We recently wrote about the false divide between “research” animals and “farmed” animals—a case that Rise for Animals will be making at the upcoming Animal & Vegan Advocacy Conference.
Animal research and animal agriculture are part of one industry that profits from breeding, exploiting, harming, and killing living beings.
Industry infrastructure overlaps. Industry rationale and tactics are shared. And industry victims are often one and the same.
Consider cows—”giant puppies” who are among the most oppressed of all nonhuman animals.
Cows are exploited in pieces.
Their flesh is torn from their bodies and sold as “meat.”
The milk they produce for their babies is sucked from their teats and sold for human consumption.
Their skin is stripped and made into “leather.”
Their blood is drained for a laboratory “serum.”
But cows are also exploited in whole.
They are used as research subjects in the name of “science.”
Researchers force cows to serve as “models” for humans and for their very own exploitation. They become dual victims in the industry’s quest to make their bodies, their body parts, and their babies ever more profitable.
Cows are both farmed animals and research animals, often at the very same time. Official records make that truth impossible to deny.
Here are five recent examples pulled directly from federal government records:
(1) Cows Burned, Neglected, Killed
An employee at Middle Tennessee State University reported witnessing horrors at the school’s “dairy unit:”
- A cow died in a pasture after being burned with a torch and having a deceased calf “pulled” from her body.
- A cow was left “down” in the “milking parlor” without help for up to 45 minutes.
- A cow’s heart “blew up” after having too much calcium pumped into it too quickly.
(2) Baby Cows Killed in “Dairy” Research
At the University of New Hampshire, four baby cows reportedly died after being tube-fed incorrectly as part of a study involving a milk replacer intended for use in “dairy cows.”
According to the complaint, baby cows should be standing or sternal when tube-fed, but those who died were “tubed” while they were lying on their sides.
(3) Calves Sent From Farm to Lab to Farm
At Pennsylvania State College of Medicine:
- Researchers procure victims from “local dairy farms.” Calves who would typically be killed—“bull calves or female calves that will not be used as replacement heifers shortly after birth”—are sent from the farm to the university for experimentation and other use. Some have devices implanted into their hearts. Others are used as blood donors until they reach a certain size; then, they are either returned to the dairy farm or sold at “livestock” auctions.
- Researchers euthanized a baby cow after she failed to recover from fentanyl. The calf had undergone surgery involving a thoracotomy—a surgical incision through the chest to access the organs inside. After being given two doses of naloxone in an attempt to reverse the anesthesia, she continued to decline and was ultimately killed.
(4) Mothers and Babies Surgically Torn Apart
At West Texas A&M University, a complainant reported deteriorating “animal welfare conditions” at the university’s “cow/calf facility”—as well as the sense that faculty is “less concerned with the welfare of the animals and more concerned with entertaining students during these intense medical procedures.” Among the allegations:
- An “accidentally” pregnant, 15-month-old cow—who was not in labor—was subjected to a c-section as part of a demonstration. Her baby was ripped from her womb two weeks premature. Students were told these conditions would likely jeopardize the baby’s survival. (When questioned about the ethics of performing this surgery, the veterinarian dismissed concerns as “simply a difference in opinion” and characterized the display as “a great teaching experience.”) The baby was separated from her mother, left in a draft, and reported as weak, shivering, and unwilling or unable to either stand or nurse from a bottle. There was little communication about care for the calf, and there was no communication about post-surgical care for her mother.
- A c-section was performed on a downed cow inside a livestock trailer. No medical records were generated, and the cow is not believed to have survived.
- An increased death rate “among the cow herd” was not investigated. No treatment records for the cows existed prior to their deaths, and no records of post-mortem examinations were found. The dead cows’ bodies were summarily dumped on a “compost pile.”
- Older, thinner or underweight cows had “embryos with large birth weights” forced into their wombs. This “intentionally” caused dystocias (difficult, stalled, or obstructed labor) and resulted in cows becoming downed and being killed.
(5) Lactating Cows Burned by Chemicals
Lactating cows in the University of Florida’s “Dairy Unit” were doused with “a concentrated commercial grade disinfectant and cleaner (Taskforce)” after staff mistook it for a “‘pour on’ insecticide.” The cows suffered chemical burns that resulted in hair loss, skin scaling, and skin sloughing.
These five records do not depict isolated incidents. They evidence a unified industry that moves animals and information across its own machinery: farm to lab, lab to farm.
The records show that the division between animal labs and animal farms has always been artificial.
A cow can be down in a “milking parlor” or cut open inside a “livestock” trailer while trapped by a university research program—not a factory farm.
A calf can be born on a farm, sent to a lab, and, then, returned to the farm when researchers are done with her.
Both animal research and animal agriculture exist to control animal bodies, to commodify lives, and to inflict violence—often on the very same victims, and often on cows.
We cannot let industry define cows by the violence it inflicts on them.
Cows are not “meat.”
They are not milk or serum machines.
They are not leather.
They are not “models” for others.
They are not teaching tools or test subjects.
They are not disposable bodies.