Dairy cows often are extremely uncomfortable because of their living conditions. Their misery is hidden from the public, confined in over crowded barns in the county. Happier cows produce more milk (and better quality milk).
  Most people do not think about or do not understand how cows produce milk.  Farmers act like milk just magically appears in cows.  People are taught that cows like to be milked to be relieved. What people are not told is that cows are live food machines that are forced to have babies that are taken from them and bred to produce more milk than their bodies can comfortably hold.
  Often cows are stuffed into barns, side by side without room to lay down and rest their legs and properly digest their food. They are allowed to be mistreated and they silently suffer.
  A summarization of a typical dairy cow's 5-6 year life (natural life span 20-25 yrs):  de-horned, tail docked, artificially inseminated, 9 month pregnancy (4xin life), calf drug away from her after 0-24 hours (depending on plan for calf), distraught from calf separation she must produce milk for the remaining months before being impregnated again and endure the same process. Often her calf will grow up crated on the same farm and she will have to hear the calf crying for her.
 This process in itself is terribly cruel and there's no way to justify humans consuming dairy products but if they must they owe it to cows to be more concerned with their well being.
  Two painful conditions many cows suffer from (both preventable) are mastitis and lameness. Both conditions are often dealt with inhumanely (cows with mastitis have utters clipped off or are slaughtered, downer cows are chained and drug or scooped up with forklifts and slaughtered).
   I propose that dairy cows in WA are treated more humanely with these conditions put into place for them:
  1. 4 hours of outdoor time provided daily.
  2. dry, straw bedding with space to lie down available 14 hrs a day.
  3. De-horning and tail-docking banned.
  4. Barn floors with non-slip, shock absorbing surfaces.
  5. Fresh air and a comfortable temperature (as close as possible to the ideal temp. of 41-59 degrees).
  6. Clean, fresh water and food available at all times. 
  7. Enough space to interact with minimal bullying between cows.

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