Former dairy farmer Jessica Strathdee is now a campaigner for animal rights and veganism.

Guilt-ridden and "losing her mind with grief" after four years on a dairy farm, Jessica Strathdee thought about taking her own life.

"Mothers were birthing outside my window and I was listening to their labour pains all night, then watching them loving and cleaning their babies until my partner came with the tractor and the cage and took those babies away from them forever," she says.

"I almost lost my mind with grief then, I couldn't believe what I had been so complicit in and what evil I had been closing my eyes and heart to while I lived there."

A new mother herself during that season, Strathdee says she became "very unbalanced".

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"Even my love for my son wouldn't have kept me on this earth with the horror I was guilty of inflicting."

It was a complete 180-degree turn for Strathdee, who was a self-declared "ignorant meat and dairy consumer" when she arrived on the west Canterbury farm in 2013.

JOSEPH JOHNSON/STUFF Once an "ignorant meat and dairy consumer", Jessica Strathdee is now a vegan and animal rights campaigner.

Her partner, Andrew Limbe, was second-in-command on the 600-cow farm while Strathdee worked as a relief milker and calf-rearer around her university studies.

The couple joined an 8400-strong dairy workforce in the region, which is home to more than 950,000 dairy cows, 16 per cent of the national herd.

In the 2018 dairy season, milk production contributed $2.6 billion to the regional economy, according to DairyNZ.

It was an industry Strathdee was initially happy, even proud, to be part of.

"I thought it was great when we arrived. I loved milking, I had a real sense of pride and sisterhood with the cows."

GRANT MATTHEW/STUFF Calves are usually separated from their mothers within 24 hours. (File photo)

Although she knew cows needed to have calves to produce milk, Strathdee had never given much thought to the almost immediate separation of those calves from their mothers.

That changed on the first day of calving.

"I just looked at the pen full of babies covered in afterbirth, their navels still bloody, and thought, 'f..., these are real babies'," she says.

"I realised what it took to get the milk. They weren't machines, they were babies who wanted their mums."

DairyNZ strategy and investment leader, Dr Jenny Jago, says animal welfare is "absolutely crucial to dairy farmers" because they care for and value their cows.

While some people disagreed with the practice of separating calves from their mothers, it was best farming practice, she says.

"This allows the farmer to ensure the calf gets an adequate amount of colostrum milk which reduces the risk of infection and provides energy."

Jago says calves are generally removed from cows within 24 hours, as research had shown there was increasing risk of them not getting the milk they needed beyond that time.

Calves are reared in groups which allows them to bond and play together, she says.

But Strathdee says there is no justification for the fate of the more than 1.7 million bobby calves trucked off the country's dairy farms each year.

Of about five million calves born every season, about 30 per cent are raised as replacement dairy cattle and 30 per cent for beef.

The remainder are "bobby" calves, surplus to requirements, and destined for an early death.

"They're taken from their mothers and they're sent away to slaughter at four days old, just so we can take their milk.

"There's no excuse for that, none."

Strathdee says it was impossible to disengage from what she saw while working in the calf pens that first year and she cried every day for two weeks.

By her fourth season, she had reached breaking point.

Strathdee says the only way to survive was to get off the farm, even if that meant leaving her partner of 16 years.

When she spoke up, Limbe admitted he was also too broken and miserable to work another season.

The couple agreed to leave the farm, with Limbe telling Strathdee their house would become vegan the day they drove out the gate.

"I became an animal rights activist at that time and we both committed to living a vegan life."

Her relief to be off the farm was immense but Strathdee says she is still haunted by memories of the farm and had "huge guilt" leaving the cows.

"I knew I was effectively abandoning all those mothers and babies to their horrible fate. The fate that I was guilty of dealing them while I worked there."

TONY BENNY/STUFF Canterbury is home to more than 950,000 dairy cows, 16 per cent of the national herd. (File photo)

The couple still live in rural Canterbury, and Strathdee is a stay-at-home mum to their two children, working towards a double degree in politics and social policy.

She is also a vocal campaigner for animal rights and veganism and set up the New Zealand branch of United States-based group Mothers Against Dairy (MAD).

Under the MAD banner, Strathdee organised nationwide protests at Fonterra's recent Open Gates events and says the group is just getting started.

"People are waking up to what really happens on farms and where their food comes from, how it's grown. Word is spreading."

Strathdee is playing an increasingly large part in that, having crowdfunded billboards in Dunedin and Christchurch, one of which will soon be sent to Auckland for display. A third is in the works.

In August, she spoke at an animal rights march in August, urging Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to take animal welfare seriously after Ardern said she couldn't go vegan because she "loves cheese".

She also issued a warning to Fonterra that its time was up and change was coming.

A Facebook clip of the speech has been viewed more than 120,000 times.

JOSEPH JOHNSON/STUFF Strathdee says if she had her way, her children would grow up in a world without dairy farming.

Strathdee says there have been both positive and negative responses to her campaigning.

She has been contacted by farm workers going through the same ethical dilemma she experienced and takes each of those conversations as a win.

She's also been the target of hate and has received death threats but is unperturbed.

"People are constantly coming at me but I just block and ignore.

"I've had people tell me they'll call the authorities because we're 'abusing' our kids by raising them vegan," she says.

"Our kids are plump and healthy and I don't think anyone who knows us would ever comment on how we're raising them."

If she had it her way, Strathdee and Limbe would raise their boys in a world without any dairy farming.

"There's no way to ethically exploit motherhood. There's not a better way to do a wrong thing and I don't believe dairy has a long-term future."

Nor does she buy into farmers' claims they love their cows and struggle with the emotional toll of caring for sick or injured animals.

"You hear about these farmers who are 'broken' when they lose an animal but two hours later they're off taking calves off their mothers again," she says.

"I really don't believe this representation of farmers loving their cows – they wouldn't treat their dogs the way they treat their cows."

BARRY HARCOURT/STUFF Strathdee says dairy farmers are "too exhuasted and broken" to deal with the realities of an industy designed to numb them. DairyNZ disagrees. (File photo)

Strathdee also shrugs off suggestions she wasn't cut out for the industry.

"I might have been 'too soft' for farming but that says more about farming than about me," she says.

"I wouldn't ever want to be 'hard enough' to be OK with what I saw."

Instead, she says the industry is designed to numb people to the realities of their jobs.

"They're long, tiring days and people get to a point where they can't process what they're seeing, what they're really part of.

"They're too exhausted and broken to deal with it."

However, Jago disagrees the industry is designed to numb its workers or that the country's dairy farmers are exhausted or broken.

"Every farm is different, and it is never easy hearing about people who have had challenging farming experiences several years ago.

"There are 12,000 dairy farmers in New Zealand that care about, and enjoy working with, their animals."

Strathdee says discovering the joy of working with animals herself was the sole silver lining to her dairy farming experience.

"I was never an animal lover before this, but one beautiful and ironic thing that came from moving to a dairy farm and abusing cows is this huge love I now have for all animals.

"I've been truly humbled by their majesty and innocence and I wish I could protect them all, and give them the free lives they so rightly deserve, as much as any of us deserve it."

WHERE TO GET HELP

1737, Need to talk? – Free call or text 1737 to talk to a trained counsellor

Lifeline.org.nz – 0800 543 354 (open 24/7)

Rural Support Trust – 0800 787 254 (0800 RURAL HELP)

Depression.org.nz – 0800 111 757 or text 4202

Suicide Crisis Helpline – 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO)

Youthline.co.nz – 0800 376 633, free text 234, email talk@youthline.co.nz

Kidsline.org.nz – 0800 54 37 54 for people up to 18 years old (open 24/7)

thelowdown.co.nz – Web chat, email chat or free text 5626

Supporting Families in Mental Illness - 0800 732 825