When Halloween creeps up each year it conjures feelings of fright: goblins, ghosts, and gremlins come to mind. Not cows on dairy farms. But should they?
No matter how dairy farming is done, whether on factory farms or small, so-called “humane” farms, dairy production is downright scary. While horror movies and haunted houses are on people’s minds, scenes from about a dozen small dairy farms in and around my region of Asheville, North Carolina haunt me instead. Renowned as a “Farm to Table,” sustainable food hub of the Southeast, the city prides itself on “honest,” ethical and cleaner food. But when it comes to the animals being exploited behind the scenes to create these “wholesome” “small-batch,” “artisan” dairy products, the reality is anything but feelgood.
A note: Asheville and much of greater Western North Carolina was recently devastated by Hurricane Helene. The outpouring of compassion, support, and mutual aid has been beautiful and beyond affirming to witness. This post is not intended to cause further distress to any humans living in this region, but rather to demonstrate that even in a supposed paragon of ethical, locally produced food, the experience for the animals is anything but “humane.” For that reason, we are temporarily excluding the names of the farms described and photographed here. We will restore them at a later date.
On each of the farms that I visited, mother cows, goats, and sheep are forcibly impregnated year after year so that they will lactate and produce milk for their newborns. Then, after carrying them for nine long months if they are cows, or five gestating months for sheep and goats, their babies are traumatically stolen from them shortly after birth. Mothers frantically search and call for their babies for weeks. Instead of nurturing and feeding their newborns, the milk they produce for their young is bottled up and sold for human consumption instead. It’s a devastating life for the nonhuman animals whose bodies, babies, and secretions are treated as mere property. While touring these farms, here’s what I uncovered.
Hillsborough, North Carolina
When calves are born at this dairy farm, they are only allowed to be with their mothers long enough for them to clean up their birth fluids. After that, they are taken away and confined in lonely calf hutches for 6 to 8 weeks.
At just a week old, the male calves are sold at livestock markets, and will be killed for cheap “beef”. Female calves languish pitifully on chains, completely deprived of the maternal nurturing and companionship they instinctively long for. As is typical on dairy farms, calves witnessed at this farm could not even run or play. When their mothers become less productive and can’t get pregnant again through artificial insemination (which is overwhelmingly used to impregnate cows in the dairy industry), they too are sent off to slaughter.
Asheville, North Carolina
At a farm in East Asheville that hosts their own Sunday market, it is standard practice to take kids (baby goats) from their mothers at birth, despite the deep maternal and familial bonds goats exhibit and would otherwise maintain for life. According to scientists, mother goats cry and bleat for their missing babies, and still recognize the individual calls of their kids for at least a year or more after they have been separated.
All of the forcibly orphaned kids are housed separately from their mothers, with little space to roam in a stuffy pen inside the dairy barn. Every kid is dehorned at a young age using a dehorner, which is a searing hot tube pressed into the sensitive horn area that destroys horn-producing cells. One of the farmers even admitted that it is “painful for the babies.” (Search youtube for dehorning videos).
Marshall, North Carolina
A small farm in Marshall that keeps a heard of 6 cows takes calves away from their mothers just three days after birth, noting that the cow-calf bond quickly forms (in fact it is already present at birth) and it becomes “harder to separate them in the long run.”
As with all dairy farms, cows used for dairy at this farm only live out a fraction of their normal lifespan. Cows can naturally live for 15-20 years or more. But the oldest cow this farm ever kept only lived to age 11 before being killed. Just like on large commercial farms, at the end of their lives, mother cows exploited for milk are rewarded by being slaughtered— in this case, at Pinnacle Meats in Rutherfordton, NC.
Marshall, North Carolina
As on commercial dairy farms, babies at this dairy farm are traumatically stolen from their mothers shortly after birth, raised with other forcibly orphaned babies and, instead of receiving the mothers’ milk specifically created for them. Instead, they’re fed diets of powdered “milk replacer” formula. On this farm cows, goats, and sheep are exploited for milk production.
Sadly, there is no replacement for a mother or child. Like other mammals, mothers and babies of all species exploited for dairy form powerful bonds during gestation and are deeply distressed when these bonds are severed. At Three Graces Dairy, kids (young goats) are taken from their mothers “as soon as possible” after birth. They claim that when allowed to spend time together, “even several days with mom increases the attachment and makes separation more difficult.” Sheep and their offspring are often handled in the same way.
Julian, North Carolina
After being forcibly taken from their mothers a mere 3 days after birth at this larger family-owned farm in Julian, calves are sent to the very back of the farm (out of public view) where they languish isolated in lonely crates for 2-3 months. There they have little room to move around, and no play, stimulus, or interaction with other calves during the time they most crave maternal contact and nurturing. When they are older, they will be confined with 2-3 others.
Artificial Insemination is used on all females. Because male calves are of little use to the dairy industry, most are sold off where they are either raised on other farms for their semen, or killed for beef production.
Marshall, North Carolina
This sheep dairy, located in Marshall, website states that they “keep our lambs on their moms for the first 30 days of their life at which point we move them out to our pastures to rotationally graze on mixed grasses and legumes throughout the summer.” But after touring this farm, we learned that newborn babies and mothers are actually separated from each other after 5-7 days. They then continue on with other lambs their own age, never to nurse from their mothers again.
Perhaps most disturbing was listening to one of the farm owners, a mother herself, explain how she has sent “milking sheep” to slaughter because “they got too rowdy” during the milking process; mothers who were confusedly grieving the babies their bodies instinctively long for and expect to feel nursing were killed for not submitting passively enough to human parasitism.
She shared this information while her own baby was hugged snug and safely to her body.
Black Mountain, North Carolina
On this goat dairy located in Black Mountain, newborn goats are forcibly orphaned at birth, immediately taken from their mothers.
One worker said, “If we allow them to nurse it will create a bond. Once that bond is created and we take her babies away, she’ll mourn for weeks.” But animal scientists say maternal bonds in goats form during pregnancy, labor, and in the moment the mother smells her baby, which is why goats cry even when their babies are stolen at birth. Instead of nursing, a physical sensation both mother and baby instinctively crave, newborn goats are bottle-fed.
Male goats born here are often sold off within their first 24 hours of life through eBay, Craigslist, or at brutal livestock auctions. Their mothers face the same fate at about 10 years old. One worker stated that they “didn’t want to know” where they go, but we can assume it is to be killed for meat.
Madison County, North Carolina
At this artisan goat dairy in Madison County, female goats are forced to become pregnant and give birth each year. The Creamery uses artificial insemination in addition to “natural mating” to control the animals’ reproductive systems. With a closer look, it is easy to see that their “natural mating” practices are far from natural.
They state that “When a doe comes in heat we note it on our spreadsheet, introduce her to the buck she’s slated for, watch him breed her over the course of usually 3 mountings, pull her away from the buck and put her back into the doe herd.” In addition, they collect the semen of their bucks, holding the semen in their tanks “as insurance” while also selling it. The USDA notes that goat semen is typically “induced” via “artificial vaginas” or an “electroejaculator.”
The male goats (also known as “bucks”) are sold as “breeding stock” to buyers across the United States or Brazil. They’ve also been sold and shipped to Venezuela, Mexico, Nepal, Puerto Rico, and Trinidad. While this farm takes pride in this, countless investigations have documented the torturous, terrifying and frequently lethal journeys involved in so-called “livestock export.”
There’s No Such Thing As “Humane” Dairy
All of the harms and abuses inflicted on animals at factory farms also happen on the most celebrated, small and so-called “humane” dairy farms: forced impregnation, reproductive violation, and most tragically and unavoidably, the sadistic separation of animal babies and mothers in order for humans to consume breast milk intended for those babies.
Respect motherhood this Halloween by buying dairy-free, ethical chocolate that was made with the planet, animal protection, and human welfare in mind. The Food Empowerment Project’s Chocolate List is a great resource for consumers to find out if dairy-free chocolate makers and well-known companies source their chocolate from areas where the worst forms of child labor and/or slavery are the most prevalent.
Don’t be duped by the dairy industry by believing that there’s such a thing as “ethical” animal-based dairy. Dairy farms are truly terrifying places that abuse, violate, and ultimately slaughter animals for profit. Leave the guts and gore to the horror movies; ditch dairy this Halloween!
