People drink milk every day. They drink at breakfast, before sleep, or at break time. Some people even do not have time to eat a meal but drink milk instead. Therefore, the farmers always mind about the matter of how to get more milk for serving. Since the pregnancy period requires much time, more and more people are considering: “Can cows produce milk without being pregnant?”.
Can cows produce milk without being pregnant?
Naturally, cows only produce milk when they are pregnant and give birth. The calving time enables the cows to produce milk that feeds the baby calves. You cannot take the milk only by the pregnancy process because the cows will just only have milk when calving.
The milk production of a cow requires the complicated interaction of many different hormones setting into play during pregnancy.
Typically, during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy, plenty of hormones, such as progesterone and estrogen, are produced. Those hormones stimulate the growth and development of the milk system.
Oxytocin is another important hormone that allows the secretion of milk to occur. Many people often consider this a “let down” process. Prolactin levels stimulate when the udder is suckled by the calf or milked by the milking machine, and this needs to occur for milk production to continue.
Non-pregnant cows produce milk only by artificially inducing
Many farmers force the cows to give birth for them to start producing milk. The pregnancy induces the cow to produce the hormones needed for the cow’s body and udder ready to produce milk for the calves. Once a cow calves, the milk is available to provide to her calf.
The amount of milk the cow produces decreases as the months go by and farmers eventually ran out after 230 days since calving. The cow has three or maybe four months off before she calves again, and the whole process repeats.
The treatment of these calves is still in dispute. The practice of “stealing” newborn calves from their mothers doesn’t sit well with many modern consumers, and it’s impossible to tell a good story around the bobby calf industry, which slaughters these young unwanted calves. If that’s not sufficient, another thing to consider is most cows don’t make it to their 6th birthday.
One of the most prominent reasons that a cow cull is because she doesn’t get pregnant. This means she can not produce milk for the next season.
All of the things I said above means that people can have milk from a non-pregnant cow if the cows always have hormones of pregnancy inside them. There is a way to solve this – artificially inducing. At first, a non-pregnant cow is provided hormone injections to replicate what would happen in a natural pregnancy. The cow will then receive treatments every two weeks to maintain hormone levels during lactation.
The research indicates that cows given this treatment produce the same amount of milk, with the same composition, and have the same lactation length as cows with normal calving.
Any side effects of artificial milk production?
First, there would be many undeniable advantages. There would be no unwanted calves, so no bobby’s calves. For farmers, there would be no overloaded calving period. There will be no calves to feed, no calving difficulties too.
Furthermore, farmers definitely time the treatment much better so they begin the milking process for the whole herd on one specific day. The lifespan, therefore, could be much greater too.
However, this process will damage the ecological system. And there would be many problems later that we can not predict. And this will be paid for by the next generation. So, be responsible for your decisions and do not underestimate all the effects of your actions.
In short, cows can produce milk without being pregnant due to the intervention of hormone injections. Choose the method wisely and do not hurt your little cows because, with them, you are their trustful bosses.