What we do
Providing short-term (foster care) direct care (veterinary care, feed, human interaction, safety & shelter) to dairy cows/calves that have been discarded, mistreated or are sick/injured.
Rescue and Rehabilitation
Rehoming
Finding suitable adopters to provide loving forever homes with ongoing support and help from Companion Cows.
Raising awareness through factual advocacy, to encourage consumers to make choices that will help to improve the lives of dairy cows and calves.
Advocacy
Meet some of the animals now living as companion cows.
Fern
Cooper
Jasper
Ferdinand
Theo
Marlon
Arnold and Elvis
Miles
Marky
Rupert
In loving memory
of Humphrey
Please support
our mission
Why we exist
When you think of a dairy farm, many of us visualise black and white 'happy cows' roaming lush green pasture, naturally and willingly providing comfort food for humans.
From a young age, this is the narrative we have been conditioned to believe from the images in children's story books and advertising of dairy products.
But what most Australians do not know is that the reality is vastly different for the 1.5 million dairy cows currently living in Australia. From the moment a dairy cow is born, their life is one of immense pain, distress and suffering.
In the past three decades, Australian dairy cows have been selectively bred to double their lactation - now producing an astonishing 5,525 litres of milk annually, a massive increase from 2,848 litres in 1979.
Genetically altering an animal to produce this quantity of milk, coupled with continuous pregnancy and birthing, places enormous pressure on the animal’s body and compromises her welfare.
The dairy cow is subjected to a continuous cycle of calving, milking and impregnation. This is exhausting work that takes a serious toll on her body. For example, producing the peak yield of 35 litres of milk per day has been compared to a person jogging for six hours, seven days a week.
In as little as seven or eight years, milking cows become worn out and when their milk yield falls, or they have repeated bouts of mastitis or lameness, they are slaughtered. A heartbreaking reality when cows naturally live up to 25 years.
Mothers
Every year around 400,000 calves are slaughtered in Australia within the first week of their lives. Labelled ‘bobby calves’ and treated as wastage by the dairy industry, their suffering is a hidden and disturbing truth of modern dairy farming.
Once they are born, calves are divided into two categories: ‘replacement’ calves (heifers) who will eventually replace the worn out milking cows and ‘non-replacement’, unwanted bobby calves, who are destined for slaughter.
While many of these bobby calves are killed on-farm within hours of birth, the majority are separated from their mothers before they are one week old, given a last feed and then loaded onto trucks for potentially long distances to sale-yards and slaughterhouses.
In Australia, bobby calves can be transported at just five days of age. Unlike other countries, Australia does not have a well-established industry to process bobby calves, so they are often required to travel long distances to slaughterhouses and sale-yards.