Is ‘slaughter-free dairy’ really possible?

Revisiting the dairy industry

From birth, a dairy cow’s life is mapped out for her. She will endure a near-constant cycle of pregnancy and birth in order to produce milk for human consumption, while her housing, feed and health will depend entirely on profit margins. Routine procedures, such as dehorning, artificial insemination, and being separated from her newborn calf are all frightening, traumatic and painful. Finally, once she is no longer profitable to the industry, she’ll be sent to slaughter and turned into cheap meat products like dog food.

If, during her short life, she has given birth to a male calf then he too will likely be slaughtered. In 2022, more than 31,000 male calves were slaughtered when they were less than one month old – all because they were boys who could not produce milk for the dairy industry. Of these, more than 1,500 were less than 10 days old: just tiny, vulnerable babies denied their right to exist.

Is ‘slaughter-free dairy’ the answer to this suffering?

The idea behind ‘slaughter-free dairy’ is that cows will still produce milk but less intensively and will then be retired to pasture until the end of their natural lives, instead of being slaughtered once their milk ‘dries up’. Although well intentioned, this is simply not possible – especially in the name of animal rights.

This is because the central tenet of animal rights is that the problem lies not in how we use animals, but that we use them at all. Applying this to dairy cows, their milk is simply not for us to take, sell or consume even if it comes from ‘better’ farming systems like grass-fed, organic, or even ‘slaughter-free’. No animal should have to exchange their milk or meat in return for staying alive.

Animal Aid’s position on ‘slaughter-free dairy’

We were disturbed to learn of a UK-based organisation promoting ‘slaughter-free dairy’ as kind and forward-thinking, based on cows providing milk in exchange for ‘a safe and long life’ – under the guise of animal rights. A part of this organisation’s initiative is to fundraise for research into whether ‘slaughter-free dairy’ is workable, sustainable, and scalable across the UK, whilst prioritising the needs of the dairy cow. We only have to look at the dairy industry’s many failings to know that it isn’t any of those things.

Systems built on animal exploitation will never be able to truly prioritise the wellbeing or rights of animals. What may begin as a well-intentioned means of improving welfare and empowering consumers usually fails animals in the end. The only way to truly protect cows is to ditch dairy altogether. Instead of confusing the landscape with ‘kinder’ ways to use animals, Animal Aid will always campaign for a complete end to all animal exploitation.