NEXT time you reach for the milk, a new advertising campaign wants you to spare a thought for all the newborn calves that died so you can drink it.

According to Animals Australia, "the questionable ethics behind milk production" is a long-held secret of the dairy industry.

The animal welfare group, which brought the live cattle export trade to Indonesia to a halt, is pushing for Australians to choose "calcium-rich dairy alternatives that are kind to calves".

The alleged "secret" is that most dairy farms take calves away from their mothers within the first 12 hours and after five days they are sent off to slaughter - the national toll is about 700,000 a year.

Yet not all farmers slaughter their newborn calves.

The biodynamic B.-d. Farm Paris Creek in the Adelaide Hills produces a premium product that costs more than twice as much as the home brand Coles or Woolworths milk.

Every calf stays with its mother for the first few days. Then the calf joins other calves in a special calf yard and the mother goes in before milking to feed her calf.

A calf will get fresh milk direct from its mother or another mother cow for several weeks.

Managing director Ulli Spranz says the female calves grow up to become milkers and the bull calves are sold.

"We have a list of interested people on hand, and as we calve all year round, we always have a few calves available or we have a cow calving soon," she said.

"If we have a build-up, we raise them and sell them after several months to be slaughtered close by and sent to a butchery."

Dairy Australia estimates 700,000 calves are commercially slaughtered in Australia every year, and 70,000 are killed on the farm or sold for dairy beef rearing.

The figures are based on a national herd of 1.6 million dairy cows, each giving birth once every 13 months to keep the milk flowing. About 5 per cent of the calves die at or soon after birth.

Of the remainder, half are female and most of these (80 per cent) grow up to become dairy cows. But the males are of little use.

The dairy industry - worth $4 billion at the farm gate, $12 billion wholesale and $2.9 billion in exports - has developed standards to protect those calves travelling long distances without food.

It proposed a maximum of 30 hours from the time of last feeding to the next feed, or slaughter. But state agriculture ministers have been unable to agree.

In South Australia, about 48,000 "non-replacement calves" are born every year. Most face commercial slaughter at five to seven days of age. They are taken to a collection point, fed and then trucked to Victoria.

When they arrive at the abattoir they usually have to wait to be killed the following morning, which can mean they have gone a day or more without food.

SA Agriculture Minister Gail Gago supports the industry proposal, which gives farmers some leeway in those instances where a truck breaks down or is otherwise delayed on the long journey interstate. Unfortunately there are no SA abattoirs willing to accept bobby calves.

"The alternative to transport is for farmers to kill the calves on property, with resultant problems of humane killing and carcass disposal," Ms Gago said.

"I'd like to see processing capability established in South Australia and I've asked the department to investigate this possibility."

Animals Australia and the RSPCA strongly oppose the proposal. Animals Australia has urged that, as a minimum, new collection and transport arrangements be put in place to ensure no calves are kept overnight at abattoirs.

THE industry defends its proposal with University of Melbourne research, funded by the dairy industry and the Federal Government.

That study found 30 hours "with good practice in other aspects of calf management and transport is defensible as an outer `legal' limit for time off feed for bobby calves".

However, it also says "best practice management of transported calves would involve time off feed not longer than around 24 hours".

Blood glucose remained relatively stable for about 18 hours after feeding and then showed a steady decline, the study showed. At 30 hours, seven out of 59 cows (12 per cent) had blood glucose levels "below the lower reference value".

Animals Australia commissioned a critical review of the study, by the Centre for Animal Welfare at the University of Queensland.

The authors believed the calves in the original study "experienced hunger for the majority of the study and probably tiredness as well".

They also said it was regrettable hormones connected with stress were not measured.

Animals Australia executive director Glenys Oogjes says she wants to make people more aware of the issues and ensure the dairy industry takes animal welfare more seriously.

She was brought up on a dairy farm, but no longer drinks milk. She's not asking other consumers to go that far because "it's a personal decision", but she wants all Australians to make decisions with their "eyes wide open".

The four-minute video circulating on the web is a real eye-opener and tear-jerker. It's difficult to watch and then feel the same way about milk again.

South Australian Dairy Farmers Association president David Basham, who is also the animal welfare chairman for Australian Dairy Farmers, says he hasn't watched the entire video.

"They're very good at using emotive messages in their videos, trying to raise people's emotions," Mr Basham says.

"When you think about anything going to be killed for human consumption it's not a nice thing ... but it's done in the most humane, welfare-conscious way that we as a society can think to do it."