https://sentientmedia.org/what-is-veal/
Automated summary:
· As veal crates have been outlawed in several U.S. states and Europe, demand for “humane” slaughtered at younger ages has risen, because the undeveloped muscles of newborn calves make their meat more tender.
· A mother cow will cry out for days after separation, hoping to receive a response from her calf, which may have been transported to another part of the farm, or abroad, or already have been slaughtered.
· Calves separated from their mothers and the herd will exhibit abnormal behaviors This is in part due to their being raised in isolation, without gaining any benefits from socializing and also because of the conditions they are kept in.
· Cows raised in isolation, typical on those farms which still use veal crates, will exhibit a large range of behaviors including bar biting, tongue rolling and excessive resting.
· Long transport journeys for calves can result in anywhere between 1 and 23 percent mortality in a given group, from factors like diarrhea, exhaustion and exposure to heat or cold.
· Whether young calves are destined to become veal, pet food or kebab meat, their presence in a system that treats them as commodities who only possess value when they are dead will always put them at risk of violence and unnecessary abuse.
· Veal calves are given large quantities of drugs because they tend to live highly stressful lives, due to the way that their handling and rearing harshly impacts their underdeveloped bodies and psyches.
· Their immune systems tend to be weakened due to their youth, their rough treatment and transportation, their living conditions and their insufficiently nutritious diet.
· Yet in group or barn systems welfare can still be very poor: absence of bedding has been reported in Dutch farms, where the exposed slatted floors give calves lameness and other foot injuries.
· The stressful lives of veal calves lead to a greater susceptibility to infection and disease, and as a result they are sometimes treated extensively with antibiotics.
· Since veal calves are largely provided by the dairy industry, as a byproduct of breeding milk cows, the two industries are inextricably linked.