#头条创作挑战赛 #
The 1,500 Jersey cows raised by Nansen and his family in upstate New York seem to be living carefree.
They lie lazily in a well-ventilated barn all day, three full of three a day. There will be an orderly queue to enter the milking room, where a computer-calibrated vacuum vacuum pump pumps out 22.5 kg of milk per day.
Nansen, 42, is a third-generation dairy farmer who traditionally bottle-fed each newborn calf. He often said: "I am responsible for its entire life from birth to death, and it is important for me to know that this animal has lived its whole life without suffering," he said, stroking the head of a cow. "If I let it suffer, I'm a bad person."
Animal rights activists have very different views on dairy farms. For them, dairy farmers are cogs in the inhumane industrial food production system that will make these docile ruminants suffer for a lifetime.
Some of their claims are indisputable: cows are repeatedly conceived through artificial insemination, and calves are taken away after birth. Female pups are kept in separate enclosures, and males are not so lucky. Soon after birth, they are transported to cattle farms and finally made into beef hamburgers.
In the United States, cows typically spend their entire lives in a concrete-floored paddock, and while they can live for 20 years, most are sent to slaughter after four or five years when their milk production declines.
There is an organization in the United States called Animal Prospects, and their videos of secret farms are often widely viewed on social media, further fueling the trend of demonizing dairy products. The group posted a short video taken undercover on a small family farm in Southern California showing workers randomly beating cows with metal rods, a newborn calf thrown into the mud to die, its face covered in flies. There is also a video of a bucket truck lifting an injured Holstein cow into the air.
In this battle for dairy consumers, a small group of animal welfare scientists are silently trying to answer tough questions: Are cows locked up indoors all their lives unhappy? Does the separation of a cub from its mother cause quantifiable pain? Is there a scientifically and economically feasible way to improve the longevity of cows?
Another study highlighted the value of mechanical scratch brushes for cow health. Using the same heavy pressure setting, the study found that cows were interested in rubbing the rotating bristles as if they had eaten fresh feed. Although these brushes are not cheap, the results have convinced more and more dairy farmers that the price is worth it.
Most dairy farmers find tail flicking annoying and think it spreads feces and bacteria, but many studies over the past 20 years have found that removing cows' tails is not good for hygiene, they are used to repel flies.