How You Can Help Cows

	In This Feature
		Fascinating Facts
		Cow Know-How
		The Social Lives of Cows
		Gentle Giants
		How You Can Help Cows

These are just a few of the countless stories of cows who value their lives and fear death, just like humans and all other animals. In the U.S., more than 40 million cows are killed in the meat and dairy industries every year. When they are still very young, cows are burned with hot irons (branding), their testicles are ripped out of their scrotums (castration), and their horns are cut or burned off—all without painkillers. Once they have grown big enough, they are sent to massive, muddy feedlots to be fattened for slaughter.

The 9 million cows living on dairy farms in the United States will spend most of their lives either in large sheds or on feces-caked mud lots where disease is rampant.³⁰ Cows raised for their milk are repeatedly impregnated, and their calves are taken from them and sent to veal farms or other dairy farms. When their exhausted bodies can no longer produce enough milk, they are sent to slaughter and ground up for hamburgers.

Many cows die on the way to slaughter, and those who survive are shot in the head with a bolt gun, hung up by their legs, and taken onto the killing floor, where their throats are cut and they are skinned. Some cows remain fully conscious throughout the entire process—according to one slaughterhouse worker, in an interview with the Washington Post, “they die piece by piece.”

Learn more about the lives of cows on factory farms.

Also keep in mind that every time you choose to buy a leather jacket or leather shoes, you sentence animals to a lifetime of suffering. Buying leather directly contributes to factory farms and slaughterhouses, since the skins of animals are the most economically important byproduct of the multibillion-dollar meat industry.

You can help these gentle, intelligent, sensitive animals by removing their milk and flesh from your diet and refusing to wear their skins. To get started, get your free vegetarian starter kit, packed with nutrition information, shopping tips, delicious recipes, and much more. Visit VegCooking.com for dairy-free recipes, vegetarian products, cookbook recommendations, and a shopping guide. Also, request a free shopping guide to compassionate clothing that contains information about where to buy everything from satin pumps and cruelty-free biker jackets to synthetic leather snowboarding boots and baseball gloves. Visit CowsAreCool.com for more information about the leather industry.