there’s more than shown here and it’s more than just these users too 😭
if you find the thread don’t piss in the popcorn (brigade) but also please maybe don’t bring it back here i don’t want 400 notifications of entry level “is almond milk milk” vegan discourse
That’s absolutely incorrect. It’s a significant amount of time, around 10 months, but you have to repeatedly get a cow pregnant over their useful life in order to continue getting milk from them. They will go dry faster if you don’t milk them, but the cycle of pregnant/lactating/dry/pregnant is fundamental in managing a herd.
I stand corrected.
This is btw one main reason why milk is murder, because many of those calves are often killed for their meat. The other reason is that cows stop beeing productive and are killed way before their natural death, since the replacement calves are rdy to go (I think it was something like after 5 years with their natural life span beeing around 25, but I’m not sure if I remember correctly).
A bit oversimplified, but just to add a bit more context why vegans don’t drink milk.
At least 50% of them are killed - very, very few males make it to adulthood.
this is incorrect
Not this time, I don’t think. The internet says that male calves are typically killed for meat at 18 months old, but would reach adulthood at 4 years of age. One male breeder adult is rented out to other farmers for a fixed period to impregnate the whole (female) herd. All the other males are killed. So few males make it to adulthood that it’s not normally even one per herd. Cows are usually killed if they don’t get pregnant after a number of tries. There’s no sense farmers spending a lot of money keeping an animal alive to not even get any milk from it, and there’s not a lot of profit in farming in my country for them to sentimentally keep animals alive.
18 months is full weight
I have 320 beef cows, and about that many steers/heifers waiting for market.
18 months on a steer is about 1200lbs, pasture fed then grain finished before slaughter. A non-castrated male can get to 2200lbs after 4-5 years. I’d call that an adult bull. They can breed successfully at damn near any age after 12 months, but I wouldn’t call them developed until about 30.
you know that, whether they are male or female, they are at full weight for slaughter around 18 months.
It’s not not adulthood, and it’s certainly not a full life, because cows and bulls would love to over 15 if we let them.
if we didn’t provide veterinary care and feed and water and shelter and protection from predators, I doubt any would live so long.
What about plant-based milk such as Soy Bean Milk - would that work as a suitable less resource intensive alternative?
Plant based alternates aren’t necessarily better for the environment or use less resources but they do get around the animal cruelty part.
They’re just usually woefully terribly for the environment in their farming and production.
“many” is doing a lot of lifting here.
the majority of Castle are slaughtered at full weight. hardly any become veal
The majority of male calves are killed at 18 months for meat (equivalent of about 6 in human age) once they’ve put on enough weight. “Veal” is if they’re killed under 12 months, which is rarer, but adulthood is a couple of years later, and yes, not just many of the calves, almost all of the male ones.
Dairy cows are killed once they’ve been milked for a few years as yields start to fall and become uneconomic. They typically live for six or fewer years, but their natural lifespan would be more than 15.
“Many” isn’t doing a lot of lifting, it’s doing a lot of understatement.
18 months is full weight
Under 12 months is veal, so you were correct that most don’t end up as veal.
But they count as calves until adulthood, which is nearer age 4. They’re normally killed for meat at about 18 months or six in human years. They do continue to put on weight into adulthood, but less rapidly than in the first 18 months, so you get a better return on investment by killing them while they’re still calves, because you’ve saved half your costs but got 3/4 of the weight in meat, and the meat is more tender and marketable.
So not quite full weight, and definitely still killed as a calf, not as an adult.
A 3 year old cow is not a calf.
If you like, but my point is that it’s certainly not an adult. Male calves are almost all killed before adulthood.
almost all beef is slaughtered around 18 months, male or female. that’s full weight.
It’s slaughter weight, not full weight. Lots of female cows are kept alive for another few years for milk and calving.