Real, Live Milking Machines

1962 Words4 Pages

Real, Live Milking Machines

On the edge of campus, past the colorful gardens of the Orfaleea College of Business, beyond the recreation fields covered with students playing Frisbee or catch, and off busy Highland Drive is the unpaved Mt. Bishop Road. Mt. Bishop Road is home to the crops unit, campus orchards, veterinary unit, and the Eugene and Rachel Boone Dairy Science Complex, more familiarly known as the Cal Poly Dairy. Walking through the dairy on a sunny Tuesday afternoon, I am greeted by fifteen or so calves chained to oversized dog houses called “hutches.” Petting them as they attempt to suck on my pants, I look up to see their mothers in the long cages just a few feet away. It is hard to leave the doe eyes of the Jersey calves, but I move on to the rows of enormous Holsteins. It is the late afternoon and their udders are filled to the brim with milk. The weight of ten bowling balls hangs from their bodies making their locomotion slow and awkward. The cow’s milking time is from four to six in the afternoon. Automatic milking systems milk the hundreds of cows quickly and efficiently.

I wonder if all that milk is due to the genetically engineered hormone, rBST, which increases the milk production in the cow. rBST is a man made reproduction of the cow’s natural growth hormone, Bovine Somatropin (BST). Economically the increase in milk supply caused by the hormone could lower prices on dairy foods, an appealing attribute to consumers, and feed more people with fewer cows than ever before. As I watch these dinosaur-like creatures stand motionless, I cannot help thinking my new friends on the other side of this gate do not benefit from this injected hormone in the least.

Bovine Somatropin is naturally act...

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... Controversial Bovine Growth Hormone."

Milkweed June 2004. 1 Dec. 2004

<http://www.organicconsumers.org/rbgh/phaseout062904.cfm>.

7) recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone vs. Organic Dairy. Organic Consumers

Association. 1 Dec. 2004 <http://www.organicconsumers.org/rbghlink.html>.

8) Roseboro, Ken. Consumers Willing to Pay More for rBGH-Free Milk. Nov.

2003. 1 Dec. 2004

<http://www.organicconsumers.org/rbgh/paymore112403.cfm>.

[1] Berning

[2] Aggio 12

[3] Aggio 13

[4] Berning

[5] Aggio 5

[6] Aggio 4

[7] Aggio 4

[8] Aggio 16

[9] Aggio 17

[10] Aggio 16

[11] Aggio 16

[12] Boisvert 283

[13] Aggio 1

[14] Aggio 6

[15] “recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone v. Organic Dairy”

[16] “Monsanto Likely Phasing Out…”

[17] Aggio 21

[18] Hardin 1

[19] Hardin 1

[20] Aggio 4

[21] Roseboro 1

[22] Aggio 59

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