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  • Posted by CTYankee 9 years, 10 months ago
    Some farms have milking robots and the cows are able to walk in at a time of their own choosing to be relieved by the machines. The story reported that once the cows figure it out, it works remarkably well.
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    • Posted by Robbie53024 9 years, 10 months ago
      Cows, after "freshening" (ie, having a calf), like all mammals make milk. Modern cows have been bred to be very efficient and effective milk producers. The milk accumulates in the udder and if not relieved (either from a calf or by milking) causes the cow much discomfort. If not relieved, the milk actually leaks out.
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  • Posted by $ Snezzy 9 years, 10 months ago
    Anyone who wants to protest milking should first have to spend two weeks working at a dairy farm. You milk twice a day, regardless. If you are afraid you are going to lose electrical power for your milking machines, you have backup power.
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    • Posted by $ 9 years, 10 months ago
      Alternatively, you learn how to milk by hand.
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      • Posted by $ Susanne 9 years, 10 months ago
        Twice a day... for some of the large farms, you better have a really good team of milkers on hand.

        I assume these kids would MUCH rather watch those udders go septic from not milking the cows... Yeah, MUCH more humane than milking. You want misery? Talk to a vet who has had to deal with something like that - absolute terror.
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      • Posted by $ Snezzy 9 years, 10 months ago
        Dairymen know how to milk by hand. Try milking 150 head twice a day, though, and see if you're up to the task. An experienced person can milk six per hour. 150 requires 150/6 = 25 hours. The first milking is not half done before it's time for the second. Alternatively you could enlist 25 people and be done in an hour, except the cows are not comfortable around strangers.

        When my wife married her first husband, about 40 years ago, her about-to-be father-in-law could not attend the wedding. There were two people in the family who the cows would allow to milk them, and she was marrying one of them! The other--his dad--had to stay and milk the cows. No alternative! That family has since switched over to beef cattle.
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  • Posted by CircuitGuy 9 years, 10 months ago
    I can't tell b/c the article implies absurdly that we must maintain factory farms once they're started, but it sounds like they're raising the ethical issues of industrial farming practices, which I think is very important.
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  • Posted by LetsShrug 9 years, 10 months ago
    Why do these idiot's comments even get noticed and pointed out. Not worth giving the slightest glance. Spoiled brats having tantrums over nothing. Ignore them!
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    • Posted by plusaf 9 years, 10 months ago
      LS, you echo my response when I hear people rant about the damage to Gaia from paving over the planet and drilling holes all over the place...

      My response? Those complainers most likely are living in a high-rise apartment in a large urban center and have never gotten onto an airplane and looked out the window during a transcontinental (US) flight.

      They have NO concept of how EMPTY most of the country is or how much of even urban areas are NOT covered with homes or pavement.

      It's a dreamworld for them. Likewise, a lot of the loons commenting on that video have never seen a clean factory farm or lived or worked on one. Their reality comes from the publications of their own cults which filter the data for them.

      Gee... sort of like some other subjects we've dealt with here, eh? :)

      Something like 60+ years ago, one of my grade school class trips in NJ was to the Walker-Gordon RotoLactor building near Princeton.

      Cows, gently herded into automatic stalls, every udder washed and sanitized before automated milkers collected their output, then attendants checked them and I think even washed some.. and when they finished their trip around the wheel, they were released back to the fields to graze. Not a cruel maneuver at all to be seen and a bunch of relaxed cows as you could imagine.
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  • Posted by Snoogoo 9 years, 10 months ago
    Their next step will be to protest the local maternity ward to shame human babies who routinely take part in this abusive and inhumane practice against their own mothers!
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  • Posted by $ Susanne 9 years, 10 months ago
    Somehow, that the snivelers, er, students are at UC Berkeley doesn't surprise me in the slightest... Coddled hyperstatist future PETA activists, spawn of the self-entitled leftist looter class.

    Berkeley in itself is a strange place anyway... Lived there for 2 years, it's like living in a people's republic inhabited by the looters, er, "powerful liberal elite".
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  • Posted by EPIALES 9 years, 10 months ago
    I live for they day that scientists discover that plants are sentient beings! What will all these idiots do? What will they eat and wear then!
    Hopefully they will do the right thing and commit Seppuku...
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  • Posted by Herb7734 9 years, 10 months ago
    I think the intent of the ad(s) is to show that the cheese is not an artificial product without actually saying so. Currently, most advocacy groups carry their protests way too far and as a result tend to diminish legitimate protest.
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  • Posted by $ Radio_Randy 9 years, 10 months ago
    Where did the action of "rape" come into play? Is there something about dairy farmers that we're not being told?

    Seriously, these nut jobs continue to insist upon placing animals on the same level as humans. We can only hope that they never get into politics as adults.
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  • Posted by $ puzzlelady 9 years, 10 months ago
    "Animal Advocacy"? And who speaks for humans?

    Presumably these students have nothing against natural exploitation, such as foxes eating chickens, and chickens eating worms.

    Young people are naturally idealistic. Using the products of man's mind (buildings, printing, Internet), they object to other "apps" of man's mind (agriculture, animal husbandry, mass production).

    As with any situation, those who object should be required to produce a better solution. OK, Berkeley, what would you do with all those cows?
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