As I said, I’m vegetarian mostly for environmental reasons and I’m okay with killing animals as long as they’re allowed to live a dignified life and the killing is done in a humane way. Both of these are ensured by the EU-BIO regulations and even more so by the Bioland, Naturland and Demeter labels.

Again, for me a dignified life includes, access to fresh pastures, a herd and enough room and shelter for the animals. Meat cattle get all of those in organic farms and that’s good enough for me.

Most male calves are sold into organic meat farms once they reach 6 months. As far as I know they’re raised further till they’re fully grown at around two years old. But I’m no expert on this. From time to time we keep one for the herd.

Female calves are either sold to other organic dairy farms or we keep them and raise them ourselves. No calf is killed except for medical emergencies.

Wild cow herds are regulated by predators, but also by themselves. Like with most herd animals, males are either killed or exiled once they reach puberty.

On my parents farm we leave the calves with their mother for a day and then move the calves to their own enclosure nearby. If I had to guess, I’d say that the social contact with the other calves significantly reduces stress for the calves and the direct line of sight helps the mothers cope. But it really depends on the individual cow how well they take it.

As far as I’m aware organic farms often keep their cows for roundabout one decade given that their health allows it. Upper teens are rare because older cows are a lot more prone to develop serious health issues and most of the time it’s more humane to slaughter a cow with a torn ligament than watching her die painfully from gas buildup.

My source is that my family owns an organic dairy farm and every single number you pulled is either wrong or out of context

• Cows get pregnant about once per year. When we have an actual bull with the herd, that interval is even shorter because the bull won’t consider milk production at all. He’ll jump on as soon as he smells she’s in heat.

• There’s nothing forceful about artificial insemination and every statement in that direction is extremist bullshit spread by Peta Terrorists and other lowlifes

• Wild cows also get pregnant every year, yes. They need to produce as much offspring as possible so the herd doesn’t die out and when there’s a bull present and the cow goes into heat, then there’s nothing stopping them.

• Cows on organic farms often live into their teens and are usually only slaughtered when they develop severe health problems. Our oldest one is 16 years old as of last month and you can easily tell that she’s an extremely old lady. Wild cows have a way shorter life expectancy because they get hunted down by predators or die of an infection as soon as they show any kind of weakness or old age.

• A dignified existence for a cow is the ability to graze on fresh pastures, a roof over the head for bad weather, soft bedding for resting, a reasonablely sized herd for companionship and a painless death when her time has come.

• Separation of cows and calves is your only argument that has any kind of merit, but honestly most cows take it pretty well. A lot of farmers are actually exploring concepts where mother and calf are kept together, but those usually result in higher maintenance cost and slightly lower milk yield. And customers are just not ready to pay the difference.

The thing that people like you always forget is that most farmers and especially organic farmers care a great deal about their kettles’ wellbeing and some of you would do well to remember that.

I became a vegetarian for environmental reasons and I do think all animals deserve a dignified existance, but my criteria for that is obviously very different from yours.

Still though, it never ceases to amuse me how that forceful impregnation BS is still floating around with people who’ve never encountered a live animal in their entire life. How about you try getting a male and female pet and do a little study on how small the intervals in between litters really are.

I don’t know and don’t care about the US, but at least in the EU this statement is false. The EU-BIO- Label doesn’t regulate as much as it could, but it does regulate a lot more than just “no pesticides”.

Gone vegetarian 5 years ago just before the pandemic hit. I’ve never had any real issues so far and my friend group has mostly switched to vegetarian meals when I’m present. Not because anyone forced them, but because it’s a lot easier and there’s so much awesome vegetarian food nowadays.

And when we barbecue, everyone brings their own stuff anyway. So that’s a non issue as well (I don’t care about cross contamination at all)

I don’t think I could go full vegan, but in all honesty, I save enough money from not buying meat that I can buy all of my milk and cheese organic and that got rid of pretty much every last one of my moral qualms.

Just stop man -.- I can’t handle that much edge on my weekends…