Milking Cows is my Civic Duty

Throughout the years milk has always been said to be good and important when trying to maintain a healthy body. And good, healthy milk comes from happy cows. Many of us may have seen the advertisement that talks about “happy cows” in California producing the best milk. However, those cows can’t be possibly happy being crammed up into spaces with hundreds of other cows. The treatment of dairy cows is inhumane and the American society should look for ways to ensure that the dairy industry will properly treat the cows.

Dairying may have started out with the bringing of cattle by Norwegian Vikings in the early eleventh century. English colonist also brought cows with them in the seventeenth century when they arrived in Jamestown. Farm families may have begun using the milk of cows at this time for themselves, and selling what little they could. It was during the late 1600’s that dairying made a jump from being able to gather milk not only during the spring, summer, and fall but also in the winter. They did this by a technique called stall-feeding, giving the cows grain and hay during the winter, which made it possible for them to produce milk year round (World Book).

With there being about 10 million milk cows on farms across America, about 22 billion gallons of milk are produced every year. Each cow produces an average of 2,000 gallons of milk a year (about 6 gallons a day). Dairy farmers harvest the milk once in the morning and in the evening at twelve-hour intervals. Just about all dairy farms use a milking machine to extract the milk from dairy cows, whereas in the old days milking had to done by hand (World Book).

With the dairy industry raking in about 20 billion dollars a year, it is easy to forget about treating...

... middle of paper ...

...e a source of fertilizer for the earth, for our crops.

Cows are very beneficial to everyone, including themselves. But let us treat them better, even if just a little. Let it start with the dairy farms of America, and then let it steadily grow to the whole world, so that not just the cows her in America will be treated better but all cows everywhere.

Bibliography

• “Dairying.” The World Book Encyclopedia. Print.

• “The Dairy Industry | PETA.org.” People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA): The Animal Rights Organization | PETA.org. Web. 10 Feb. 2011

• “EasyBib: Your Bibliography/ Works Cited List.” EasyBib: Free Bibliography Maker- MLA, APA, Chicago Citation Styles. Web. 10 Feb. 20011

• “Milk” Compton’s Encyclopedia & Fact-Index. Print.