More milk, more cruelty. The practice of keeping a dairy cow indoors on concrete and feeding her mainly grain — to stop her ‘wasting’ energy on walking and grazing — could be starting to take hold in Australia as industry demand for more milk at any cost seemingly ratchets up.
Signalling increased community concern, local residents in Gippsland recently rose up to defeat a proposed expansion of a dairy mega factory farm in the region, where 1,000 cows would have been kept largely indoors and their milk exported.