1. Calves are not allowed their share of milk. We consume the milk that rightfully belongs to them. Newly born male calves are subjected to the worst torture. Some are sold for slaughter, or sent away to fend for themselves. Others are tied to a pole and suffer seven days of starvation before being delivered from their misery by death. Their carcasses are collected to make ‘ahimsic' leather products.
   
   
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   In the West, they are sold to veal farms often on the day of birth, to endure 14 - 17 weeks of torment in veal crates. The small crates prevent movement, leaving their muscles tender, and an anaemia inducing diet keeps their meat white. Some male calves have their stomachs slit soon after birth, while they are still alive, to make rennet for the cheese industry. In India this is supposed to be banned in favour of microbial rennet. Heart-rending scenes bear testimony to the anguish suffered by cows at the repeated loss of their young. Female calves are brought up to join their mothers as milk producers. Even ‘goshalas', built for the welfare of cows, separate the calf from its mother in order to milk her.

1. Cows are subjected to daily oxytocin injections causing excruciating labour-like pains, in the hope of increasing the milk flow.
2. Cows naturally produce milk for two, even three years when nursing their calves. In the absence of the calf they dry earlier. To keep the milk flowing cows and buffaloes are artificially inseminated within just 2 months of giving birth! The animal has to produce milk while pregnant. The result, she is spent after about 4 pregnancies and must be retired (slaughtered). The average life span of a cow is 26 years yet today most live no more than 6 - 8 years.
3. Hybrid cows in the West produce ten times more milk than normal and invariably suffer from mastitis, an inflammation of their heavy udders, resulting in pus in the milk. Although these breeds do not survive well in India there are repeated attempts to introduce them.
4. Cattle are left to roam and find food themselves. They feed on roadside garbage supplemented with some feed by their owners. Many die prematurely from stomachs obstructed by plastic bags.
   
   
   
   
   
5. Cows are tied to posts with short ropes and spend hours in the heat of the sun, on the roadsides without water.
   
   
   
   
   Others spend their lives in over crowded city shelters standing on concrete floors in their own excreta, instead of in fields. They get very little fresh air and exercise resulting in widespread disease. Many of Mumbai's cows suffer from tuberculosis and mastitis. Pasteurization does not kill the TB bacilli, which may be passed to the consumer.
   
   
6. Bullocks often collapse while transporting large loads in the hot sun without rest, food and water.
   
   
7. Milking machines, if used, cause injuries and bleeding of the udder. They occasionally give electric shock causing considerable discomfort, fear and impaired immunity, sometimes leading to death.
   
   
8.  In many states cow slaughter is forbidden but keeping an animal that is non productive is unaffordable. These animals are clandestinely slaughtered without stunning, or are transported under abysmal conditions to distant slaughter-houses and often slaughtered in front of one another.
   
   
   
   

As long as we continue to exploit the cow for her milk and hide and other body products this slaughter will not stop. If we really want to protect the cow, we have to stop using ALL products, which come from the cow.