This 4-page leaflet explores the problem with dairy from the slaughter of male calves to the rise of 'zero grazing' systems.
The scale of the killing
Animal Aid has obtained official government slaughter data for 2025 through a Freedom of Information request to the Rural Payments Agency. The figures expose an industrialised system of killing, which is standard practice in dairy farming.
In Great Britain in 2025, a total of 60,745 male calves were slaughtered before reaching eight months of age. That is 166 calves killed every day, over 6 every hour, throughout the entire year. Of those, more than 52,000 (over 85%) were killed before they were even two months old.
More than 15,500 of these calves were killed before they were one month old. These are tiny calves, separated from their mothers within hours or days of birth, their short lives considered economically worthless by an industry that requires cows to be pregnant in order to produce milk.
On farms, out of sight
The data also exposes a hidden reality of where these killings take place. Of the 52,913 male calves killed under two months old:
- Over 31,000 calves (58.6%) were killed directly on farms, never reaching a slaughterhouse.
- Just under 22,000 calves (41.4%) were killed at slaughterhouses.
More male calves under two months old are killed on farms than in slaughterhouses. As a result, there is no regulatory oversight of the method of killing nor the number of individuals killed, with these numbers likely to be underreported.
A seasonal pattern exposes the dairy connection
The data shows that most male calves were killed in March 2025 — a pattern that directly reflects spring calving season and the dairy industry’s breeding cycles. This is not coincidence. Dairy cows must be made pregnant to produce milk. Male calves born as a by-product of that process have no commercial value in the dairy supply chain.
This killing is not an anomaly or a failure of the system. It is the system.
