Milking an animal is always of commercial interest. Whether it's the industrial farms or these ranchers, animals finally end up in slaughter houses.
Seems both these calves you helped in bringing them into existence are female calves. So they might live a few years until they could be milked productively before they get slaughtered. But what if these were male calves?
I wonder why humans want to suck animals' milk!
As I said.. no matter their sex they will be at the county fair next year. Let’s not speak so confidently in things we clearly don’t understand 😉
Yeah, I concur. But what I speak is what I observe here in my country. Things may be a little different where you're.
When we say they go to fair, it means they will be traded for money there. Here begins the objectification of life when we put some monetary tag to it. It's very similar to what happened during human slavery when slaves were traded in fair.
In fair, the buyer of cow will definitely use it for milking or else why one would pay for it! If it's an ox, it was already castrated and was not let to become a bull, the way nature intended. Ox are generally used for tilling land or in transportation as draught animal and are retired to slaughter house when they get old or less productive.
Bulls of good breed may be used to collect semen and they retire as early as 10 years of age ...again to slaughter houses. Of course, there are entertainment events like bull-fighting in Spain where John McAfee recently went. A similar event called Jallikattu (and some more) takes place in Southern India too (though bulls ain't murdered in those events).
But you're right, I shouldn't be very confident until I know who purchased these calves at fair and for what purpose. But tbh, there are less than 1% chance, if any, that someone will buy it and offer them a free natural life without exploiting them for any human advantage.
Frankly, I don't know why I'm writing all these here. I understand that nothing is new to you in these lines and I never intended to leave any comment to this post but somehow this comment thread incited me to share a piece of my mind. Sorry about it!