Our dedicated ‘Til The Cows Come Home foster care team has been working around the clock to care for rescued calves. These sweet babies will soon be ready for their forever homes — submit your adoption interest today and help change a life.
On dairy farms, baby calves are born into this world as the byproduct of their mother’s milk production. Their lives were worth nothing more than the milk it allowed their mothers to make. Their future was uncertain, but likely grim.
Just like humans, female cows need to give birth to produce milk. As a result, each year in Australia, over 400,000 calves are born on dairy farms and are deemed as “waste” or “surplus”.
Male calves are often “disposed of” on the farm or sent on a truck to a slaughterhouse within the first few weeks of their life as they offer little financial gain to a farmer. You might wonder why these calves are considered unviable. The reason is that they cannot be used for future breeding or milk production. With so many calves being born during ‘calving season’, it becomes unfeasible for dairy farmers to raise all of these calves to a valuable size to be sold at market for a worthwhile value.
Similarly, females born on dairy farms are often kept for future milk production – a life of being milked continuously before facing the sad fate of the slaughter truck once their milk production decreases at around 5 years of age. Many female calves are born as “surplus” and are also deemed as “waste” when dairy farmers don’t need more female cows to raise for future milking.
This is the heartbreaking reality faced by thousands of calves, day in and day out, on dairy farms across Australia.
Thanks to the generosity of donors, more precious lives have now been saved. In the coming weeks, most of the calves at our foster home will be healthy and looking for forever homes, where they will be loved as companions, not commodities.
If you have a shelter, good fencing, live on average and are looking for some beautiful paddock companions, please submit your adoption interest today.
Click the ‘Apply to Adopt’ button below to start your journey.
**Photos for illustration purposes only.
