Challenge Dairy to Stop Using Milk Products that Come from Confined Calves

March 27, 2008

Willie Nelson Urges Land O’Lakes, Challenge Dairy to Stop Using Milk Products that Come from Confined Calves 03-26-2008 Country Icon Joins Over 22,000 Petition Signers in Pushing for Dairy Farm Reform Stating, "As a cowboy, I must stand up for cows," Willie Nelson has signed on to a campaign to warn consumers about the cruel—and illegal—living conditions for calves raised to produce milk for dairy products. Nelson has written letters to Land O’Lakes (St. Paul, Minn.) and Challenge Dairy (Dublin, Calif.), two of the major corporations that use milk from calves raised at California’s Mendes Calf Ranch, which employs an intensive confinement practice that is the subject of a lawsuit

brought by the national nonprofit Animal Legal Defense Fund. ALDF is filing an appeal in this lawsuit today in the Supreme Court of California. Nelson’s letters are being delivered to the corporations this week along with the signatures of more than 22,000 concerned citizens who have taken part in the Animal Legal Defense Fund’s "Free Baby Mendes" campaign, which aims to stop the intensive confinement of baby cows at the California facility. Located in Tipton, Calif., Mendes houses calves for approximately 80 different dairy producers. After birth, baby calves are almost immediately taken away from their mothers and shipped to the Tulare County facility, which houses as many as 12,000 calves at one time. (This relatively new practice in the dairy industry — which can help profits but harm calves — is little-known by most consumers.) On June 19, 2006,

ALDF first filed a complaint in Tulare County Superior Court against Mendes Calf Ranch for isolating and confining newborn calves in crates. This confinement violates state anti-cruelty laws, which require that animals have adequate exercise area. Now, with the country crooner’s help, ALDF has taken the effort straight to consumers. http://aldf.org/news/details.php?id=368 http://aldf.org/mendes/index.php

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