Does your milk come from tortured animals? If you buy milk from Dairy Farmers of America, such as Kemps®, Dairy Maid Dairy®, or Guida's Dairy® brand milk, the answer is probably yes. On farms that supply Dairy Farmers of America with milk, baby cows are dragged away from their moms just hours after being born. Mother cows have been known to wail all night in desperation after their babies have been taken away. These baby cows are then fed anemic diets and sold for veal, while the moms are treated as mere milk-producing machines. Ripping babies away from their mom just after they’re born is animal cruelty that no company with morals should support.

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Tell Dairy Farmers of America CEO Rick Smith to stop letting baby cows be taken away from their mothers. Act now!

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Dear Mr. Smith:

Dairy Farmers of America should be an industry leader. But by continuing to accept cruel practices like separating baby calves from their mothers just after they’re born, the company is failing both animals and consumers.

Moms and their babies deserve to be together. Tearing them apart can leave the mothers crying in desperation for days, and it denies baby calves the chance to bond and be nourished by their mothers’ milk.

To make matters worse, after these babies are ripped from their mothers’ sides they are locked alone inside tiny crates and have their tails hacked off and their budding horns painfully burned out of their skulls.

This cruelty must stop. Babies need their mothers, but in the dairy industry they know only misery and heartache.

Gone are the days when such blatant abuse could remain hidden behind the closed doors of factory farms. Consumers demand transparency and want the brands they buy to adhere to high animal welfare standards.

As one of the world’s largest dairy companies, Dairy Farmers of America has the power and ethical responsibility to help end needless cruelty to animals in its supply chain.

Please improve your animal welfare policy by ending these cruel practices. Don’t allow baby calves to be separated from their mothers just after they’re born. Put an end to other cruel practices, such as tail docking and dehorning, too. And stop confining calves to individual pens.

Thank you.

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The Dark Side of Dairy

Poked and Prodded

Like all mammals, cows must be pregnant or have just given birth to produce milk. Through artificial insemination, a highly invasive and stressful procedure repeated every 12 months, cows are kept in a constant cycle of pregnancy, birth, and lactation.

Separated at Birth

Once pregnant, a cow’s gestation period is nine months, just like a human’s. But newborn calves are dragged away from their mothers just after birth so their mothers’ milk can be sold for profit. After separation, mother cows often bellow for hours or even days, pacing and searching for their lost babies.

Painfully Mutilated

In a cruel standard practice even the industry itself deems unnecessary, workers cut off cows’ tails—and through sensitive nerves and bones—without painkillers. Cows also have their horns burned off, also without any anesthesia.

Sent to Slaughter

Because male calves don’t produce milk, they’re of no use to dairy farms and are often sold for veal. And after only a few years, a dairy cow’s body is so “spent” that she is sent to slaughter, most likely for hamburger meat.

Explore the Hidden Lives of Cows

Like humans, cows form close friendships. They choose to spend much of their time with two to four preferred companions. Cows also like to sleep close to their families, and their sleeping arrangements reflect their respective rankings in the social hierarchy.

Cows have great memories, and can learn and respond to their names. Research also shows that a mother cow's calls are individualized—she has a different call for each of her calves.

Cows get excited when they solve problems, and have a similarly happy response to being released after a long period of confinement. Cows also love music!

Though in the dairy industry cows are slaughtered much earlier, cows can naturally live from 15 to 25 years! The oldest recorded cow, Big Bertha, lived to be 48.

The best way for individual consumers to help end this cruelty is to leave animals off their plates.