A calf, alone and less than 24 hours old, looks out from their isolated pen at a dairy farm in Turkiye. Calves on dairy farms are removed from their mothers at birth and spend the first portion of their life confined inside these isolated spaces.
This modern dairy farm in Turkey is a simple, typical example of how cow milk is produced. On this farm, calves are removed from their mothers within 24 hours of birth. Naturally, calves would wean themselves from their mothers at eight to ten months of age. This calf separation practice allows the mothers' milk to be collected and sold for human consumption.
Newborn calves live inside individual, tiny pens for the first 15 days before being moved into barns. Calves will never suckle from their mothers and are instead fed manufactured commercial milk powder mixed with water. If the calf is female, she will be exploited for milk like her mother, being artificially inseminated for the first time at 14-15 months old. Male calves here are fattened for slaughter and killed at 12 to 24 months of age.
Mother cows are milked three times daily by milking machines. The national average milk yield for Turkish dairy cows is just under 20 litres per day, while, according to industry reports, some large farms average closer to 30 liters of milk per day from each cow.
Two months after a cow has given birth, she will be artificially inseminated again, and will give birth nine months later. This cycle continues throughout the cow's life, until she is no longer "productive" - often at only 5 or 6 years old. The natural lifespan of a cow is 20-25 years. Cows on dairy farms will be sent to slaughter prematurely if they become sick or lame, if their milk production diminishes, or if they are no longer able to become pregnant.
A calf, alone and less than 24 hours old, looks out from their isolated pen at a dairy farm in Turkiye. Calves on dairy farms are removed from their mothers at birth and spend the first portion of their life confined inside these isolated spaces.
This modern dairy farm in Turkey is a simple, typical example of how cow milk is produced. On this farm, calves are removed from their mothers within 24 hours of birth. Naturally, calves would wean themselves from their mothers at eight to ten months of age. This calf separation practice allows the mothers' milk to be collected and sold for human consumption.
Newborn calves live inside individual, tiny pens for the first 15 days before being moved into barns. Calves will never suckle from their mothers and are instead fed manufactured commercial milk powder mixed with water. If the calf is female, she will be exploited for milk like her mother, being artificially inseminated for the first time at 14-15 months old. Male calves here are fattened for slaughter and killed at 12 to 24 months of age.
Mother cows are milked three times daily by milking machines. The national average milk yield for Turkish dairy cows is just under 20 litres per day, while, according to industry reports, some large farms average closer to 30 liters of milk per day from each cow.
Two months after a cow has given birth, she will be artificially inseminated again, and will give birth nine months later. This cycle continues throughout the cow's life, until she is no longer "productive" - often at only 5 or 6 years old. The natural lifespan of a cow is 20-25 years. Cows on dairy farms will be sent to slaughter prematurely if they become sick or lame, if their milk production diminishes, or if they are no longer able to become pregnant.