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
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.
15-20 years is the natural life span of cattle. Google it if you like.
In my country, all the wolves got wiped out and cattle are too big for foxes to take on.
Cattle get fewer diseases if they’re not kept inside in cramped conditions eating unnatural bulking food like corn. and are instead allowed to graze grassland freely. Not all of them would live to 20 by a long shot, but a big proportion would make it past 15.
Cows don’t naturally eat corn. It gives them really bad digestion problems, but makes them put on so much fat that it gets stored in little pockets in muscle tissue. The result is meat which has what’s called “marbling” and is seen as a sign of quality and tastiness in the USA. This unnatural feed has health issues for the cattle and it’s common in the USA to give low dosage antibiotics so that fewer animals get sick and have to be put down.
(This is the perfect bedding ground for antibiotic resistant bacteria, and more and more bacteria are evolving antibiotic resistance which means when humans get an infection, they usually die rather than usually live, risking bacterial infection survival rates going back to nearer 19th century levels, when a random cut might just lead to your death. We’re working hard on new antibiotics, but they’re far more expensive than penecillin, and at the moment drug resistance is growing faster than me antibiotics are.)
In my country, only about 5% of cattle are kept inside all year, and they’re almost all grass fed and meat is much leaner, and lean meat like (lean) fillet steak is seen as the highest quality.
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.
Cows are fully mature at around 24 months old, depending on breed.
They do not have an extended developmental period like humans so the comparison to a 6 year old human based on maximum lifespan is fallacious.
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.
it seems you’re splitting hairs