The misery of dairy cows

The hidden cost of milk: Cows, calves, and the dairy system

Milk is often presented as a simple product of the countryside. But producing it at scale depends on managing cows’ reproduction, separating many calves from their mothers, and breeding animals for high output. These practices raise serious questions about what dairy production asks of cows and calves—and whether the resulting harms are treated as acceptable costs of business.

A cow’s body is organized around milk production

Dairy cows produce milk after giving birth. To keep a herd producing, farms manage repeated cycles of pregnancy, birth, and lactation. Selective breeding and genomic tools have increased cows’ capacity for milk production. But breeding priorities have consequences: research has found unfavorable genetic relationships between milk yield and fertility, and links between long-term selection for yield and reproductive and health problems (Lucy, 2001; Miglior et al., 2017).

Genetics is only part of the picture. Housing, nutrition, veterinary care, and daily management also affect cows’ health. Still, a system that rewards output can put pressure on animals expected to sustain it. The European Food Safety Authority identifies lameness and other locomotory disorders, mastitis, restricted movement, difficulty performing comfort behaviors, and metabolic disorders among the welfare concerns affecting dairy cows (EFSA, 2023a). Lameness is associated with pain and reduced milk production (Huxley, 2013).

The calf and the mother

On many dairy farms, calves are separated from their mothers soon after birth. Farms may cite disease control and milk management as reasons. But separation also prevents cows and calves from experiencing the benefits of sustained contact.

An EFSA scientific assessment found that cow–calf contact can benefit calf vitality, growth, and social development, with benefits generally increasing as contact lasts longer. It also identified separation stress when the pair is eventually parted (EFSA, 2023b). A systematic review found that early separation does not consistently improve cow or calf health, while extended contact can have health benefits in some circumstances (Beaver et al., 2019).

The welfare concern is not simply that animals behave differently from people. Cows and calves form a relationship, and calves are motivated to suckle and remain close to their mothers. Reviews of cow–calf contact research report behavioral and welfare effects of keeping pairs together, alongside management trade-offs (Meagher et al., 2019). When production systems prevent that relationship, they remove a meaningful part of the animals’ social lives.

What “genetic manipulation” means in dairy farming

The phrase genetic manipulation can mean different things. Most changes to dairy cows have come through selective breeding: choosing which animals reproduce based on traits such as milk yield, udder characteristics, fertility, and health. Genomic selection uses DNA information to estimate which animals are likely to pass on desired traits. This is not the same as directly editing a cow’s genes.

Selective breeding has transformed dairy cattle. The ethical concern is that breeding goals can favor production even when traits such as fertility, longevity, and disease resistance need equal weight. Breeding programs have increasingly added health and fertility traits to selection indices, in part because of concern about the costs of a production-heavy approach (Miglior et al., 2017). Better breeding choices may reduce some harms, but they do not change the underlying expectation that cows repeatedly become pregnant and produce milk for human use.

The fate of many male calves

A dairy cow gives birth to a calf to begin lactation. Female calves may be raised as replacement dairy cows; many male calves cannot serve that purpose and may enter beef or veal production. Their destination varies by country and production system, but their birth is built into the dairy system’s cycle of reproduction.

Veal production also varies, so it is inaccurate to describe every farm as identical. However, EFSA’s assessment identified welfare concerns for calves raised for white veal, including limited space, individual housing, and diets deliberately low in iron to produce pale meat. EFSA notes that iron restriction can lead to anemia and recommends preventing anemia through appropriate diets (EFSA, 2023b).

The connection between dairy and veal is direct: dairy production generates calves as part of maintaining milk production, and some of those calves become meat animals. Their treatment depends on the system they enter, but their vulnerability begins with their role in milk production.

A shortened life, ending in slaughter

Dairy cows are often removed from the herd when illness, infertility, injury, or declining production makes them less economically useful. A 2023 analysis of more than three million Canadian Holstein cows found that reproductive problems, low milk production, and health issues were among the leading recorded reasons for culling (Cortez de Souza et al., 2023). Research reviews report that dairy cows’ productive lives in high milk-producing countries are substantially shorter than their potential natural lifespan (Dallago et al., 2021).

When a cow is culled, she may be sold for slaughter or, if she is too ill or injured to transport, euthanized on the farm. Practices vary, but slaughter is a common endpoint for cows removed from commercial dairy herds. In Danish national data from 2020–2021, 83.3% of culled dairy cows were slaughtered, while others died or were euthanized (Thomsen et al., 2023). Their lives are ended not because they have reached a natural lifespan, but because they no longer fit the herd’s production and economic needs.

Slaughter is a violent ending, even when facilities follow procedures intended to reduce suffering. Calling it “humane” is an ethical judgment, not a neutral description. Stunning and careful handling may reduce fear or pain, but they do not make killing nonviolent or guarantee that suffering is absent. Welfare measures can improve an animal’s treatment while leaving the underlying decision to kill intact.

What the system asks us to accept

Dairy production is not one uniform practice, and welfare conditions differ across farms. Some producers make meaningful efforts to improve housing, hoof health, calf care, and cow–calf contact. Yet the broader system still relies on repeated pregnancies, high milk output, the separation and reassignment of calves, and the removal of cows when they are no longer productive enough.

The evidence strengthens the case against dairy and veal farming in several ways. The system can restrict important social behavior, expose cows to painful health problems, and send calves into production systems where welfare concerns have been documented. It also makes the animals’ lives conditional on their economic usefulness. Better management can reduce some harms, but it does not remove these underlying features.

Beyond the scientific evidence, there is a fundamental moral issue. Cows and calves are sentient individuals with interests of their own: avoiding pain and fear, moving freely, maintaining social bonds, and continuing to live. A farm may reduce some harms through better care, but animals remain subject to decisions made for production—when to breed them, when to separate them from their young, and when to end their lives. For those who believe sentient animals deserve respect beyond their usefulness to people, improved welfare does not by itself resolve the ethical problem. Where people have accessible alternatives, they can also ask whether the taste, convenience, or other benefits of dairy justify imposing these costs on animals.

For consumers, considering that reality may mean learning how products are made, seeking out higher-welfare systems where available, or choosing plant-based alternatives. For the industry, it means treating cows’ and calves’ social, physical, and behavioral needs as central—not as optional features to address only when they fit production.