TIFU by making my child vegetarian.

[u/CompetitionExtreme36]

I have a 6 year old son. We went to a fair a few months ago and there was a display of livestock that the public could pet.

Me, trying to be jolly, told him that he'd be eating them for dinner someday.

My son was shocked and asked me how was that possible. I told him that meat is made by killing animals and cooking them. He then asked me what all the meats were. I told him that it's chicken, beef, steak, sausages, salami and mutton.

Later that night at home, I noticed him seperating his dinner. He removed all the meat pieces from the rice and only ate the rice. My wife asked him what was wrong and he said he doesn't want to eat animals.

Thankfully, he's fine with milk and eggs. However, he continued refusing to eat any meat. A week passed and we went to the doctor. The doctor said that it's probably just a temporary phase and we should feed him vegetarian alternatives for the time being.

We now buy canned beans, lentils, greek yoghurt, olive oil, whey protein, soy nuggets and plant-based patties/sausages. We also order a cheese pizza for him.

It's been a few months now, and I've bought iron and B12 gummies for him. Even my wife and I are starting to go more vegetarian.

TL;DR: We went to a fair and there was a display where the crowd could pet livestock. I told my son he'd eat those animals soon, and he's a full blown vegetarian now.

[u/arnoldrew]

I can’t imagine not being able to explain chickens laying eggs to my 6-year-old and having to lie to them and say they come out of their mouths.

[u/Wuellig → u/arnoldrew]

There's also the lie that "dairy doesn't hurt cows." The repeated forced pregnancy is awful for cows, who wear out and die in a few years, and lots of male cows are just put down after the births. The reality of the industry is way more terrible than "it's just squeezing them some, it's fine."

[u/thetomatofiend → u/Wuellig]

I stayed with a friend who lived in a caravan on a dairy farm. They were the most beautiful jersey cows and the morning after I arrived we heard a shotgun three times as the male calves were killed. The farmer hired someone to do it because it actually upset him even though he still accepted it as part of being a dairy farmer.

I was shocked. I hadn't realised this happened until then.

[u/danboon05 → u/[deleted]]

they use shotguns?? I don’t know the statistics or anything, but as far as I know: no, not usually. Most males calves are castrated and raised for meat. I suppose there are plenty that are sent to the slaughterhouse for veal, but they would be sent alive, not killed by the farmer before being sent.

[u/trowzerss → u/danboon05]

Yeah, shotgun seems weird, especially when bolting isn't too bad. I saw my friend's bull get bolted when I was quite small, and it just went up a ramp, bam, gone. It didn't stress out or anything. I kind of hope when I go it's that quick and i don't see it coming! But yeah, I grew up kind of rural (not on a farm, but in a farming area) so I'd seen chickens getting the chop and so on, so I always kind of knew about where the stuff on my plate came from. I imagine it'd be super traumatic though if your parents had been hiding that stuff from you.

[u/thetomatofiend → u/trowzerss]

That's what I was told by my friend but to be fair I didn't see anything. It was loud though. I don't know if bolts are loud?

[u/Militantni_Pacifista → u/thetomatofiend]

Probably wasn't a shotgun, but could be a rifle.
Not every farmer sends males calves to the slaughterhouse for veal (though that would probably be the most common thing to do), sometimes they are killed on the farm and discarded (or in case of a really small farm, could be butchered and eaten by the farmer their family). And rifles are sometimes used for this.
Most common ways cows and calves are killed though is by stunning them with a bolt gun and then slitting the throat. With a notable exception of kosher slaughter, where the throat is slit without stunning.

[u/thetomatofiend → u/Militantni_Pacifista]

Yeh it could have been a rifle. I am not familiar with guns at all. It was a small farm in Cornwall so possibly that affects what they do with the males.

[u/Tymareta → u/danboon05]

Most males calves are castrated and raised for meat

No they aren't, dairy cows are a different breed to meat cows and as a result don't create terribly great product, most dairy calves are killed upon birth and sent off to be ground up for animal feed and the like.

[u/thetomatofiend → u/[deleted]]

I don't know what to tell you..this is just one experience I had.

[u/thetomatofiend → u/[deleted]]

It's long enough ago now too that if I asked my friend for more information she probably wouldn't know. It was a pretty remote farm. Right on the edge of the lizard peninsula in Cornwall. Beautiful place!

[u/Grekkill → u/Wuellig]

Don't forget the problematic conditions for veal!

[u/_XenoChrist_ → u/Grekkill]

imagine eating veal. literally eating babies

[u/spicewoman → u/_XenoChrist_]

They're pretty much all babies or teens. Chickens are 6 months old out of a 10-year lifespan, pigs are six months out of a 15- years, beef cows are 2 years out of 20 (oldest recorded was 48)... They're all very young.

[u/hardolaf → u/_XenoChrist_]

They're very tasty babies.

In northern Mexico, it's even common to use kids for birria because baby goats are more tender.

[u/ZankTheGreat → u/Wuellig]

Doesn’t not getting milked also hurt cows?

[u/dywacthyga → u/ZankTheGreat]

Technically, yes, buuuut..... Just like humans (and other milk-producing beings), cows only produce milk after they've been pregnant. So if the calf was left with its mum, it would just drink her milk and her body would adjust to the amount of milk the calf needs. Eventually, as the calf starts eating on its own and not needing/drinking as much from its mum, the milk supply would naturally slow down and stop completely.

So while the cow would be in pain if she wasn't milked at all, she's only needing to be milked because we made her get pregnant and start producing milk.

[u/baajo → u/ZankTheGreat]

If a cow doesn't get pregnant, it doesn't need milked.

[u/Pittsbirds → u/baajo]

Also if we don't breed animals that have some inherent health issues then the animals with these inherent health issues don't exist to begin with

[u/blizzardspider → u/ZankTheGreat]

Yes, but this is primarily because their calves are not allowed to nurse (so that all of the milk can go to the farmer). Normally the calves would drink the milk, meaning the cow naturally doesn't need to be milked by a farmer, but farmers usually separate or kill the calves (in particular for veal if they are male).

[u/Wuellig → u/ZankTheGreat]

They're forced to become pregnant, and after the birth of their calves, the calves are taken from mothers so humans can have the milk instead. Ordinarily, the calves would attend to the milk. The problem you're asking about is entirely created by humans putting the cows in the unnatural situation of having to express milk and being deprived of their offspring.

[u/carolynrose93 → u/ZankTheGreat]

Humans have bred cows to produce more milk than they need to, and like humans, they only produce milk when pregnant. So dairy farmers will artificially inseminate (re: stick their hand up a cow's vagina to insert sperm) the cows to keep up pregnancy rates so milk production also keeps up. Then the calves are taken away at usually a few days to a few weeks old where they're either raised as dairy cows, bulls, or sent to live in a tiny hut until they're around 4 months old to be killed for veal. The dairy industry is disgusting.

[u/plg94 → u/ZankTheGreat]

Only if you do it wrong I think. Not milking them is way worse (the milk has to come out, just ask any pregnant woman), and I guess modern milking machines are gentler than a calf's teeth.

[u/weedRgogoodwithpizza → u/[deleted]]

Our tits turn into rock hard boulders, it's painful, and then you get clogged ducts which can give you mastitis...even more painful.

[u/plg94 → u/[deleted]]

why is it ridiculous? basic biological principles don't change

[u/plg94 → u/[deleted]]

Of course not. I'm no expert, but a little googling does wonders: after a few days/weeks of no need, the body ceases the production of milk and the one that is there is slowly reabsorbed (how exactly I'm not sure, but a similar thing happens to men's old sperm). But until then the overproduction can be pretty painful, and there's a significant risk of infections.

[u/chairfairy → u/Wuellig]

It's hard to justify animal cruelty in any mass animal farming, if you care about animal welfare. The quality of life is not good at all.

You can do better with local small scale operations, so you have to decide for yourself what level of treatment counts as cruelty vs humane (I'm not vegetarian or vegan, but we do try to be a little conscientious about consuming animal products)

[u/sagethecancer → u/chairfairy]

There’s no ethical way to consume animal products unless it’s roadkill or an animal that died naturally

[u/InternalError33 → u/Wuellig]

I knew a guy who went to work on a massive dairy farm but decided it wasn't for him after his first day was mostly slaughtering the unwanted calf's.

Egg farms aren't much better. I'm sure we've all seen the videos of the male chicks being tossed into the meat grinder because there's not much use for non-egg laying males. I'm no vegan, but industrialized farming can be sickening.

[u/laeriel_c → u/Wuellig]

And the male baby cows gets killed in the process

[u/[deleted] → u/Wuellig]

They don’t put down the males, where tf do you think beef comes from? Stay off the PETA website. LMAO.

[u/tertle → u/[deleted]]

As someone who lived in a dairy town (not the US) for a few years with a partner who a cattle vet, hate to break it to you but they totally do. 

It does depend on market fluctuations. When beef is particularly expensive they try to resell but a lot of the time the economics don't fit. 

As a vegetarian who does drink milk, this does bother me a bit.

[u/Invincidude → u/[deleted]]

Beef comes from both steers and cows. But cows can also give milk. And you need more cows than you do steers, because one steer can get a whole lot of your cows pregnant.

Cows are worth more than steers, and both animals cost money to raise. Why wouldn't they put down some males?

[u/JoyBus147 → u/Invincidude]

Fwiw, I think you'll find a steer couldn't get a single cow pregnant...

[u/Invincidude → u/JoyBus147]

I actually talked about this to a buddy of mine who works on a dairy farm. Doesn't sound like a fun job.

[u/[deleted] → u/Invincidude]

Have you bought any steaks lately? Expensive af! Farmers aren’t known for throwing away money, most of them are cheap af!

[u/StaubEll → u/[deleted]]

You’re right about farmers wanting to save money but it’s often cheaper to kill male dairy calves than rear them. Price-consciousness and waste-consciousness are two separate philosophies.

[u/karlachameleon → u/[deleted]]

Different breeds of cattle are used for dairy and beef herds. The breeds used in the dairy industry will not put on weight like the beef breeds so they do not have much value. In Ireland a lot of dairy bull calves are exported for veal. Bull calves from beef breeds on the other hand are valuable.

[u/SMTRodent → u/[deleted]]

I'm not vegetarian at all and I do know where my meat comes from.

Dairy cows are all skin and bone - all of the energy goes into the milk. The males aren't commercially viable for most farmers to raise. A few farmers raise the bulls get that provide the semen for artificial insemination. The rest of the male calves get slaughtered very soon after birth.

Mixed meat/dairy cow breeds are more likely to have farmers keep, castrate and raise the males. It will depends on the herd's purpose and the farmer's resources for raising 'spare' males as extra meat.

Meat cattle are very blocky. The bulls are pretty much rectangular blocks of pure beef. The male calves of meat cattle are very desirable.