Everything I hear how cow farmers need to take care of their stock baffles me more and more how these were able to survive for so long
A cow needs to be milked every certain period to avoid infections, bruising, death
A cow needs help with the birth of a calf, as its sometimes a process which cant be done by a cow itself
A cow builds up gasses in their stomachs, requiring punctures to avoid sickness, death
And not to mention the parasites, specific diets, and maybe some other things I wouldn’t know about
In: Biology
Let’s be clear, free range beef cattle spend most of the year on pasture, not being babied. They get on fine. Cows don’t need to be milked unless you want dairy products. Most give birth without assistance, dairy cattle often need more help than other types of cattle and it can vary by breed as well. I’m not sure you have an entirely realistic idea. But yes, as others point out they’ve been domesticated a long time. Wild cattle are smarter, meaner and hardier. Dairy cattle are more labor intensive and need more care.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chillingham_cattle
These are about as close as you get nowadays to wild cattle. It’s unknown exactly what their origin is, they may well be related to an original native species that existed in prehistoric Britain or maybe not, but I suspect that if you were to create a reserve and place a few herds of modern cattle on it you would end up after a few generations with something similar. There would certainly be issues but I think enough would make it so you could have a viable self sustaining population.
We artificially extend the time a cow gives milk. When a wild cow calves it will give milk until their calf is ready to eat grass, at that point the cow will gradually stop the calf from suckling. The cow will stop giving milk until their next calf is born.
We have bred modern cattle to maximize milk production, suddenly turning them loose will cause them a lot of discomfort as they need to be milked, but they will adapt and after a few generations will start to revert to something more like their wild ancestors.
Don’t think of cows as just fluffy cute creatures, they can be aggressive especially if calves are present, there have been multiple instances of people being killed or seriously injured by a herd of cows. They can also be inquisitive and affectionate.
The thing is, in the wild when an animal gets an infection, or complications during birth, they just die. That’s part of how nature works. The weak and the sick animals die so that the stronger ones live on and reproduce. That’s natural selection.
Some of these issues do come from human intervention, like the gas build up is in part caused by the fact that cattle largely has a diet that just, produces more gas than the diet wild cattle would’ve had. But many of the things domesticated animals have humans deal with, are just things that kill wild animals.
Animal sanctuaries will talk about how “oh a dairy cow gets sent off to slaughter after five years, but with us, she can live to like fifteen years.” Which is true. But the reason that works is because those sanctuaries put in a lot of work to keep that animal alive. In the wild a cow also wouldn’t have loved to 15. As she’d get older, her body would start to give out and she’d end up either felled by disease or by a predator.
Wild cows didn’t have any of those problems, the things you mention are a result of domestication, the same happens with sheep needing shearing. Those problems are created by humans
A cow needs to be milked because they are constantly reproducing. They need to be in a birth cycle to give milk.
Fun fact: some farmers play the sound of crying cow babies to increase milk yield.
I think the gas issue is that we feed them corn and grain.
Stop paying people to torture cows. They are really sweet and their lives are really hard. Momma cows suffer so much loss and then they are killed. Their babies are the veal industry.
Didn’t see your specific points being addressed, so as for some specific context:
Dairy cows have been bred to produce more and more milk compared to the natural amount that a calf would need. Holsteins produce an average of nine gallons of milk a day, whereas cattle bred for beef only produce one or two gallons. A pre-domestication animal would produce a reasonable amount of milk for the needs of its calf and wouldn’t require extra milking to keep up with production.
Selective breeding for beef quality and dairy quantity means that if a cow with great milk or from a great beef line could only successfully give birth with human help, their genetics would still be selected for. In the wild this is not true. That said, live births in the animal kingdom can be very dangerous. For example, the death rate for female hyenas giving birth for the first time is around 20%, and the cub death rate during birthing is around 60%. Sometimes nature has these bottlenecks but the overall survival rate is still high enough for the organism to persist. We don’t like this level of waste in animals we raise for food and have the ability to improve the survival rate, so we do. That doesn’t mean that without our help the animals wouldn’t persist, just that there would be higher death rates.
Cattle can be fed on mainly grass or with soy and corn feed. The latter allows them to mature faster and produce more meat or milk in a shorter time frame. It also produces more methane during digestion. Grass fed cows produce less methane per day. It takes them longer to put on weight or produce the same amount of milk. So feed based diets which are only possible with human interference increase the amount of gasses and sometimes those gasses have to be managed to keep the cattle healthy but in nature those pressures would be less.
As for parasites and special diets, nearly all animals do better when those things are controlled. Only humans(and only some of them) have systems to control pathogens and supplement specific nutrients. I’ve seen the question before, “Why can’t humans drink the water in rivers and streams but animals can?” The answer is that animals suffer just like humans do from contaminated water. They persist in spite of this pressure on their population, they are not immune or exempt. Globally, many people only have contaminated water sources, and the global death rate from waterborne diseases is about 3,575,000 per year on average. People in nations with the resources to address these issues do so, those who can’t suffer but persist. Cattle breeders don’t want a high percentage of cattle to die from preventable causes because it’s a waste of resources, so they prevent and treat parasites etc. Same with nutrients. Cattle are supplemented to produce the best quality beef or dairy. The nutrients that benefit the product are included, while those that interfere with the product are restricted.
TLDR: breeding has increased dependence, also wild animals die a lot and still persist
That’s the thing in the wild a % of your population will die but most will live on and with a herd animal that reproduces every few years it’s not a big deal.
Farmers interven in all those ways because cows are a money maker for them. A cow dying of bloat is a monetary loss.
Cows only *need* to be milked if their calves are taken away; this is done in dairy production because otherwise very little milk can be taken from them, since the calf drinks most of it. The wild ancestors of cattle just nursed their calves, and it was fine.
CAFO cows, chickens, pigs, etc. are all strikingly different than their ancestors. They would not eat any corn or corn byproducts, but would graze on mostly grasses and other wild fruits and nuts. Because their diet was healthier and depended on movement to get it, instead of standing around, they were less susceptible to the diseases and problems we see now. The only thing on the planet that ought to drink cow’s milk, are cows. Something like 80+% of people have a form lactose intolerance but just suffer through because they love ice cream and cheese. Because of the industrialization of our food (specifically animal based), our food has reduced in essential nutrients and as a result diets have influenced our brains. One could say our diet and phones are the reason we are depressed, anxious and feel more isolated than ever before.
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