End dairy slaughter

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Dairy's deadly secrets

• Newborn calves, dragged from their mothers as they cry out in fear and pain. Mother cows running after a trailer, unable to keep up as their baby disappears from view.

• The merciless slaughter of week-old calves, including dozens who have their throats slit while fully conscious. 

• 4-7 year old dairy cows sent to slaughter, exhausted from a constant cycle of pregnancy, birth and separation and worn out from the endless pain and discomfort of having milk, intended for her missing babies, sucked from her body by machines.

This is Australian dairy

Dairy Breeds Cows to Die

In order to make milk for human consumption, dairy cows need to be pregnant. Female cows are artificially inseminated multiple times a year, so that they can continue to be milked every day. When they give birth, they bond with their babies immediately, only to have them ripped away from them, usually within hours, so that humans can take their milk to be sold. 

Male calves have no commercial value to the dairy industry, and are killed at only a few days old, alongside any surplus female calves. Calves are herded onto trucks, still unsteady on their legs and calling for their mothers. Some are driven straight to the slaughterhouse, where they will spend a cold and terrifying night shivering in concrete holding pens, while others are taken to a saleyard, and sold to the highest bidder.

Dairy Factory Farms

Over 2024 - 2025, Farm Transparency Project investigated four dairy factory farms in Victoria and NSW. These farms have been hailed as trailblasers by the dairy industry, with their conversion to zero graze farms applauded as innovation, rather than exploitation. 

Like other forms of factory farming, dairy factories restrict cows from natural behaviour, such as grazing on grass and having access to open spaces to play and socialise. Instead, cows spend the majority of their lives standing on hard concrete eating grain, or being milked in an industrial milking parlour where their milk production is closely monitored and evaluated.

Let Cows Grow Old - End Dairy Slaughter 

For too long, the dairy industry has been given free reign to kill off their problems, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of calves and dairy cows who no longer produce enough milk. 

What we want 

• The end of Dairy Australia’s deceptive manipulation of school children through their Discover Dairy curriculum.

• An end to the breeding and slaughter of cows and calves in the dairy industry.

• A mandatory retirement plan for all cows and calves currently used for dairy

• An immediate, just transition away from dairy and towards slaughter-free alternatives, including government investment in plant-based alternatives to dairy.   

The commercial breeding, confinement and slaughtering of hundreds of thousands of cows and calves in the dairy industry, is completely unnecessary, especially given the vast array of easily accessible plant-based alternatives. We want a world where all cows are allowed to live out their full lives, surrounded by their family. 

View all 73 videos for this campaign in the video gallery

Join the campaign

The best thing you can do to protect dairy cows and stop them being slaughtered, is to make the switch to the many plant-based alternatives to milk, cheese, yoghurt and other dairy products. 

Boycott animal slaughter

Take the pledge to leave animals off your plate

Write to your state’s education minister

Join us in demanding an immediate end to Dairy Australia’s manipulation and misinformation of school-children through their Discover Dairy curriculum. Download our guide to submitting a complaint regarding the program, or send our template email below.

Share this campaign 

Share the campaign video and our actions and demands and educate those around you about the brutal reality of Australian dairy.

Donate to support this campaign
Your donation will help us continue our work to investigate and expose commercial animal abuse in Australian slaughterhouses.

The only way to End Dairy Slaughter is to stop breeding cows to make milk. All cows deserve to grow old.

• Open letter to Prime Minister, signed by senator and state MPs, calls for independent regulation of animal slaughter

  Media release: Thursday 24 Oct 2024

  Senator Mehreen Faruqi, Cassy O’Connor and Abigail Boyd join state MPs to call for independent oversight of Australian slaughterhouses Farm Transparency Project, who wrote the letter, says that the government has failed to appropriately investigate hundreds of cases of alleged animal cruelty. The organisation is accusing the government department of corruption, claiming that their actions have raised doubts about their integrity and suitability to monitor and regulate animal welfare. Read the open letter View photos and footage An open letter, signed by a senator, several state MPs and animal protection organisations, is calling on the Prime Minister's office...
• Open letter regarding inadequacy and corruption of abattoir regulator

  Media release: Thursday 24 Oct 2024

  Dear Mr Albanese, I am writing on behalf of Farm Transparency Project, a non-profit animal protection organisation focused on raising public awareness about commercial animal farming and slaughter practices through comprehensive investigations into Australian animal use facilities. Over the past decade, our organisation has investigated a number of facilities and practices, catalysing significant animal welfare reforms. In recent years, this has included: Publishing footage of the foothold trapping and killing of native dingoes in Victoria by government contractors, stimulating debate and likely contributing to the Victorian government ending the practice in parts of the state. Investigating the failed phase-out of...
• Animal activists converge on Seymour slaughterhouse following shocking new slaughter footage.

  Media release: Monday 6 May 2024

  Photos and footage - protestPhotos and footage - FTP investigation Around 20 animal advocates are staging a protest outside the gates of Ralph’s Meat Co slaughterhouse in Seymour, Victoria. The protest is in response to new hidden camera footage, released by animal rights group Farm Transparency Project, which shows cows seemingly maintaining consciousness as their throats are slit and while they bleed out, as well as severely emaciated cows being herded to slaughter. The slaughterhouse is now under investigation by the federal Department of Agriculture as a result of the footage. The group has said that they intend to attempt...
• Hidden cameras reveal emaciated cows killed while fully conscious at northern Victorian slaughterhouse

  Media release: Thursday 18 Apr 2024

  View photos and footageView location evidence Hidden camera footage captured by investigators from Farm Transparency Project (FTP) in February 2024 shows ineffective stunning of injured and emaciated cows at Ralphs Meat Co in Seymour, Northern Victoria.  The daily slaughter of up to 500 cows, steers and bulls is documented, with many of those killed being dairy cows whose milk production has slowed. Footage shows workers jabbing cows in the face and head with painful electric prodders, and repeatedly hitting them with metal gates. Many show signs of consciousness after 'stunning' and even after their throats have been slit, suffering for minutes.  FTP's...
• Workers caught using bodies of pigs and sheep as punching bags at major Victorian slaughterhouse

  Media release: Tuesday 26 Mar 2024

  Ineffective and painful stunning causes suffering to sheep, pigs, goats and cows.  Hidden cameras captured workers at Gathercole’s Wangaratta slaughterhouse using the bodies of sheep and pigs as punching bags, hitting them as they hang suspended on the shackle line, or as they are pulled onto the kill table to have their throat slit.  Footage also shows ineffective stunning of pigs, sheep, goats and cows who are shot or electrocuted multiple times as they struggle, before their throats are slit. Gathercole’s is the 13th slaughterhouse exposed by Farm Transparency Project in the past year, as part of a...

See all 12 media releases

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