I will not give some buttered-up introduction designed to sway you emotionally on this topic. In fact, I will strive to do the exact opposite. Every claim I make will be backed by proven research and factual information in order to allow you to make your own well-informed conclusion. Some morsels of knowledge, of course, will come from my education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as an animal science major as well as from 2+ years of domestic and international dairy herd management experience. However, I will do my best to support even these outlandish claims with factual evidence.

There are a couple of hot phrases animal activists will throw around, namely by the “militant” vegan, which are based not on science but on a poor understanding of biological concepts. One claim which really gets me fired up goes a little something like this:

Dairy cows are raped and forcibly impregnated year after year.

I honestly don’t know exactly where to begin, but I think that a brief overview of how cattle reproduce is a good place to start.

First the basics. Female cattle are “heifers” before they have a calf, “cows” after they calve for the first time, and male cattle are “bulls”. A castrated bull is called a “steer”. I’m going to assume those reading this essay are familiar with the basic idea of fertilized cow eggs becoming cow fetuses, and instead cover what happens before any zygote implants itself in a uterine horn.

Cows, unlike humans, do not experience a menstrual cycle. Instead, their reproductive system goes through what is called the estrous cycle. The estrous cycle lasts about 18-24 days for most cows, and begins after a heifer’s first ovulation (when she enters puberty) or following postpartum anestrous. The estrous cycle gives cows the chance to get pregnant only once about every 21 days, depending on the individual. This process is regulated by several hormones, including:

Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH)

Luteinizing Hormone (LH)

Estradiol [estrogen] (E)

Progesterone (P)

Gonadotropin Releasing Hormone (GnRH)

Prostaglandin F2α (PG)

Some other important biological structures are:

Ovaries: part of the female reproductive system, where eggs are housed

Follicles: cellular aggregation that surrounds eggs

Corpus Luteum: hormone-secreting structure that forms after a follicle ovulates, will degenerate unless pregnancy occurs

A breakdown of this cycle goes as follows:

At “Day 0”, a cow is in estrus. Often called Standing Estrus or Standing Heat, this is the only time a cow will stand to be mounted by a bull. In other words, she’s sexually receptive. Sometimes cows will show signs of agitation or anxiety before entering this stage, such as pacing fence lines or vocalizing more than she normally does. Before a cow enters standing estrus, she may herself attempt to mount other animals. However: cows are only definitively in estrus if they stand calmly to be mounted by other animals. This period can range anywhere from 6 to 24 hours. After standing estrus, the dominant follicle present on the ovary will ovulate (release the egg contained).

Ovulation occurs between 24 and 32 hours after her standing estrus has started, and the egg will travel through the female reproductive tract to be fertilized. The follicle cells will turn into luteal cells and form the corpus luteum, whose primary purpose is to secrete progesterone.

Progesterone is necessary to establish and maintain a pregnancy. If the uterus fails to detect a pregnancy (fertilized egg), Prostaglandin F2α (PG) is released at around day 17 of estrus. This lyses the corpus luteum, which takes about 3-5 days to regress, allowing follicles to become dominant and ovulate again. Should the cow be pregnant, the embryo prevents the release of PG. P is still secreted by the CL, and pregnancy is maintained. The fetus is born a calf around 283 days post fertilization.

So, how do follicles arise on the ovary? This process occurs in waves. Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH) concentrations increase after ovulation, which causes the recruitment of a cohort of follicles on the ovary at the beginning of each follicular wave. The follicles continue to grow, while some regress, until only one remains. Luteinizing Hormone (LH) increases now as FSH decreases, responsible for keeping the follicle growing. This follicle will mature and eventually ovulate, unless there is PG present. (In the presence of PG the follicles will fail to ovulate and regress, restarting the wave.)

The dominant follicle on the ovary will release estrogen (E). E works its way to the cow’s brain and when in a high enough concentration (in the absence of progesterone) will trigger a release of Gonadotropin Releasing Hormone (GnRH). The GnRH surge leads to an LH surge which causes the dominant follicle to ovulate. This E present is also responsible for the standing estrus behavior seen in cows before their follicles ovulate.

Note: Each cow typically goes through 2-3 follicular waves before the corpus luteum regresses and the cow can re-enter estrus.

Here’s an image from the University of Pennsylvania that helps tie these concepts together.

So what does this have to do with rape?

First, let’s throw out some definitions of the word rape. Merriam Webster’s definition:

1: unlawful sexual activity and usually sexual intercourse carried out forcibly or under threat of injury against a person’s will or with a person who is beneath a certain age or incapable of valid consent because of mental illness, mental deficiency, intoxication, unconsciousness, or deception 2: an outrageous violation

Dictionary.com:

1: unlawful sexual intercourse or any other sexual penetration of the vagina, anus, or mouth of another person, with or without force, by sex organ, other body part, or foreign object without the consent of the victim

Something I cannot stress enough in this instance is that “rape” is a term we use to apply to humans. Humans are raped. Cows are not. How can I be so sure?

Rape occurs in the absence of consent, correct? How does a cow consent to being bred? How do farmers know their cows are consenting to the breeding process? She enters standing estrus. A cow will only “consent” to a bull mounting her when she is in this stage of her cycle, as mentioned before. This is the only time when farmers breed their cows, because inseminating a cow that won’t ovulate soon is a waste of everyone’s time and money. So if there are animal activists out there who really want to apply human concepts to animals, (a process known as anthropomorphization), rape just doesn’t apply to this situation.

Dairy farmers typically artificially inseminate their cows. This means rectally palpating a cow (with lots of lube and gloves) to manually adjust the uterus so a narrow AI “gun” with semen can be inserted through a cow’s many cervical folds in an attempt to get the cow pregnant with as few tries as possible. Because dairy farming is a business in our capitalistic economy, farmers need to obtain as much output from their animals as possible. This means breeding cows once a year, so they can enter a lactation cycle every year.

“Then stop breeding them! Let them choose to get pregnant!”

If cows are left with bulls, they will get pregnant. This is how many beef operations breed their cows; they turn a bull out with the cows and let nature do its thing. Cows will still produce one calf a year. After she calves, as soon as she enters the estrus stage of her cycle, she will again stand to be mounted.

Really, the only way to avoid cows getting pregnant once a year is to house only females together. Or castrate all bulls and keep them with the cows. Or prevent cows from cycling by destroying or inhibiting their reproductive organs. But if vegans and animal activists strive for the most natural life an animal can get, none of these options are “natural”. The most natural scenario would be cows and bulls roaming a wide open territory.

Which is the caveat to all of this: dairy cattle are domestic animals. They are not wild bison, nor are they free-running white tailed deer. These animals did not arise naturally. Dairy cows have been selectively bred for centuries to produce milk for human consumption, and the current market conditions and technological advances in science allow us to use cattle biology and genomics to increase their productivity.

You can hash out the ethics of artificial insemination all you want, but please, for the sake of human victims everywhere, please keep the word “rape” out of your mouth when you lament animal agriculture.

It is false.

REFERENCES

Parish JA, Larson JE, Vann RC. The Estrous Cycle of Cattle. 2010 [accessed 2018 Jul 12]. http://extension.msstate.edu/sites/default/files/publications/publications/p2616.pdf

Perry G. The Bovine Estrous Cycle. Beef Reproduction. 2004 Jan [accessed 2018 Jul 12]. https://beefrepro.unl.edu/pdfs/estrouscycle.pdf

The Estrus Cycle and Follicular Waves. Field Service. 2003 [accessed 2018 Jul 12]. http://cal.vet.upenn.edu/projects/fieldservice/Dairy/REPRO/estfolwv.htm

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