Download Study on dairy calves 2025

Taking a stand for dairy calves in terms of animal welfare and environmental impacts, as part of a LESS and BETTER approach

This bibliographic study, rich in references, is easy to consult thanks to its table of contents. The main findings are highlighted or in bold. It provides some update on animal welfare (summer 2025) and reports on the controversies surrounding environmental impacts. It discusses research and pioneering initiatives in France and Europe.

How is it possible that absurdities such as iron restriction and unnatural feeding of calves can still be accepted and imposed? And that more than 1.5 million European calves are transported across borders (and treated with antibiotics)? And for most of them, the only setting for their short lives will be a small pen shared with a few equally miserable fellow creatures, a slatted floor and a bucket to (more or less) satisfy their hunger twice a day by drinking industrial milk replacer. This is the work of the veal industry. If the discourse around ‘One Health’ and ‘One Welfare’ were taken seriously, all this would have ended long ago.

Calves born to dairy cows, which have to be milked, are separated from their mothers within hours or days after their birth. This has ‘always’ been the case, but the general public is largely unaware of it. Yet it is not insignificant. Our human species shares the biology of the maternal bond of mammals with dairy cows. More and more consumers are clear about one thing: the separation has a considerable impact on both the cow and the calf and poses a moral problem. A newborn calf is not like an apple that falls from a tree and can be picked up.

A few pioneering farmers no longer want to separate calves from their mothers. They are developing new systems (as many different systems as there are farms). Scientists in many countries are also studying these solutions. The European project https://transformdairynet.eu/ offers hope; it promises concrete results and changes to be rolled out over the coming years.

It is high time to provide clear and massive societal support and proactive and effective public financial support in order to rescue dairy calves from their distress and to build and ensure the economic viability of a new dairy system that no longer separates calves from their mothers.

It is also a question of putting grazing back at the heart of the sustainability of the cattle industry for all categories of cattle, without exception.

A previous text (2021, updated 2023) discusses the same principles, but details the potential of the Common Agricultural Policy to improve the welfare of dairy calves:

Download: A plea for CAP aid to enhance the welfare of dairy calves