Calves are deprived of their share of milk. Newborn male calves are largely unwanted. The male calves are sold often on the very day they are born, to the veal industry. There, they are confined in crates so that their muscles do not develop. They are fed an iron-deficient feed for six weeks in order to produce the tender white meat known as veal.

In India, where veal is not so popular, they are sent to slaughter, or sent out to fend for themselves, or tied to a pole and allowed to die slowly of starvation. This slow painful death takes about seven days. Their carcasses are collected and used by the Kora Kendra (an institute that makes goods only out of leather from animals that have died natural deaths for those who are averse to killing) to make ‘ahimsic’ leather products.

Some male calves have their stomachs slit soon after birth, while they are still alive, to make rennet for the cheese industry. In India, this is supposed to be banned in favour of microbial rennet. The mother cows suffer from intense grief and can often be heard crying for days. Female calves are brought up to join their mothers as milk producers. Some ‘goshalas’ too in India, built for the welfare of cows, separate the calf from its mother in order to milk her.