[flyinglizard]

I asked my vegan friends if they’d rather these animals would not exist at all rather than be used for milk production (because they are only bred into existence for that).

I wonder how that logic applies to humans born into living in rough countries, would vegans rather they would not exist at all?

It’s not like a dairy cow has a life of eternal suffering after all. It eats, grazes, rests and socializes. It does cow things.

[nnp7000]

Dairy cows exist because we actively breed them. We inject dairy cows with sperm to keep them pregnant so they keep producing milk, then take their calf away and repeat the process. They're not multiplying on their own.

[flyinglizard]

That’s exactly my point. With no utility, these animals would not exist. Are their lives so miserable that we can morally assert that they should not be living?

[dsabanin]

It’s like saying: these are my children, without me they wouldn’t exist, I can subject them to anything and they should be happy that they have existence.

I would argue that no existence is better than existence filled with endless misery, agony and pain.

Factory farms are a disgrace to humanity. It is my opinion that until we develop enough compassion to see this and stop, humans have no hope of creating lasting peace amongst each other. Our morality has a deadly wound at its core, and it’s rotting away at our souls.

[crispyporkbites]

I mean you could extend this argument to anything, should we all be procreating all day every day to ensure every possible life is lived? Should dogs be forced to have 10s of litters? Should we encourage insects?

The answer to all of these is obviously no. So why do you make the case for cows?

[schmidt87]

Yes, they are extremely miserable (look up "factory farming").

[schmidt87]

I suggest you look up "factory farming" before making claims like "It’s not like a dairy cow has a life of eternal suffering after all". They literally don't do any of the activities you mention.

[flyinglizard]

I know dairy farming very, very well. It varies between areas. In France for example, there are no mega farms, all farms are small to medium, many family owned. Hormones are banned. This is true for other parts of Western Europe.

Mega Farms are mostly an American issue. I do not support them at all.

[schmidt87]

This is substantially incorrect, especially for France [1]: While cows indeed aren't grown in intensive farming in France, 95% of pork in France is raised in intensive factory farming, and other species have similar stats. Most of the western world has similar stats.

This is far from a US-only problem.

[1] https://www.liberation.fr/france/2018/06/04/porcs-bovins-vol...

[flyinglizard]

I was specifically talking about dairy farming. Pork, chicken and beef all have their own issues. The average USA farm size is about 220 cows vs. about 70 cows in France, and the practices used in Europe as a whole are more humane (my numbers are from closed market studies published by IFCN). These animals are very well monitored and cared for. I wouldn't want to change place with them, but then I also wouldn't trade places with many other humans around the world.

[schmidt87]

I agree that cows are better off in France, but this is an anomaly.

[kwhitefoot]

They are to some extent better off in Norway too, although their lot should still be improved.

[rainbow-road]

You have made broad, sweeping remarks about the ethics of dairy farming and it's only here that you considerably narrow the scope of your statements to farms that you deem ethical.

Yes, some farms may operate in line with an acceptable standard of ethics, but for many people, it is easier to live a vegan lifestyle than to carefully ensure that all their dairy is ethically sourced.

[NotGargarin]

I'd recommend some more research into the how cows in dairy farms are treated. Your description is rather more idyllic than the reality, I think. For one, most male calves are not needed on a dairy farm, so they are either slaughtered for veal, raised as beef cattle, or euthanized at birth [1]. Whether this matter to you depends on where you stand on vegetarianism of course, and anyway the issues with the wellfare of meat herds is not what I wanted to discuss.

The dairy cows are also not quite so happy, I think. Mastitis is a potentially fatal disease of the udder, usually caused by bacteria entering the teat; many of the practices on a dairy farm make this far more likely, and while of course the farmers are doing all they can to stop it, it is still one of the biggest issues in the industry, and it seems that some level of mastitis is expected in all dairy herds [2]. It is perhaps a side note to the animal wellfare aspect, but the use of antibiotics is a big part of the mitigations, and seems to be administered as a matter of course; this is an issue because it promotes antibiotic resistance in bacteria, which has implications for humans too.

There are other wellfare issues around overwork of cows from producing much larger amounts of milk than they would to feed a calf, whether grains are a healthy food compared to grasses, and even mental health issues such as separating cows from their calves and whether they have enough access to the outdoors.

I've tried to select links that are balanced and non-hyperbolic, but it's tricky to do. Like I said, I recommend more research but try not to be too turned off the hyperbolic articles on both sides. Articles from vegans are often under-researched and manipulative, but if you dig around you'll find that many of the issues they discuss are real. On the other hand, farmers are of course not animal hating devils and so write to defend themselves and their livelihood, but they can often go the other way and underplay the issues that are there.

And finally, animal wellfare is not the only argument for veganism, because livestock has an environmental impact comparable to the transport industry [3].

[1] https://www.dairy.com.au/dairy-matters/you-ask-we-answer/wha...

[2] https://www.pubs.ext.vt.edu/404/404-233/404-233.html [3] https://news.trust.org/item/20180918083629-d2wf0