The Raft

So, with my recent worries about cows, dairy products, beef and eating-animals and their "stuff", in general, imagine my excitement when I read the giant sign on a local farm lawn that they were hosting free tours this weekend.

So, this afternoon, the 4 of us piled in the truck with a week's worth of supplies (diapers, wipes, snacks, change of clothes, blanket, hats, toys, camera, waters, stroller... you know the drill) to ride one mile up the road and park the truck, take everything out, load up the kids and take a 1-hour walk around the farm.

It was a lot of fun. Abby loved it. We saw a calf that was just a few hours old (mom still had a good amount of after-birth falling out, that was cute). We toured through and saw almost 400 cows ranging from the brand new to the very old.

2 mamas, the babies were each born today, one just hours before our farm tour.

While the cows were cute and the son-of-the-farmer was very informative, I am not sure that it "helped" me.

In fact, what I learned was that the mama cow that was licking and loving her baby would be separated from her by the end of the day so that the mother could be milked (most of which would go to feed the baby but whatever is "left over" will go to the supermarket) and the baby could be housed with the other babies. Ok, I could live with that. The baby is getting mama's milk and the mama isn't really suffering, right?

Well, I also learned that the mama will be made pregnant again in about 9 months, once she has healed and regained strength.
They keep doing that so that the milk supply (and cow supply) stays strong. And if the calf is a boy, it gets sold at auction. I didn't want to know for what.
Meanwhile, the babies are just eating and growing so that they, too, can soon become pregnant and milked.
They just go from field to barn to field to barn, pregnant and milked, milked and pregnant.

As I'm writing this, it doesn't seem so bad but it was the actual MILKING that gets to me.
It IS done by a machine. And they ARE kept in a barn, lined up, one after the other all day long, eating and sleeping and shitting in their little "lanes".

I should add that this farm is very "nice" to their cows. And I believe they are. I believe they are doing everything they possibly can, within reason, to be good to their cows because by being good they are healthy and healthy cows give more milk and cost less money etc etc... Plus, this is a small farm, relatively speaking.

So, if what they are doing at this small farm makes me a little sad, what the fuck is going on in the BIG farms??
This was one farm that produces "The Farmer's Cow" milk. What about Guida or Hood or Garelick or the store brands!? Those farms must be HUGE! What are they doing to their cows? And what about Kraft and all that cheese? Where are those farms and those cows? And Breyers and Ben & Jerry and Turkey Hill - what are those cows living like?

And, please, don't start me thinking about where my steak and burgers come from.

I don't want to be a vegetarian. I love dairy and beef. They are my favorite food groups. But I can't wrap my head around the fact that the cows can't just hang out, graze, eat grass and get hand-milked every now and then...

I know I am being unrealistic. I just need to come to a compromise with myself. I am still researching local farms. Maybe I can find local milk that is hand milked... that would be so awesome.

I am also going to try to find a place where I can "buy a cow" for a year's worth of meat. I have heard about this but never been so interested.