By Last post I touched on how dairy comes from raped, abused and exploited mothers. Now image you are her newborn baby.
Having spent your entire life so far inside the warmth of your mother’s womb, the rush of her blood bringing comfort and the movement of her body rocking you to sleep, suddenly, you are thrust out into the strange, cold world. Confused, disoriented, feeling the weight of your own body after having spent your entire life thus far in a liquid suspension – you know your mother’s smell, the sound of her voice. You cry out for her, looking to be soothed by the same one who been their for you all the while.
In nature, as soon as your wet, slippery newborn body hit the ground, your mother would turn around and immediately start kissing and licking your stinky coat, an act that helps stimulate breathing and bring comfort. As you struggled to get steady on your stick-thin legs, she’d be there, her warm breathe brushing your matted coat, ready and waiting with an udder full of warm, nutrient-rich milk. Born with the natural instinct to seek your mother’s teat, the simple act soothes and reassures you: “It’s okay. Mama’s right here. I’m safe”.
This whole natural process is completely interrupted on commercial factory farms. In the Farm Sanctuary video “It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way”, a newborn calf, steam curling of his freshly born body, is seen being dragged through a mud and feces filled lot immediately after having passed through the birth canal. A careless farm hand drags him by a leg through the filth as his poor mother desperately runs after him, helpless, desperate.
If you are born a male, a dairy “by-product” (not genetically bred to grow grotesquely large and unable to produce milk), this is your fate. No mother to comfort you and no human around who thinks you’re more than just a veal production unit, you are thrown into a dark, wood slate crate – no bedding, no straw. A chain, just shy of a foot long, pinches your neck, securing you into this place that will be your home for the next 6 months until you are trucked off to slaughter, too weak from muscle atrophy to even walk. You are deprived of your mother’s milk and kept stationary so that your flesh stays nice and tender, just what veal connoisseurs are after. Some heartless farm hands take advantage of your desperate need to suckle what ever is put in your mouth – you know no better, you just want your mama.
Even if your tail hadn’t been hacked off for “sanitary” reasons (one less thing to get covered in your chronic, nutrient-deprived diarrhea), you’d never wag it. You have nothing that makes you even remotely happy. Six months of no sun, no grass, no breeze blowing through your fur, no mother, no love, no kisses. Six months of “why, why, why?!” You are living in a hellhole that is worse than the fate that fell upon many at Auschwitz. You are another number, another forgotten victim of our modern day holocaust.
Female calves suffer an ill existence as well. They are forced into the same slavery their mother’s suffer. Endless cycles of rape, being robbed of their child, and having their milk forcibly removed, with no compensation for their lives of servitude.
The one thing mother cows and their babies, be they boy or girl, have in common is their final fate: slaughter. Even on “organic, grass-fed” farms, cows are offered no retirement to a lush green field where they can chew cud till their last breath. No pat on the back or “atta girl”. Mother and child will all, at one point, get shoved into an over crowded cattle car and trucked off to slaughter. Having their life taken away so that a man could profit, they are forced to “sacrifice” their body – their only true belonging – so that Burger King can have a dollar value menu.
This is the face of dairy. This is where the cheese on your veggie pizza came from. This is where the half-n-half in your grande mocha latte came from. This is where the cow’s milk in your cereal came from. Is THIS worth it when there are humane, compassionate vegan alternatives to every dairy product in existence?
Do the right thing. Dump meat. Dump dairy. No mother deserves to be robbed of her child and a life that even remotely resembles a natural existence so that humans can eat what her breasts secrete. No food has or ever will be worth that price.
Source : Vegan Campus
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