ANIMAL WELFARE AND VAL PLUMWOOD
Kingsolver’s cheesemaking drew her into the world of dairies and the history of humans’ consumption of milk and its by-products. She expresses no real direct concern for the dairy animals themselves. Her concern is for human health and desire. As she notes, cheese is a way to store milk by using bacteria to turn the liquid into a solid. Many prefer raw milk for this process, but that can be hard to find given current regulations. Some people end up getting a cow or a goat in order to support their interest in making cheese, but they can’t sell the cheese without meeting strict regulations regarding where and how it is pasteurized. While pasteurization is meant to remove pathogens from the milk, it removes good microbes too. Ultra-pasteurized milk will not make cheese. Pasteurization, and the regulations, were not without reason, though. In the 1890s it was not uncommon to have bacteria in milk that could make people sick. As mentioned in the last chapter, unpasteurized milk is a way tuberculosis (and other diseases) can be spread. This was one of the issues that pushed Jane Addams (see chapter 1) to work for women to get the right to vote. She thought women would demand safe milk for their children. Today, bacterial contamination is most likely to occur in large-scale industrial dairies—despite all their precautions and equipment—because of the condition of the cows and how they are kept. But one should also be careful about assuming that all small or private dairy operations know how to keep their milk safe.
Our guts and our food are full of various microorganisms that help us remain healthy. Fearful of some microbes we create systems that seek to eliminate them all, but this goes against our evolutionary history. Kingsolver notes that “many of our most useful foods—yogurt, wine, bread, and cheese—are products of controlled microbe growth. . . . Our own bodies are bacterial condos, with established relationship between the upstairs and downstairs neighbors. Without these regular residents, our guts are easily taken over by less congenial newcomers looking for low-rent space. What keeps us healthy is an informed coexistence with microbes, rather than the micro-genocide that seems to be the rage lately” (135). In fact, many humans have guts that are not able to digest milk after the age of four (when children would be weaned from the breast). Lactose intolerance results when the enzyme that digests milk stops working. Some groups of humans who kept cattle, goats, and sheep developed a genetic mutation that extends the life of the lactose-digesting enzymes. This occurred around ten thousand years ago, when domestication of these animals began (just one more example of how livestock make us who we are). Humans also found ways to make milk more digestible by making it into things like yogurt, kefir, butter, parmesan, and ricotta. Lactose-eating bacteria curdle the milk in these processes. The human history with milk is one that transformed the human body, the possibilities of storing and transporting food, and the lives of the animals from whom we take the milk. (No matter what Kingsolver suggests, the dairy animals do not exist solely to feed humans—their milk is meant for their offspring.) When humans raise animals primarily for milk rather than for meat, the relationships can be very different. While the offspring of the milking animals are often sold or killed and eaten, the milking animals themselves live long enough for the humans to develop relationships with them. While this is more difficult in the modern industrial dairy, where one to five thousand cows or four to seven hundred goats might be milked, it is still more likely to occur than on farms and ranches raising animals primarily for meat. A large sheep dairy would have only about one hundred milking ewes, with the average being closer to fifty. The average goat dairy has around thirty-five goats. In smaller and medium-sized dairies deep relationships commonly develop among the animals in the herd and between the humans and the cows, goats, or sheep.
These relationships often include a very protective element—whether that is primarily about protecting an asset or investment or primarily about protecting a friend, it results in some strained relationships with other animals. An example of this can be found in an email correspondence from M. Clare Paris at Larkhaven Farm—a goat and sheep dairy in Tonasket, Washington, that focused on making farmstead cheeses and meats. The cheeses were made from raw milk from the animals on the farm, and the farmers sold lamb from their own sheep and chevon from their own goats. They also sold whey-fed pork—a longtime natural complement to dairy operations but much harder to find in today’s segmented animal agricultural industry. When we contacted the farm in 2010 they were too busy (as many farmers are) for a visit. But here is part of what Paris sent in reply to our two questions:
We love where we are and the natural world it includes but this place has been a farm a long time. We have a lot of animals (sheep, goats) and also have a bunch of dogs to discourage predators, which they do by barking. We have state land on two sides that hasn’t been cattle-grazed for several years. We feel a kind of natural blend of ourselves with the natural world here, but we are pretty dominant. We see deer and game birds. We have a lot of doves right now, they seem to have just arrived for the season. We are wary of owls because they once killed a whole lot of our chickens, but all we do is go yell at them when they hang out in our biggest trees, which makes us feel sort of equal with them. I guess that sort of exemplifies our view of the mix of the natural and human world, that we just feel like part of it and when we change it significantly, we try to do it respectfully. We have both lived more closely in tune with natural rhythms for a long time, for periods without electricity, etc, and all of that informs our systems.
This nicely shows some of the tensions faced by those who farm livestock. It also shows a deep sense of connection with the natural world and the connection of that world to the livestock animals they raise. It is a mixed community that involves respect for animals (domestic and wild) even as some of the wild animals present a threat to the livestock. In addition to the threat of predation, though, Paris discussed the perceived threat that the livestock present for the wild animals:
Once a young Big Horn sheep ram came and hung around in our sheep flock for three days so I called fish-and-wildlife in case he had lost his way and I’ll be damned if they didn’t come shoot him because of domestic diseases he might take back to his herd. They did all their consulting with Olympia, not with locals. Since I know sheep farmers who have Big Horns come in and out of their flocks all the time, I knew this was horseshit but what could I do? Except (duh) not call them again. We try to keep our practices very natural and within our fences, although we are certainly an impact and so are the dogs. We feel gratitude toward nature and always that we have been blessed to work in such a beautiful place.
Historically, wild and domesticated sheep, goats, and cattle would mix and interbreed from time to time. This can pose risks for both communities of animals, but rigid demarcating rules are also dangerous (and unpragmatic).
A recent visit to the Larkhaven website shows that they have stopped making cheese. They were raising a few pigs and lambs to sell in 2015. As I discussed earlier, economic viability of farming and ranching is always a concern. So is the amount of work (physical work) this kind of life entails. Their website says, “Sorry, we stopped making cheese! We worked hard and we had fun” (“Larkhaven Farmstead Meats”). This is the reality behind Kingsolver’s more idealized approach. Milking animals require constant care and a regular milking schedule. Their health depends on healthy land that also requires care. Then there is the work of processing the milk and making the cheese.
PHOTO 5. Danielle Palmer with kid at St. John’s Creamery. Photo by Jonathan Stout.
Another dairy, which has moved into cheesemaking since our visit, is St. John Creamery—a goat dairy in Lake Stevens, Washington. The dairy has 175 Oberhasli goats, some rare heritage-breed chickens who lay eggs and eat bugs, and livestock guardian dogs. At the time of our visit in 2010, the dairy had yet to make a profit. They made money by breeding the dogs and running a housecleaning business. St. John does sell kids, mostly as pets. She can’t afford to keep them; they would drink too much milk. She is able to sell her milk for $16 a gallon. She said that in a month she gets about $480 from a milking goat. She can’t afford to share her “product” with the kids. She has sold some kids for meat but said that it’s hard. She’s not opposed to it, but she loves her goats. The reality, though, is that dairies must have a market for at least the male offspring. St. John said, “All the animals have to be useful. The horses are gone since they were free loaders. Everyone has a job. The terriers and cats do pest patrol, the other dogs do predator control, and the chickens do parasite work.” She can’t keep unneeded male goats.
PHOTO 6. Jonathan Stout with kid at St. John’s Creamery. Photo by Danielle Palmer.
This all started for St. John just before 2000 as a hobby. She began keeping goats in response to concerns about Y2K. If systems were going to go down and chaos were to result, she wanted to be self-sustaining. So she started to garden and got two goats. She was living in Seattle at the time, though, and the goats were illegal. After 2000 came and went she moved out to the country and got more goats. She got serious about the business and started the dairy in 2007. This required culling the herd and focusing on breeding to improve milk production. She said, “It’s hard work, but fun.” Milking seventy to eighty goats a day, delivering milk, working on fences, and composting manure (and the list goes on), she often works close to eighteen hours a day. While the hours are probably similar to what many who raise livestock experience, the schedule at a dairy is often more exacting. The goats (or cows or sheep) need to be milked twice a day at regular intervals. If this doesn’t happen, problems such as mastitis can arise.
St. John is very concerned with the health of her goats. The dairy is not organic since she uses penicillin when needed (she doesn’t want the goats to suffer). When the goats are three months of age she trims their hooves and burns off their horns (called debudding). She doesn’t like this practice, so she tries to get naturally polled goats with her breeding. Otherwise, she is “rabidly organic” and won’t even use flea medicine on the dogs. For sick goats she uses CEG (cayenne, echinacea, and garlic), something she got from the veterinarian who consults for Organic Valley dairies (see chapter 3). “But the real key to healthy animals,” she said, “is healthy land. In New Zealand, dairymen consider themselves primarily grass farmers” (as does Soderstrom—see chapter 6). To help keep the pastures and the goats healthy St. John regularly rotates the goats among the pastures to cut the parasite life cycle. Ideally pastures rest for forty-two days, but when that’s not possible, a rest period of at least twenty-one days cuts coccidian—a parasite that causes diarrhea in young goats. If necessary she uses a sulfa drug to deworm. St. John said she can tell when that is needed because the goats get anemic and she can see it in their eyes. Free-roaming chickens help with parasites as well. The chickens eat bugs and spread the manure with their scratching, exposing everything to the sun. This had worked so well that St. John was expanding the chicken side of the farm. There were sixty-five chicks inside when we visited, and eighty more on the way. The plan was to put chicken tractors in the pastures and close them in at night.
As with many of the farmers we talked with, St. John’s goal is to try to replicate natural cycles as much as possible in order to produce healthy animals with the least amount of intervention. She sees her relationship with the land and the animals as a form of stewardship. Her job is to provide what the plants need and work from there. To improve the health of the land they are able to use most of the animal waste products on-site. St. John said, “I pay for the herbs and minerals I feed them, and they poop it out. Why not put it back in the grass?” She planned to plant an herbal berm that would be fed directly to goats. It will contain things like mulberries, comfrey, and wormwood. St. John said, “Ideal pastures would have fifty different plants for the goats to eat. Now my pastures have about ten different plants.” Her goats who are being milked also eat kelp, keifer, an assortment of herbs, and a little grain. St. John was proud that she had been able to cut the ration of grain in half and hoped that when her pastures were in good enough shape, and the parasites under control, the goats would be off grain completely.
Healthy goats help make for healthy milk as well. St. John is passionate about raw milk. She said, “Raw milk is better because it is alive. When you pasteurize milk the fat molecules break down and can get into the blood stream, as does disease.” She believes that when people pasteurize milk, they don’t bother getting clean milk in the first place—she uses at least eight cloth surfaces, with iodine, to clean the does’ udders. “But,” she said, “my milk lasts fourteen days, while most milk lasts seven. I’ve had it last as long as twenty-two days.” She thinks it’s important to provide an alternative to the dominant cow milk; she discussed studies that indicate there might be a link between the milk from Holstein cows (who dominate industrial dairies) and autism and diseases like diabetes. She also sells cheese and a line of goat milk for pets. Her raw milk and cheese products contain live enzymes, and St. John emphasizes the health benefits these provide. Her concerns envelope the land, wildlife, livestock, pets, and humans—no sharp lines separate these communities for her.
Given the regulations involved with selling milk and cheese, though, many goat dairies focus on soap. I visited one such farm in southern Illinois—Bearden’s Back Acre Farms. I met Jennifer Bearden when she was selling some of her MommaBear’s Goat Milk Soap at a farmer’s market. When I visited her farm, Bearden had about thirty-five goats and milked about eight at a time. She now has fifty goats, leaves the kids on the does, and partially milks them at night. This supplies her with more than enough milk and allows the does to teach their young what to eat and how to behave. While Bearden comes from a farming background (her family farmed wheat in Idaho), raising animals was new to her. She started raising dairy goats when she found that her daughter was allergic to cow’s milk. She has also raised chickens for some time and now raises pastured poultry on a separate farm along with some meat rabbits. The goats are protected by Great Pyrenees dogs, as are the chickens and turkeys who are under the care of her son. The farm with the goats was more recently purchased and was chosen because the land fit the family’s plans for farming. Rather than change the land to do what they wanted, they looked for land that was already good for the animals they planned to raise. This land has lots of ravines and woods, providing space for the goats to browse and providing good land for pigs. They have added two pigs, who are happily eating extra milk and cheese by-products. The pigs supply meat and lard for the soapmaking.
Most of Bearden’s goats are Nubian/Alpine crosses. She is quite proud of the changes she has seen in the quality of her goats and had recently added a purebred Nubian buck and a purebred Alpine buck. She sells and trades goats to keep the herd diverse and has added two Boer bucks to “take advantage of the growing demand for chevon.” While Bearden has killed and butchered goats herself she is happy that her son has taken over the work of killing them. She said that even though you raise them knowing they are “going to freezer camp,” it’s still hard when the time comes. Early on her daughter had insisted on naming all the animals, hoping that if they had names they wouldn’t be killed and eaten. All the animals still have names, and they are loved and respected, but that doesn’t alter their fate. Dairy operations of all kinds are tied to meat production, but not all take on this aspect of the work themselves as Bearden’s family does. (For instance St. John sells off the male goats she can’t keep.)
According to the USDA there has been growth in the goat dairy industry since 2005 and there are over 360,000 dairy goats in the United States. Wisconsin, California, and Minnesota have the most, but numbers are rising in Iowa and Texas (National Agricultural Statistics Service, Sheep and Goats 16). Most of these goats are Alpine, LaMancha, Nubian, Oberhasli, Saanen, and Toggenburg as these breeds can produce two thousand pounds of milk a year during their 285 days of lactation (“Dairy Goats”). Goat milk is valued for making cheese and soap and because it’s easier to digest than cow’s milk. But cow’s milk still accounted for 95 percent of the milk consumed in 2014, with a cow producing about twenty thousand more pounds of milk a year than a goat. Many choose to buy goat milk products since goats are less likely to be in an industrial-style dairy than are cows. The average goatherd size in California is 29 and in Wisconsin it is 39. In contrast to the increasing use of commercial production for meat goats, most of the dairies remain small. Industry analysis notes that “the dairy industry seems to have retained many small farms where the products are used either for home consumption or in the production of dairy products on a small scale. There are, of course, notable exceptions of large dairy herds supplying processors or producing milk on a large scale for commercial goat cheese production” (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service). Since the USDA literature provides guidelines and costs for a 500-goat dairy, the move to larger goat dairies may not be such an exception for long.
My sister and brother-in-law, Megan and Don Greve, helped run such an industrial dairy. Galaxy Dairy was a family business located in Turlock, California, that operated for thirty years (1964–1994). They had 700 goats in the herd, milking 400 at any given time. It took approximately eight hours to milk 400 goats using milking machines (four hours in the morning and four in the evening). Plans for further growth (to 1,200 goats) were discussed before the decision to sell was made. While they drank the milk raw on the ranch, they produced 20 percent of the milk going to two plants that produced powdered and condensed milk for Meyenberg Goat Products. The Greves did raise and eat sheep and beef from time to time, but generally they did not eat their own goats.
In response to our questions about their view of nature the answers were mixed. On the one hand we were told “the dairy animals are a business” and “nature relates to the parts of the environment which can be used for recreation (hiking and camping).” The family altered nature when they cut down trees to build on their sixty-acre dairy, put in irrigation pipelines, and killed magpies (until they saw their usefulness for eating bugs). On the other hand, the business of a dairy is affected by the weather and the seasons, requiring one to understand and pay attention to “nature.” Don said, “It affects how you grow crops and how you raise and care for animals.” They grew close to 50 percent of their feed, but given the prices it was usually cheaper to buy corn than to grow it. Growing feed required summer irrigation. Following the cycles of the goats, kidding took place between March and May, and the goats were dry during December and January. Many dairies use controlled lighting to get twelve months of milking, but they did not. The two months of rest were seen as important for humans and goats alike.
The kids were taken immediately and bottle-fed until they went to auction at four days old to be sold to meat ranchers. It is now harder for goat dairies to get money this way, as the meat producers prefer the Boer goats (like those being added to the Bearden farm). The goats were bred when they were a year old. Don said that in the 1960s the productive life of a dairy goat was ten to twelve years, producing one to two quarts of milk a day. By 1984 the productive life span had been reduced to six to seven years, but they produced two to eight quarts a day. While less extreme, this transformation mirrors changes in dairy cow productivity. Breeding for productivity was an important aspect of running the dairy, and Megan said they kept careful records. Most of the goats were registered. While most of the goats were not named, top breeders like Samson and Sally Ann were. Goats were purchased at the start of the dairy and again in 1980 during an expansion. Other than that they bred their own and managed a closed herd. This was important for keeping out disease. One of their early purchases of goats brought in lice, pink eye, and mastitis, which required a lot of care. The Greves were determined to produce a clean product, which meant starting with healthy goats. As part of record-keeping each goat had an ear tag, and to ease handling they had each goat wear a chain around her neck. Horns become a problem when the goats play or fight, so debudding is seen as important by most people who keep goats. This process involves applying a heated rod or caustic chemicals to the horn nub of very young kids. At Galaxy Dairy they cut tails and burned off the horns. Don said he hated dehorning the babies and that his mother did a lot of that work.
Both Don and Megan grew up loving animals. In addition to the goats there were dogs and lots of cats. As with many dairies, the cats did important work by hunting, but between people dropping cats off on the road and natural reproduction, the cat population could get out of hand. To keep numbers down they didn’t feed the cats and only a few of the cats were named. The dogs were generally named but didn’t live in the house. Don said that part of loving animals is to help them with their death—they should not suffer. Some animals would be shot on the farm, but others were sent to the auction. If an animal was being shot, it was not a healthy animal. While it was hard to do, and hard not to cry, he felt it was the right thing to do. Megan and Don later ran a horse boarding and training facility (The Triangle G Ranch) and Don did note it was harder to kill or send a horse to auction (which was more personal) than it was to send a goat (which was business): “With the horses you spend time working with the individual animal. When you have over 700 animals (goats) it changes the relationship.”
They did show some of their goats. Showing is popular among dairy goat producers, and the United States maintains its own set of breed standards. Breed differences are evident in appearance and behavior. Nubian goats are the most numerous dairy goat even though they are not the highest producer. The high fat content of their milk and their appearance (long, floppy ears) account for their popularity. Alpines, the second most numerous dairy goat, produce a lot of milk and are known to be bossy. The Saanen, second only to the Alpine for milk production, is usually described as gentle. LaMancha goats, another gentle goat, have no external ears. Toggenburgs are the oldest breed of dairy goat and are popular for their fawn-like appearance—brown with white spots. Known for their deep red color, Oberhasli goats are not particularly high producers, but breeding is changing that. Nigerian Dwarf goats are good milkers whose size makes them popular as pets and as 4-h projects. The Pygmy goat is another small milker whose heavy muscling also makes for good meat. An article in Mother Earth put it this way: “We have found that our Nubian Goats are the divas of the bunch. They are very loving and loyal and incredibly demanding. If a Nubian goat does not want to go on a milking stand, then there is no way of making her, short of picking her up. No small feat at an average of 200 pounds, and she will remember this ‘humiliation’ and get even at some point. Our LaManchas are sweet and hardworking and easy to train. Our Saanens are the clowns of the dairy and always ready for mischief” (Shewchuck). There is a great deal of diversity among goats, and their individual personalities need to be respected.
Goats are friendly and want to play, but they maintain hierarchies. Bucks can kill each other. Don said that goats are harder to handle than sheep and are smarter than cows. Goats don’t herd the way sheep do and will eat most plants they can find—including some prized gardens! Goats are very active and can climb. This means some find sheep easier to keep, but there are fewer than 100 sheep dairies in the United States with about 10,000 ewes being milked. Average flock size is about 150, with half the flocks having fewer than 55. Sheep milk is especially good for making cheese given its higher solids content. They do, however, produce less milk than do goats or cows. East Friesian and Lacaune are the breeds of dairy sheep used in the United States. They can produce between 400 and 1,000 pounds of milk per year. While some farms only milk once a day until the lambs are weaned at from thirty to sixty days, many operations remove lambs within the first twenty-four hours and begin milking twice a day (Schoenian, “Dairy Sheep Basics”; Thomas). Most of these dairy operations keep the sheep grazing on grass, providing shelter as needed and some supplemental feed concentrates. This makes them a desirable alternative to cow dairies for many people concerned about the increasing industrialization of the dairy industry.
Among the animals commonly considered livestock, the ruminants are generally considered to have the best lives. Many of those cattle, sheep, and goats who are raised for meat spend some or most of their time living outside on grass in social groups. While, as already discussed, more and more cattle spend more of their time confined to a feedlot, the smaller scale of goat and sheep meat production means that many of them still live in a fairly “natural” way. The same can be said for those who are raised for wool, though they face issues of shearing and mulesing (discussed in the previous chapter).
Those ruminants raised and used for their milk, however, have a more varied existence. The dairies we visited are not the kinds of operations that supply the bulk of the dairy products in the United States. Many dairy animals spend much of their life in confinement—especially cows and goats. According to F. Bailey Norwood and Jayson L. Lusk in their book Compassion by the Pound, over nine million cows are milked each day in the United States. The average size of individual dairies has gone from one hundred or fewer cows to between one thousand and five thousand cows (144–45). Norwood and Lusk report that in the United States 50 percent of the dairies use tie stalls to house the cows but that since larger dairies are less likely to use this method of housing, a smaller percentage of the overall dairy population face this restriction (down from 44 percent to 22 percent between 1996 and 2011). They are still restricted in other ways, though. Norwood and Lusk report that in the United States “19 percent of lactating cows have no outdoor access, 22 percent are provided pasture, and the remainder has access to a concrete pen (17%) or dry lot (49%) in the summer” (147). This access to the outdoors goes down in the winter.
The selective breeding in the dairy industry has resulted in increased milk production. This has come at a cost to the cow, however. Unnaturally large udders make it difficult to walk and result in mastitis (a painfully inflamed udder). The cows are also often lame, as the nutrients in their diet are diverted to milk production rather than healthy bones. Such lameness is made worse by their having to stand on concrete floors and in the mud that develops in the “dry” lots. All of this makes movement difficult, which may be a reason the cows are not out on pasture. It also raises concerns about the milking process itself. Most cattle are moved from their stalls or the lot to a milking barn to be milked. Norwood and Lusk write that the milking itself is pleasurable as “cows experience pain if they are not milked and their udders swell too much. Additionally, forcing the animal to walk from the paddock to the barn provides beneficial exercise” (147–48). That they need to be “forced” to make the walk to the barn indicates a certain unwillingness to move, and the extra-large udders that they “need” to have milked are part of what contributes to this unwillingness. A paradoxical situation to be sure.
Such confinement is a welfare concern, as is the discomfort. So too are the often accompanying practices of dehorning, castration, tail-docking, and early weaning. About one-third of U.S. dairy cows have their tails removed in order to promote cleanliness and to make using the milking machines more convenient. This is done without anesthetic and often when the cow is older and certainly feels pain (148). As already mentioned most dairy goats have their horns removed either by their being burnt off or through the application of caustic chemicals. This is true of dairy cows as well (something Joe Markholt said was more stressful than castration—see chapter 3). Common to all dairy operations is the removal of offspring. Dairy animals must give birth to produce milk. While their milk production can be augmented and extended by the now controversial use of hormones, they must have babies. While some small dairies leave the calves, kids, or lambs on the mother for an extended time and share the milk, commercial dairies remove the offspring almost immediately. This is traumatic for mother and baby, and evidence of stress abounds. Livestock expert Temple Grandin remarks on the sound of bawling calves who have recently been removed from their mothers. Even when this is done at “weaning age” (four to six months) it can be quite traumatic. She said, “I remember one mama who was mooing frantically and trying to jump the fence to get back to her baby. The babies acted really stressed and agitated, too” (Animals in Translation 110). When this separation occurs at a few hours (or at most days) old, it is much worse. Further evidence of the stress is found in their increased susceptibility to disease. To limit disease exposure, the female calves who will be retained are housed in individual pens for the first few weeks before being moved to a group pen. This means they are denied not only their mothers but also all physical and social contact with their kind. Most female calves will be raised as replacement animals. This is necessary, as the productive life of the modern dairy cow is now limited to four or five years because her body cannot hold up under the stress of the increased levels of milk production (Norwood and Lusk 148). For goats this is six to seven years and for sheep it is about three years. The male calves, kids, and lambs generally have one fate—meat production.
Some calves join their beef counterparts in feedlots (though the specialized breeding makes them less desirable as beef cattle). The rest (about 30 percent) go to veal calf production. These calves are housed in small individual or group pens that allow little movement and are fed a purely liquid diet that often results in anemia (144). The life of the veal calf is one of the main targets for animal advocacy groups, and consumption of veal has fallen in the United States. For goats and sheep the fate of an early death is the same, but they often have a group life out on pasture up until that point. Feeding operations for sheep and goats may be changing this. Given the amount of death, disease, and dismemberment involved in the dairy industry, many argue that if one is concerned about animal suffering it would be more important to stop consuming dairy (and egg) products than to stop eating meat (though later chapters will show this does not apply to chickens and pigs) (Masson, Face on Your Plate 14). Norwood and Lusk try to counter the concern about veal by suggesting that while consuming dairy products does support the veal industry, consuming dairy products does not really implicate one in much suffering and death. They say:
Two 8 oz servings of milk is only 1 lb of milk, and one cow produces about 19,125 lbs of milk each year. Even if you drank two 8 oz servings of milk each day, you are only consuming 1.9 percent of a cow’s annual output of milk. Thus, your milk consumption refers to only a fraction of a cow’s output, and the veal produced from 1 lb of milk is tiny, implying your milk consumption is only responsible for a small amount of veal production. Moreover, veal would be produced even without milk production. Milk purchases do subsidize veal production, but only a by [sic] tiny amount. If veal production were outlawed the number of dairy cows would barely change, and if milk production were banned veal calves would easily be obtained from beef breeds. All things considered, a vegetarian can consume milk and cheese even if they are opposed to veal production, knowing their action subsidizes veal production only by a miniscule amount. (144–45)
In my opinion, this is more than a little disingenuous. The fact that one is only consuming a tiny amount of a cow’s overall production is misleading in a number of ways. First, most people consume much more than the sixteen ounces Norwood and Lusk use in their “calculation.” Second, an individual human is consuming only a small fraction of an individual cow’s production only because of the unnaturally elevated levels of milk production found in modern dairy cows. Much suffering results from this for the lame cow with an oversized and diseased udder. Further, all offspring are removed from their mothers, not just the veal calves. Norwood and Lusk admit that this causes suffering when they write, “In addition to inducing stress in the calf and mother at the time of separation, the absence of the family bond prohibits the calf from maturing properly. The calf will experience greater stress in new environments, will be less able to solve problems, and will show a reduced motivation to solve problems. The calf never suckles from its mother’s teat. . . . Calves have a natural desire to suckle a teat. . . . It is not just the milk the calf wants, but the feel of the teat as it is drinking” (142–43). Since this is denied to all calves on large commercial dairies, it seems odd that Norwood and Lusk would factor in only the suffering of those calves diverted to veal production. While it is true that the veal calf may be the “poster calf” for animal rights and welfare groups, it is far from the only concern with the dairy industry. Many aspects of the lives of animals in industrial dairies violate commonly understood principles of animal welfare.
Norwood and Lusk say that since dairy cows generally get along (even when crowded) and are fed a nutritionally dense diet, access to pasture is not really necessary for the welfare of the dairy cows. This assessment does not match up with emerging understandings of animal needs. One measure of the well-being of various animals that has gained ground (especially in Europe) is the Five Freedoms. These are freedom from hunger and thirst, in having ready access to fresh water and food that maintains health and vigor; freedom from discomfort, in having an appropriate environment, including shelter and a comfortable resting area; freedom from pain, injury, and disease, which is ensured through prevention and, when problems arise, rapid diagnosis and treatment; freedom to express normal behavior, in having sufficient space, proper facilities, and company of the animal’s own kind; and freedom from fear and distress, in having conditions and treatment that do not cause mental suffering. This list of freedoms is important, as it goes beyond the prevention of physical pain and suffering to recognize mental and emotional distress. It also goes beyond the prevention of suffering to insist on the promotion of normal physical and social behaviors as an important aspect of well-being.
The one cow dairy we were set to visit is one that seems to take these five freedoms to heart. We had an appointment to visit the Pride and Joy dairy in Granger, Washington, another promoter of raw milk. When we arrived, though, no one was around to talk with us. We played with the kittens and observed the calves who were housed in small outdoor pens with doghouse-like shelters. These calves are raised either as replacement dairy cows or as grass-fed beef (to accompany Pride and Joy’s grass-fed lamb). This farm also has free-range chickens for egg production. The farm is advertised as on organic dairy selling Grade A, grass-fed raw cow’s milk from Jersey, Holstein, Ayrshire, Swedish Red, Normandy, and crossbred cows. As with those who run St. John’s Dairy and Fido Farm, the Voortmans see themselves primarily as grass farmers. Their pastures have clover, alfalfa, and chicory. Moveable fencing allows the pastures to be adjusted in size and moved as the grass demands (as at Fido Farm). Organic hay is available during the winter, and salt, minerals, and water are readily available in the pastures. Their cows have a productive life span of twelve years—much longer than the industry standard. As the farm website notes, “being 100% grass-fed results in lower production per cow, but improves overall herd health and produces impeccable milk quality” (“The Pasture Grass”). The cows walk over a mile a day while grazing, and their long life span results in stable herd relationships. These farmers are proud of the low stress levels and say there are no sick pens on the dairy, given the health of the cows. If a cow does need antibiotics they are administered for her well-being, and her milk is taken out of production. No hormones are used, and tails are not docked (on cattle or sheep). According to one article they get about five gallons a day from each cow: “The Voortmans note that being 100% grass fed changes the financial picture completely because they are achieving this level of milk output with minimal expense and get a value-added premium. They also have an extremely low involuntary cull rate (3–4% compared to national average of 37% in dairy industry). Due to their low involuntary cull rate, the Voortmans can sell 25–30% of their herd each year. The sale of excess animals represents a large part of the dairy’s income” (Donovan). This means that since there is a low mortality rate in the herd they can sell more for breeding or for meat.
These cows enjoy the first four freedoms as they have ready access to food and water; they have pasture and shelter available; they are treated for injury and disease as needed; they get to walk the pasture and graze in a stable herd; and they are generally free from fear and distress. The last freedom is the hardest for any dairy to guarantee as there is always distress at the removal of offspring. However, as cow dairies go, this is about as ideal as it can get.
On purely environmental grounds Nicolette Niman (discussed in chapter 4) argues that confinement mega-dairies are the “most offensive farming system.” Denying the nature of cows, she says, “they deprive animals of exercise and grazing, and they channel enormous volumes of manure into festering storage ponds that leach to ground water, can spill to rivers and streams, and emit ungodly odors and pollutants to the air.” Further, since the cows aren’t eating a natural grass diet their “soy-and grain-based feeding regimens raise the same pollution and resource concerns as pig and poultry facilities. But worst of all, this bundle of problems is being foisted onto the backs of grazing animals—creatures that indisputably belong on grass” (80). The cows themselves suffer from lameness and disease connected to their overproduction of milk; they get little individual attention due to the large number of animals; and the concentration of so many animals greatly increases the environmental risk from their manure.
Niman notes that USDA research found that grass-based dairies are the most ecologically friendly. They protect soil (87 percent less erosion) and water (25 percent less runoff of phosphorus). Carbon sequestration is higher, and greenhouse gas emissions are lower—“methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide were 8 percent lower in the grass system than in the confinement system. Ammonia emissions were lower by about 30 percent” (76). While an ecofeminist like Carol Adams (discussed more in chapter 9) would be pleased that these operations cause less damage to the environment, Adams insists that they mirror and reinforce a logic that sees females as machines to exploit and so are not acceptable. The lactating mother is still separated from her calf and hooked to a machine. This kind of “feminized protein” is connected to the general objectification of the female and so Adams calls on all feminists to be vegans.
While Val Plumwood (discussed in chapter 1) agrees with much of what Adams has to say, she does not agree that one should necessarily adopt a vegan diet. Plumwood does not even argue that we should necessarily adopt a vegetarian diet. Instead, Plumwood argues for contextual eating (more in line with the approach suggested by Niman) as she seeks to identify methods of respectful use. For Plumwood, this concept needs to be applied to all our interactions with other animal beings and the rest of nature. Plumwood agrees that meat and dairy animals are now completely commodified. She refers to Adams’s concept of the absent referent (discussed in chapters 4 and 6) and agrees that our language covers up our acts of violence and hides the individuality of the animals involved in the production of meat, dairy, and egg products. She agrees that the “ruthless, reductionistic . . . treatment of animals as replaceable and tradeable items of property characteristic of the commodity form and a capitalist economic rationality” are not good. But she disagrees with Adams, who thinks that such treatment is inevitable. Plumwood suggests we find a form of respectful use. To do this we have to reject entire ways of thinking about women and other animal beings. She writes:
As production moves out of the household at the beginning of the modern era, the role of farm-household animals is transformed in the new separation of public/private in much the same way as the role of women. Both the working farm wife and the working farm animal now become subject to the modernist polarity that construes “rational” economic relationships in alienated, masculinist and narrowly instrumental terms. . . . The “familiar” working animal . . . is replaced by the bourgeois “pet” who, like the bourgeois wife, leads a sheltered life in a protected private household. The hyper-separation between the “pet” animal and the “meat” animal is intensified as the meat animal becomes subject to the rationally intrumentalised mass-production regime of the factory farm or laboratory. The “familiar” animal disappears, and the complementary polarity of the subjectivised and underemployed “pet” animal and the reduced and instrumentalised “meat” animal takes its place. (162)
In other words, some women (the poor) and some animal beings (livestock) are reduced to objects to use, while others lose all use value and become purely decorative (the bourgeois wife and the pet). For Plumwood, these conditions are related to each other and neither condition is good.
However, Plumwood disagrees with Adams’s view that ontologizing another living being as edible is always a form of domination. She thinks this move “results in a deep rejection of ecological embodiment for those beings, since all ecologically-embodied beings are food for some other beings” (156). She argues that we need nonreductivist understandings of food and nonreductivist farming practices. She says, “We cannot give up using one another, but we can give up the use/respect dualism, which means working towards ethical, respectful and constrained forms of use” (159). This would mean that the way most livestock are currently raised and used would have to stop, but it would not mean respectful alternatives cannot be found.
Plumwood argues that we need to stop trying to get other animals included in the realm of rights-bearers, as this continues the dualistic mindset ecofeminists seek to challenge (see the discussion of personhood in chapter 5). It pits animals against each other and leaves plants outside the realm of what we need to consider when making choices. Instead she focuses on use and respect. She says it is possible to “respect animals as both individuals and as community members, in terms of respect or reverence for species life” if humans “rethink farming in a non-commodity and species-egalitarian” way. It does not require humans to “completely reject farming and embrace an exclusively plant-based form” (156). It does mean drastically changing, but not ending, the farming of livestock. This would entail context-specific eating that prioritizes the well-being of plants and animals (individuals and communities) used by humans for food. It would entail rejecting absolutist positions (as with pragmatism) and instead focusing on developing caring practices that take the earth and other beings into consideration from their own point of view (as much as we can).
To consider the point of view of livestock, it is worth considering a number of different ways to understand and measure animal welfare. While Norwood and Lusk pointed to the Five Freedoms as a way to assess the welfare of dairy cows on industrial dairies, and I used that framework to assess grass-fed dairies, it is only one possible approach. It is an approach that has been taken up by animal welfare advocates and lawmakers, so it is influential, but it is based on a limited number of mostly negative freedoms. Animal welfare scientists continue to refine this approach and to develop other models—all of which should be considered (Mellor). For instance, scientists note that living without any fear or stress at all compromises and weakens immune systems and overall health. Some zoos try to respect animals by creating housing arrangements where prey animals experience some amount of predation threat and predators have a chance to express stalking and hunting behavior. Part of animal enrichment includes animals working for food, competing with each other, and solving problems. Keeping livestock animals can similarly be done in ways that respect their needs and natures. For example, weaning is a stressful but natural event. So weaning young animals, which is part of most livestock farming, is not inherently bad. But weaning offspring too young (as is commonly done in dairy operations) is morally problematic and can cause health problems. Similarly, death is part of life, but being hauled hundreds of miles in crowded containers (with no attention to social bonds) in hot and cold weather is not. Living in one’s feces is not natural or healthful for livestock animals and forcing them to do so fails to respect what makes life acceptable, much less meaningful, for them.
One farm that tries to see life from the point of view of the animals, and to embody respectful use, is another supporter of raw milk (goat milk in this case)—Akyla Farms in Sedro-Woolley, Washington. This farm is much more than a dairy, but the dairy goats are integral to the whole operation. At the time of our visit their goat herd was primarily La Mancha and Nubian goats, but they had plans to transition to Keiko goats since this breed doesn’t need their hooves trimmed. The Ostermans also have laying hens, meat birds, beef cattle, horses, and pigs. Since it takes a lot of time to keep the animals rotating through the pastures, and since the daily milking schedule adds to the time commitment, they said, they “need low maintenance animals.” Carol and Kevin Osterman have more moving parts to their operation than most do, as they also rent out their goats. The herd is hired out, along with a guard llama, to eat back blackberries and other invasive vegetation. They advertise this as a form of noxious weed control that is chemical-free and good for the environment. It also keeps their goats well fed.
Like St. John’s Creamery, the Ostermans have a passion for raw milk. They referred to studies that show that children who drink raw milk have a lower rate of asthma. It was not just the milk that was important to them, though, but living with livestock. They brought up Charles Mann’s book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus. This book makes the case that living with livestock gave Europeans immunities not shared by Native Americans. Managing herds for meat and dairy is part of what allowed the Europeans to colonize other lands. Not only were they able to take a food source with them, but they also had an immune system that helped them survive contact with new places and new diseases. The Ostermans believe these long-standing relationships with livestock have made humans what they are—good and bad. The main use they see for these animals now is as fertilizer and food. They said, “We use animals—we are omnivores (see our teeth and gut). Humans have to eat meat to be healthy. Cows, goats, horses are true herbivores. Dogs and cats are true carnivores—they must eat flesh.” Following Plumwood’s idea that everyone is food for someone else, they said they would probably eat dog: “It all depends on the purpose the animal is intended for. If it’s raised as a companion that is different than when it’s raised to eat. The different intent leads to a different frame of mind. Pigs and chickens are cute at first, but then transition into something else. You’re glad when they’re gone. They have no concept of tomorrow, so they are not harmed by death. They have a good life for the time they have.” For them, this applies to horses too. While Carol’s interest in farm animals and healthy pastures started with her interest in horses, the Ostermans don’t romanticize horses. She said, “The horse is still an animal—an animal we can eat.” They both said they would eat horsemeat, though their own horse will probably be buried on the farm.
While they provide food for humans and other animals, the livestock also improve the fertility of the land. Kevin said, “Goats—love their job, which is to eat. They eat the woody things, cows eat grasses, sheep eat herbs, birds eat bugs. They all add fertilizer so we get healthy pasture. The healthy pasture gives us good meat and milk. We feed the by-product of the dairy to the pigs and poultry. The poultry really improve the fields; it’s very green wherever the poultry pens have been. They help put fertility back in the land.” The Ostermans see themselves, and the other animal beings, as part of the land and of nature more generally and like to work with the web of life to keep the soil healthy: “We love the animals, the animals improve the land, good land improves everyone’s health.” Kevin said, “Nature—we are part of it. Everything we do either benefits it or disrupts it. Chemicals disrupt and damage cycles. There may be an immediate payback from using chemicals, but long term it will cost you and the land.” For example they don’t use ivermectin for worming. If they did, all the bugs would be affected and this would weaken the animals and the land. They would then need to use the veterinarian more as the animals would be sick. They said, “Parasites don’t like a healthy animal.” Their goal is to raise healthy animals on healthy land. At the time of our visit in 2010 the motto listed on their website was “You are not what you eat. You are what your food eats.” Now their website says, “It’s not just what you eat, it’s what your food eats.”
One reason the Ostermans started farming was to have safe food. Although they were inspired by Joel Salatin (see chapter 4), they also work with the Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF). Price was a dentist who found good food made a difference in people’s health. The foundation “supports . . . organic and biodynamic farming, pasture-feeding of livestock, community-supported farms, honest and informative labeling, prepared parenting and nurturing therapies. Specific goals include establishment of universal access to clean, certified raw milk and a ban on the use of soy formula for infants” (Nienhiser). At Akyla they focus on providing nutritionally dense food (including raw milk) and avoiding GMOs. While their own health was a big motivation for the Ostermans’ farming the way they do, so was their love of animals.
Speaking about the animals Kevin said, “We put them in this situation so we owe them good food and care.” The goats in the milking herd all have names, as do some of the cows. Carol said, “Some of the neighbors love the animals and see them like children. This can be a problem when it’s time to slaughter them and they end up in the freezer.” When the Ostermans get the animals out of the freezer they talk to them by name: “Hi Ashley. Sorry.” This fits with Plumwood’s hope to combine use and respect. To make life good for the animals the Ostermans do things differently from how most do. They don’t debud the baby goats, since goats need their horns. They said it’s harder to care for dehorned goats, as the horn is part of the sinus. For the same reason, they breed naturally polled cattle. They also don’t want big-framed animals who need grain; the cattle must do well on pasture, be hardy, and be able to give birth on their own. The Ostermans let the calves wean themselves, and we saw a yearling who was still with his mom. They don’t vaccinate the cattle but depend on the general health of the cattle to protect them from disease and parasites. They said, “Health starts with good quality pasture. When a pasture is done, the cows talk and tell you to move them. If they get ill at the drop of a hat, they would never survive in the wild, and we don’t want cows like that in the herd.” With the goats going out to eat, the Ostermans can’t control the cows’ or the goats’ exposure, so the animals need to be healthy. The laying hens and meat birds also need to be capable of surviving life in the pasture. The Ostermans have about ten different breeds of chickens. They said, “We like the variety as it makes it easier to watch individuals, and we allow the birds to live out their lives with us as we see the older birds as being wiser in that ongoing predator/prey story.” The meat birds are also pastured and killed on-site. The Ostermans use Freedom Ranger birds (see chapter 4) because these birds are hardier and actually graze the pasture instead of just eating grain. The Ostermans feed some of the excess goat milk to the birds and to their pigs.
PHOTO 7. Chickens at Akyla Farm. Photo by Danielle Palmer.
PHOTO 8. Chicken tractors at Akyla Farm. Photo by Danielle Palmer.
Like the chickens, the pigs are killed and processed on-site, lessening the stress they face during their lives. According to the farm website the pigs “enjoy fresh pasture on a regular basis, depending on how fast they utilize their area. We use portable electrified netting to keep the pigs where we want them and be able to efficiently create new areas for them in the tall grass, Japanese Knotweed and blackberry patches. Along with their pasture and daily ration of organic grain they also receive occasional organic produce, surplus eggs from the laying flock and some milk from our dairy does.” This kind of integration of dairy with pigs and chickens used to be common but is much harder to find today. (It is what Bearden has in mind for her farm in Illinois as well.) Pigs have long been an important part of such integration as they can eat “waste” products. Pigs were generally kept on small diversified farms and fed off the scraps from the humans and other livestock. This made them an economical animal to keep. But that kind of life is no longer available to the pigs used for most pork production. While the ruminants have increasingly been confined, many of them live something more like a normal life than do pigs and poultry. The next two chapters will turn to these two most confined and concentrated of the animals found in industrial agriculture. The five freedoms mentioned earlier arose, in large part, in response to pig and poultry operations and remain missing for most pigs and chickens. Here there is only use—no respect.
