Cows live and die as slaves (Picture: Getty Images)

Cows in the UK are getting some long-awaited good news – there’s going to be a dairy shortage this year.

Farmers are going to be taking less of their milk to make into cream and butter, meaning the price of these things will go up by Christmas. This, in turn, will likely mean fewer people buy dairy stuff – which will mean farmers produce less.

Peder Tuborgh, chief executive of the world’s fourth-largest dairy company Arla, told the BBC that farmers would be producing less milk precisely because in previous years they had produced too much. Because of this, farmers had ‘put the brakes on’ in 2016.



All very, very good news for cows indeed – as well as for compassionate humans.


British dairy cows currently live out one of the most painful, miserable existences imaginable.

As soon as a cow is old enough to carry a calf to term, she is forcibly impregnated so that she’ll start to lactate.

But when her calf is born, instead of being able to care for them and raise them as any mother would want to, she has the baby taken away from her almost immediately.

Her calf will be taken away forcibly (Picture: Getty Images)

The mother will then let out one of the most tragic cries you’ll ever hear, confused and grieving for her lost child.

Farmers will then take her milk, which was meant for the baby she lost, for themselves.

Pubs and bars 'could close next week' as Boris Johnson urged 'act now'

Occasionally this will be done by hand, but most of the time she’ll be hooked up to a contraption that will milk her – and her fellow cows on the farm – automatically.

The fate of her baby, meanwhile, depends on their gender.

If they’re a girl, like their mum they’ll be sold into a life of torture and slavery.

If they’re a boy, however, they’ll be slaughtered – and served on people’s plates as ‘veal’.

Milking cups are attached to the teats of a cow in a rotary milking shed at a dairy farm (Picture: Getty Images)

Dairy farmed cows typically live until about five or six years of age, when the exhaustion of constant pregnancy, grief and milking finally takes its toll and they can’t lactate anymore.

Once they stop producing milk and they’re no longer considered useful to anyone, after everything they’ve been through just for the whims and ‘personal tastes’ of humans, they’re unceremoniously slaughtered.

Returning holidaymaker who went on a pub crawl 'responsible for Bolton spike'

And this is the endless cycle this cow, and all others like her, are subjected to.

Forced impregnation, pregnancy, childbirth, having her child taken away, being milked, forced impregnation, pregnancy… It goes on, endlessly, until one day she’s slaughtered at a tragically premature age.

They are born, they live, and then they die as slaves.

What a depressing life for someone to have forced upon them.

Cows stand in a rotary milking shed at a dairy farm (Picture: Getty Images)

In the wild, cows usually live to a comparatively ripe old age of around 15 to 20 – and those two decades of their lives wouldn’t have been characterised by systematic torture.



This is why vegans and people on plant-based diets should see the news of an impending dairy crisis as a good thing.

And those who don’t already steer clear of dairy should consider it.

Because even if you’re not dissuaded by the increasing prices, hopefully you’ll at least be put off by the horrific so-called ‘lives’ your fellow animals are forced to endure.

What can you use instead of dairy? BUTTER Pure do a whole range of vegan butter-type spreads. You can get a soya one, a sunflower one or an olive one. Big supermarkets like Sainsbury’s and Tesco also now do their own free-from versions of butter, which are usually made from soya or coconut. CREAM If you’re worried about cream on your mince pies at Christmas, don’t. Alpro do both soya cream and coconut cream, both sold in big supermarkets, while Oatly does a very good oat cream that is stocked in Tesco’s Free From section. MILK This is an easy one, because nowadays plant-based people are spoilt for choice when it comes to milk alternatives. You can get almond milk, soya milk, hemp milk, oat milk, rice milk and coconut milk – and most, if not all, of these are available in regular supermarkets. (At the very least, you should be able to find soya milk.) CHEESE It used to be pretty difficult to get hold of vegan cheese, but now you can even find it at major supermarkets. Vegans call the free-from cheese at Sainsbury’s ‘Gary’, which is a long story. ICE CREAM Again, you’ll find this in loads of places now. Walls’ vegan ice cream brand Swedish Glace is particularly easy to get hold of, and it’s really nice. Other good brands include Booja Booja and Coconut Collaborative.