1. Artificial insemination without consent
2. Birth and all of its pain and potential complications
3. Removal of offspring as early as possible to repeat steps 1 and 2 and so prolong lactation
4. Mastitis
replyAll of these result in suffering much worse than egg harvesting imo. Reluctant dairy eater btw
1 is unnecessary and wasn’t present for most of history, 2 is a natural consequence of cattle being cattle, even without humans, but today we have both painkillers and bovine veterinarians, 3 is, again, not strictly necessary unless you’ve made the mistake of falling for the profit motive, and 4 is much more of a problem from a calves mouth parts than from a suitably gloved and balmed human hand.
replyHuman beings can engage in subsistence-level dairy consumption without causing suffering beyond that already present in the reproduction cycle of cattle. They choose not to. I never said dairy farmers were or would choose to be moral, just that they aren’t required to be immoral by dairy production itself.
If we are really into an ethics discussion, enslaving a species to drink milk meant for their newborns would be an issue.
reply> avoid onions and carrots because it causes death
replyonions and carrots do not experience suffering. even if they did, most plants are grown for non-human animal feed. so the best way to reduce "plant suffering" would be to stop exploiting non-human animals.