The calves of the shelter

Asia, Europe and Africa arrived on September 29, 2021. Asia was 11 days old, Europe and Africa was 3 weeks old. They were born to dairy mothers inseminated with a “Belgian Blue White”. “Belgian Blue White was created for the food industry from a genetic anomaly. They are “monsters”. The mothers, “Prim’Holstein” have also selected and crossed to produce more milk than naturally. With this unnatural crossbreeding, the cows’ lactation is restarted and the calves, enormous and very profitable, go to the slaughterhouse as “veal calves”.

Asia, Europe and Africa should have been slaughtered between 6 and 8 months.

Life has decided otherwise for our 3 guys…

When they arrived, they were scared after 10 hours of transport, with severe diarrhea, ringworm and bronchitis.

The veterinarian came the next morning to provide them with the necessary care and discuss with us the care and feeding protocol.

They were bottle-fed until 6 months old with unlimited access to pasture and hay.

Our goal is to try to limit “genetic breakage”… Usually, they are fed with pellets that encourage growth for better profitability.

Departure from Africa for OABA

We accustom them to being handled in the form of play. It’s about finding the right distance, we are neither their mothers nor playmates. As they grew up without a referent adult-bovine, we don’t hide the fact that this is complicated. This is why we have started training with a specialized ethologist. The challenge is to gain authority (benevolent of course!) so that our very big babies don’t jump like crazy around us.

Asia has fragile health. During the summer of 2022, he developed infectious meningitis which nearly took his life. The care was complex and the safety of the caregivers involved. Genetic manipulation makes them very fragile. They were not “designed” to age but to be slaughtered between 6 and 8 months. Europe is more resilient.

Despite our efforts, Africa began to act very dominant and behave dangerously around humans. After a few mishaps that could have gone wrong, we called our friends at OABA for help. Africa joined their “herd of happiness” in a specialized cattle shelter. He is perfectly safe there.