Cows and calves lead a cruel existence in the dairy industry. Newborn calves are usually separated from their mothers immediately after birth.
The female offspring usually suffers the same exploitative fate as the mothers and is also intended for milk production.
At the age of about one year, female calves are artificially inseminated for the first time. After birth, they are separated from their child and then milked for the first time.

The dairy industry employs obnoxious and manipulative practices to calm cows during milking and to resolve so-called milk blockages.

Panicked cows in the milking parlour

Young cows in particular sometimes fight back during the milking process.
They don’t stand still in the milking parlor and can’t stand having their udders touched by people and their mother’s milk milked by machines.
The young animals are afraid, panic and try to defend themselves with kicks.

In view of this defensive behavior, the dairy industry does not conclude that they should leave the animals alone and stop stealing their mother’s milk.
Rather, she fixes the young cows with so-called hip restraints or stirrups.
The arched metal devices are clamped around the cow’s waist so that she cannot defend herself with kicks.

In addition, the animals are often injected with synthetically produced oxytocin. The so-called “mother-child hormone” is supposed to calm the cow so that she willingly “gives” her milk.

BlowFixx blows air into cows’ vaginas

It is difficult for us to understand how people came up with the idea of blowing air into the genitals of cows so that they “give away” their mother’s milk.
Unfortunately, the dairy industry is unaware that human beings do not need non-native breast milk – and certainly not in adulthood.

On the contrary, the exploitative industry has even developed a special device that uses a stainless steel probe to blow air into the animals’ vaginas in order to be able to milk young, frightened cows better.

This device is called “BlowFixx”.
In the past, some dairy farms are said to have used garden hoses for the heinous practice, which can sometimes be difficult to insert into the animal’s vagina due to their mobility.

Cows are not milk machines

At PETA, we are appalled at the normality with which these disgusting devices are advertised.
Rather than face the obvious question of why cows don’t want to be milked and stop exploiting the animals, the dairy industry resorts to unsavory manipulation and relegates cows to milk machines.

Cattle are social and affectionate animals that naturally take great care of their children and provide them with the best possible supply from their mother’s milk.
Applying the disgusting practices of the dairy industry to dogs or cats would cause a societal outcry – and rightly so.
The classification of different animal species into so-called pets and so-called livestock is man-made.
It rests on a deeply speciesist mindset that urgently needs to end.

Whether cows continue to be deprived of their mother’s milk is in our hands. Please reach for plant-based milk alternatives to break this painful, speciesistic cycle.

With our free and non-binding Veganstart program, you can easily start an animal-friendly life. The vegan lifestyle offers far-reaching benefits – for the animals, our environment and our health.
It’s best to try it out today!

https://www.peta.de/themen/kuh-melken-manipulation/

Milk is one of the staple foods for many people – but they are clearly in the minority.
A large part of the world’s population does not tolerate milk.
Around three quarters of all people worldwide are lactose intolerant: They lack lactase, i.e. the enzyme that can process lactose in the body.
In Europe, around 30 percent of adults suffer from lactose intolerance. For them, milk consumption leads to abdominal pain, bloating and flatulence.

The countries in which milk is not a staple food clearly show that people can survive and even live healthily without cow’s milk.

There is hardly a food that is more unnatural for humans than animal milk.
As with all mammals, this substance is designed to nurture a newborn of its own kind.
In order for humans to be able to obtain cow’s milk, for example, the calf must first be removed from the only natural food chain.

This is done by snatching the children from the mother cow immediately after birth.
In order to deliver the quantities that are required, the whole thing is now even being carried out industrially and the cows in this perverse machine are artificially inseminated every year and are practically permanently pregnant for the rest of their lives.

And all this just so that Homo sapiens can also consume the mother’s milk of another species in adulthood.
Anyone who confuses that with naturalness is either an idiot or an ignoramus

My best regards to all, Venus

New whistleblower footage shows piglets with their heads stuck between metal bars at this Iowa Select Farms facility. Activists visited the farm to demand a response from local authorities.

https://fb.watch/aNmVcs7QXQ/

Direct Action Everywhere – DxE posted a video to the Trial in Iowa playlist for Exposing “Ventilation Shutdown”.

Direct Action Everywhere
TAKE ACTION: Call the Grundy County Sheriff and ask them to help these pigs — (319) 824-6933

https://www.facebook.com/directactioneverywhere/

And I mean…Some people have responded and called the police.
Here is some messages on Facebook:

“1.Just called and was only told that it is an ongoing investigation and that they don’t provide updates on anything ongoing.
Hopefully if enough people keep calling, they will feel some need to do something.

2.I just called someone answered and they hung up on me once I said it was about this farm. More people need to call because being hung up on is really bad.

3. i just called. the officer said it’s ongoing. i said thank you for your attention he said ‘you bet’. I really want the suffering to end. how much more of this tragedy do we have to witness for it to end? no excuse for animal abuse. these are innocent babies.Just called and was only told that it is an ongoing investigation and that they don’t provide updates on anything ongoing.
Hopefully if enough people keep calling, they will feel some need to do something”

Big thanks to the brave activists of DxE!!

Actually this is a case for the veterinary office.
Which here in Germany and for similar crimes in farms repeatedly failed cracked.

We see animals being abused by professionals, animals eating each other and being horribly disfigured, animals dying helplessly and not even getting the minimal help they deserve…
And as if that weren’t an obvious crime on the part of the Iowa Select Farms, its faithful servants want to declare this place of horror as their personal domain, their high private property including living beings being tortured and massacred.

The police have become accustomed to violence, is nothing more than a necessary evil that goes with it.
We live in a society in which severe violence against animals is considered a trifle.

We must not make it easy for them.
Call and forcefully request the police officers to do their job.
Finally they are paid by us.

My best regards to all, Venus

From 2023, 3000 tons of octopus meat could be produced annually on the Canary Island of Gran Canaria.
Science and animal welfare protest. Because octopuses are highly intelligent and sensitive

Octopuses are amazing creatures.
With their eight arms and sac-like body, they appear alien – and yet they are more similar to us humans than most vertebrates: they have an excellent memory, they plan, deceive, play.
They manage to open child-resistant screw caps.
They even have distinct personalities, being shy, curious, or reckless.
They have likes or dislikes of their own kind as well as people.

And something else makes octopuses special: they are difficult to reproduce in captivity. But that’s exactly what a Spanish company has managed to do.

According to the Nueva Pescanova Group, octopuses could be bred for several generations in their own aquaculture for the first time.
In the summer of 2022, the first animals should come onto the market.

President of the Las Palmas Port Authority port Luis Ibarra said “it was the biggest private Investment in the history of the port which will create 450 jobs and make the Las Palmas Harbour-La Luz- the world`s biggest exporter of octopus”

From 2023, 3,000 tons of octopus meat (!!) are to be produced annually on the Spanish Canary Island of Gran Canaria, for example for popular dishes such as “Pulpo a la Gallega”.
The company is investing around 65 million euros in the project. The targeted main customer countries are Spain, Italy, Greece and Japan.

Does aquaculture relieve the marine ecosystems?

It is estimated that around 350,000 tons of octopus are caught and processed worldwide every year – about ten times as much as in 1950.
The Nueva Pescanova Group argues that the number of wild catches can be reduced by around ten percent with production in aquaculture.
Whether the pressure on wild populations caused by factory farming will actually decrease is anything but clear.

Biologists and animal rights activists warn – on the contrary – that aquaculture is increasing the pressure on marine ecosystems. Because many edible fish are – like octopuses – carnivores.
Already today, around a third of the global catches are fed to animals, around half of them in aquaculture.

According to critics, it is also certain that octopuses cannot be kept anywhere near species-appropriate in aquaculture.
Unlike fish, the intelligent octopuses in their water tanks would be aware of their hopeless situation.
And they are loners.

It seems unlikely that this elementary need of the animals is taken into account in mass aquaculture.
Especially since there are hardly any legal regulations for keeping them: Most national and EU keeping requirements relate to vertebrates.

Housing conditions and method of killing: unknown

It is also to be feared that speed is more important than avoiding stress and pain when slaughtering on assembly lines.
When asked by the British BBC, the company declined to comment on the husbandry of the octopuses, the origin of the food or the killing method.

As early as 2019, scientists had declared that breeding octopuses in captivity for food purposes was a “terrible idea”.
And not only from an environmental point of view, but also from a moral point of view.

The company is yet to reveal exactly what the octopus tanks look like, what “toys” they claim to use for stimulation and what source of food they will rely on
On paper, however, the claims are noble.
According to the authors, keeping octopuses in aquaculture with high animal welfare standards is “impossible”.

The clever cephalopods already enjoy better legal protection in the United Kingdom than in Spain.
Experts there had viewed more than 300 scientific studies – and had come to the conclusion that octopuses were “sentient beings”.
There is “strong scientific evidence” that animals can feel joy, but also pain, stress and despair.
The scientific assessment led to the inclusion of the animals in the Animal Welfare Bill.

https://www.geo.de/natur/tierwelt/unternehmen-will-kraken-in-aquakulturen-zuechten-31494072.html

And I mean…In a year when many countries have passed laws protecting species they believe are sentient beings, the news that the world’s first octopus farm has opened in the Canary Islands have understandably been met with shock, disgust and outrage around the world for every compassionate and civilized human being.

For the thousands of these animals will be bred and imprisoned in cruel, prison-like conditions.
Just like any animal in factory farming.

Known as the “Einsteins of the sea”, octopuses have large, complex brains.
In fact, they have nine: one central brain between the eyes and separate mini-brains at the base of each tentacle – meaning that each arm, quite literally, has a mind of its own.
They can navigate their way through mazes and remember the solutions.

They are solitary, territorial animals, as curious as humans, and cramming them into barren communal tanks or netted pools, with little or no stimulation – as is common of all factory farm systems – would condemn them to a miserable existence.
All agree that octopuses would suffer dreadfully in such conditions.

To make matters worse, there is currently no legislation in Spain, or elsewhere, to protect octopus welfare on farms or during their slaughter.

In reality, the farm – close to Las Palmas in Gran Canaria – means countless animals will spend their lives vulnerable to pain and suffering, and endure agonising deaths.

The solution, of course, is to stop eating octopuses – and, indeed, all animals.
Even if they’re not farmed, octopuses captured for food still suffer: they are often speared or burned with caustic chemicals to force them out of specialised traps.
Many are snared in massive, indiscriminate trawl nets.
On deck, if they’re not left to suffocate in agony, they’re clubbed, stabbed, or butchered alive.

To allow the world’s very first octopus factory farm to open, when we know and understand the impact it would have on these intelligent, feeling beings, would be a monstrous act and a shame on the Canary Islands government.

We must act quickly to prevent this farm from being built.
As soon as we have a petition about this, we will inform you further.

—Updated—Petition: https://www.peta.de/aktiv/krakenfarm-gran-canaria-petition/

My best regards to all, Venus