Many consumers point to the small-scale use of animals for dairy— such as keeping one or two cows on a homestead— as ethical, when in reality these animals are still typically subjected to routine cruelty and indignity; and of course, all forms of dairy farming are based on the needless invasion and exploitation of motherhood for the purpose of stealing baby food made for baby animals.
The Plow & Flute, a “vedic eco-farm” and homesteading project that was coming together outside of Asheville, NC, is an example of the kinds of abuse even self-professed animal lovers will inflict on animals they see as resources to be exploited. In a blog post about piercing the noses of the mother cow that used to live on their property, Svati, whom they use for dairy, and her calf, they state that piercing the animals’ noses was necessary in order to be able to better control them, especially the calf, Sanatana, whom they wanted to prevent from nursing so they could take his milk for themselves. The horrific pain and violence inflicted on these animals in order to pierce their noses would land its perpetrators in jail if it were done to dogs or cats. The following photos and text are from their website:
“We purchased a 1/4” nail from the hardware store and sharpened it with a file. We then threaded a copper wire through the end of a cotton rope… When I initially tried to pierce his nose, the nail did not go in very easily and required a tremendous amount of force to finally puncture his skin. Once the nail was finally through, I removed it and tried to thread the rope through as shown in the video. Unfortunately, the rope didn’t go through as planned – it was too dry and was causing Sanātana too much pain. We therefore decided to put a temporary hitch pin in his nose (purchased from Tractor Supply) until we could figure out how to get the rope through less painfully.”
After Sanātana’s piercing, we didn’t really want to imagine what Svati’s would be like. Sanātana protested his piercing by kicking and running around the tree to which he was tied. After all of his protesting, he eventually fell over – what would it look like if Svati reacted the same?… We hastily put her in the wobbly milking stand, tied a rope around her snout to secure her head, and quickly put the needle through her nose. Her skin was even more dense than Sanātana’s, so I had to use all of my strength to get the needle through (it took about 3 tries.)”
The Plow & Flute eventually “gave away” their cows but started taking breast milk from goats. They haven’t shared updates on their project in a while and may have discontinued the project.
All photos originated from The Plow and Flute Website.
Asheville Dairy 