, but they're perfecting them.

The University of Alberta had a competition in their agriculture class and the challenge was to make a gelato out of plant products. Apparently, when they did the blind taste test at the end, the taster couldn't tell the difference between the 'real' gelato and the plant based version. I believe they had some company interested in producing their product. At least that's what was said on the radio program that I heard about it on.

I think Canada's dairy industry is facing the same situation. A surplus because people are changing to the nut milks. But I did read in an article that the Canadian farmers are dumping their surplus. (I think that's what it said? But I'd have to double check that detail)