there’s more than shown here and it’s more than just these users too 😭
if you find the thread don’t piss in the popcorn (brigade) but also please maybe don’t bring it back here i don’t want 400 notifications of entry level “is almond milk milk” vegan discourse
The majority of male calves are killed at 18 months for meat (equivalent of about 6 in human age) once they’ve put on enough weight. “Veal” is if they’re killed under 12 months, which is rarer, but adulthood is a couple of years later, and yes, not just many of the calves, almost all of the male ones.
Dairy cows are killed once they’ve been milked for a few years as yields start to fall and become uneconomic. They typically live for six or fewer years, but their natural lifespan would be more than 15.
“Many” isn’t doing a lot of lifting, it’s doing a lot of understatement.
18 months is full weight
Under 12 months is veal, so you were correct that most don’t end up as veal.
But they count as calves until adulthood, which is nearer age 4. They’re normally killed for meat at about 18 months or six in human years. They do continue to put on weight into adulthood, but less rapidly than in the first 18 months, so you get a better return on investment by killing them while they’re still calves, because you’ve saved half your costs but got 3/4 of the weight in meat, and the meat is more tender and marketable.
So not quite full weight, and definitely still killed as a calf, not as an adult.
A 3 year old cow is not a calf.
If you like, but my point is that it’s certainly not an adult. Male calves are almost all killed before adulthood.
Cows are fully mature at around 24 months old, depending on breed.
They do not have an extended developmental period like humans so the comparison to a 6 year old human based on maximum lifespan is fallacious.
Even if your numbers were correct, 18 months, the typical slaughter age of cattle, is before adulthood, and a long way before the natural lifespan of between 15-20 years.
Male cows are killed young for meat. Female cows are killed once they’re less use for milk.
It shouldn’t be surprising to you. It’s just economics. It makes no financial sense to do otherwise.
I don’t see any point in pretending otherwise and I don’t know why you want to.
This is simply not correct, cows are slaughtered at adulthood because they also require time to fully grow and maximise the amount of meat.
Cows reach adulthood relatively quickly. You still seem to be measuring a cows adulthood comparative to a human lifespan which I have already pointed out is useless.
I’m going to repost what @ikidd@lemmy.world said:
So full weight is more like 2200lbs, whereas at 18 months they’re only weighing 1200lbs, and aren’t fully grown or adult. Also you can look stuff up on the internet, it’s not hard, you don’t have to make stuff up just because you don’t like the facts.
It’s uneconomic to keep them till they’re adult, the fast rate of growth at the beginning is the profitable bit. Keeping them later costs farmers money they don’t need to spend and can reduce the price of the meat that they’re selling. It doesn’t make any sense financially to let them mature.
male cows are killed at the same age as all other beef cattle.
almost all beef is slaughtered around 18 months, male or female. that’s full weight.
It’s slaughter weight, not full weight. Lots of female cows are kept alive for another few years for milk and calving.
it seems you’re splitting hairs
Says the person who has been splitting hairs for nearly 24 hours. For reference, here’s our original interaction:
They’re slaughtered at 18 months, and that’s before adulthood. I was correct. You continue to work very hard to find some way to make this correct statement sound incorrect.
it’s the average lifespan of beef cattle. whether it’s splitting hairs to insist on the moment of adulthood.
Case in point