You know the dairy industry is on the defensive when they stop trying to sing the praises of their product and just scrape the bottom of the barrel for reasons not to drink dairy-free milk (like soy, oat or almond milk).

Check out this ad from the American dairy industry -- it's pretty funny in its desperation to sell milk.

But the dairy industry will never feel the desperation of Bobby, a male calf born to keep his mother producing milk, while he is discarded as a 'waste product' of milk production.

So I'd rather shake and save lives than drink milk stolen from a doomed baby cow…and seriously I've never had to shake my milk that much anyway! Have you?

I've met lots of smart people. At least, they are smarter than me! But it's amazing how even among some of the smartest people I know there are some really basic things that seem to slip through the cracks.

Like, here's where most people think milk comes from:

1) The fridge
2) The supermarket
3) Magical fairy cows that automatically lactate for our convenience
4) All of the above (this was me)

I think these options pretty much sum up the images that you see in ads for cows' milk. Well, next week Animals Australia is going to do some advertising of their own, only this time, they're letting people in on a little secret -- the dark side to dairy that they *won't* tell you about in their ads. Click here to download the new ad, or sit back and watch this video to discover the truth:

Did that leave a sour taste in your mouth? Don't stress, there are stacks of cruelty-free milks, yoghurts, ice creams and chocolate to help you get your creamy fix without the cruelty.

If you think animals shouldn't be treated like 'waste products' then please share this vid on your Facebook and Twitter. And if you're cashed up you can even make a donation to help get Animals Australia's new ad in the newspaper next week!

What's the most disturbing thing you've discovered about where food comes from? We wanna know -- leave a comment!

Unleashed Note: A little while ago, 4_da_animals1 posted a thread to the forum describing her experiences doing part time work at a small dairy farm. Most of us already know that male calves (who obviously can't produce milk) are killed as a waste product of the industry. But we were intrigued and disturbed to hear about her day to day encounters, so we asked her to write a guest blog. 

With all the dairy chocolate gobbled up at Easter, we thought this would be the perfect time to share her story:

Having recently turned vegetarian, I can now tell you one way to guarantee to become vegan is to work on a dairy farm.

Needing a job for the summer holidays, I was skimming through the country paper and saw an ad for a job on a dairy farm. Mum had been breathing down my neck to get a job; nothing much else was on offer; and to be honest I was curious to see how dairies treat their animals first hand, so I rang the manager to see if the spot had been taken. It hadn't.

I would be in charge of feeding gorgeous baby calves for a few hours a couple of times a week, and being paid for it. What could go wrong? Turns out being a calf feeder is not all I thought it would be. I had heard stories about the dairy industry being cruel - male calves taken from their mothers and trucked off to slaughter every week - but nothing really hits you in the heart more than seeing the kinds of day to day cruelty these poor creatures go through firsthand.

With images of gorgeous happy calves skipping up to me for a feed, I headed down to the farm with a smile on my face, and high expectations. These expectations, however, were crushed within a few mere hours.

The first thing I clearly remember from stepping outside the car was the smell. The smell of mass amounts of faeces. In front of me were hundreds of cows packed in a small iron pen, one by one being pushed through these huge machines with tubes being attached to their udders - a person behind them, making loud noises and hitting their behinds with a rubber tube, to push them forward.

I was told to throw some rubber boots on, and get in with the cows. The lady pushing the cows forward would be in charge of me, to teach me what to do. As I headed towards her, all I could see were piles and piles of faeces in the pen - so large  that I would get stuck in it. The cows were forced to move through the sludge, which the workers called "mud" to get onto the concrete in front of the milkers. Some cows would trip and fall into the "mud" face first. Some cow's behinds were covered in sores and dried "mud", others were limping, but all were forced further and further forward to be finished by break time.

The one thing I will never get out of my head is the sadness in those cow's eyes. With hung heads, you could tell they could feel every hit, and if you tried to approach them, they would run off, with genuine fear in their eyes of you, the two legged being with a big stick.

Once a cow had given birth, a worker would take the baby away from the mother, and shove him into a tiny trailer attached to the back of the quad bike, awaiting a calf feeder to take him down with the others. Some calves were stuck in that cage for up to 12 hours.

The calves were placed 5 or 6 to a pen. To move a calf into a different pen, they were picked up and thrown over the fence, then left to gather their own feet. Standing in front of the calves' pens for the first time, I looked to my left and was faced with a pile of dead calves covered in flies being thrown on the back of the quad to be taken to the "death pit". In front of me, in the pens, were cute wobbly calves, covered in all different shades of faeces - from other sick calves and calves with the equivalent of diarrhea, which is lethal to a baby calf if not treated within days of getting sick.

It's a calf feeder's responsibility to separate the sick calves from the healthy, and tell the manager when more medicine needs to be ordered. If the manager isn't told, it doesn't happen, and the calves suffer and die as a result. This happened frequently, as the majority of workers just didn't care. They were simply there to get their hours.

Deprived of a mother to drink milk from at a leisurely pace, calves have two opportunities to drink milk per day, having to consume 2 litres of milk on both occasions. If a calf refused to feed from the plastic feeders on the fence, they had a tube shoved down their throat and were forced to feed, with a quiet moan escaping them as the tube slid in. As you make sure each calf consumes its 2 litres, you cannot escape the overwhelming wails of the mother cows that have just had their babies taken from them.

Every single male bobby calf, and any female that was born with a male as twins gets sent to slaughter. The female twins are included, as they have a higher rate of future miscarriage. Miscarriage means no baby, which means no production of milk. Every five days, the truck comes to take the bobby calves to slaughter and their miserable life comes to an end.

Needless to say, I didn't last long working there. And my time there has triggered my decision to go vegan. I do not know of many people who would agree to this treatment of such kindhearted creatures. This was a small country dairy, I could not possibly imagine the kinds of things big companies get away with.

I'm glad I can now give people a first hand account of how animals are treated on dairy farms. And I'll be taking every opportunity I can to inform others! We, as consumers need to show through what we choose to eat and buy that we do not agree with ill-treatment of other living creatures!

Want to uncover more dirt on dairy? Check out this video, tracing the life of a bobby calf:

UPDATE: Did you see that? If you missed tonight's 7PM Project, click here to watch a re-play of the story online!

In the week since Animals Australia's nationwide ad campaign hit major newspapers, the media has been buzzing with stories exposing the truth about the forgotten casualties of the dairy industry: bobby calves.

Now The 7PM Project is jumping on the bandwagon too! This will be some of the biggest exposure bobby calves have ever had in Australia - making it a show not to be missed. So tune into the program tonight (2nd Feb) - on Channel 10, at ... hang on I just have to check what time it starts ... ;)

Most people would be outraged to know that 700,000 baby calves are sent to slaughter each year as a routine part of the dairy industry. And they have a right to know! So get all your family and friends to watch too!

Afterwards, tell us what you thought of the show in the comments below!

PS. Want to win some dairy-free chocolate goodness? Want to do a good deed for the calves? Great... then head over here to help bobby calves on MooTube …I mean YouTube!

Most people wouldn't stop to ask, as they pour milk into their morning coffee, what went into producing that milk. But this morning, as people take a sip and open today's paper, they'll find out, because of this campaign ad.

It'll come as a shock to most Aussies to learn that every year in Australia over 700,000 calves are killed as 'waste products' of the dairy industry. What may come as even more of a shock is that the dairy industry is now pushing for legislation that would allow calves to be starved of feed for the last 30 hours of their lives, before being killed at the slaughterhouse!

This proposed new standard is under 'public consultation' at the moment. Did you know you were being consulted? No? Neither do most people, because the government and industry conveniently neglected to let the public know!

But just because they don't want to tell the public the truth, doesn't mean we can't do that for them! After all, people have a right to know what they are buying into if they drink dairy.

So today Animals Australia is running the above ad in major newspapers across the country. Make sure you grab a copy of one of these papers and show the ad to all your family and friends:

• Daily Telegraph
• Sydney Morning Herald
• Herald Sun
• The Age
• Courier Mail
• West Australian
• The Advertiser
• Hobart Mercury
• Canberra Times

Want to make your voice heard too? Great! Click here to check out the video that exposes dairy's dark secret, and to get tips on how you can make a difference for calves - including the chance to win delicious dairy-free chocolates!

Have you already spotted our ad in your local paper? What did you think?

Last Monday (12 October) Michigan passed a bill that will see the phase out some of the cruelest confinement methods used in the farming industry.

 Within 3 years, dairy calves in Michigan will no longer be confined in tiny veal crates and starved of iron to make their flesh pale and soft. Battery cages , used to confine egg-laying hens, and gestation crates used to confine mother pigs, will also be phased out. With these significant improvements for animals Michigan has become the 7th state to ban gestation crates, the 5th to ban veal crates and the 2nd to ban battery cages.

And the good news just keeps coming! California - who have already banned veal crates, gestation crates and battery cages – have added to their list of ‘no-no’s’ tail docking of dairy cows. A good sign from one of the US's largest dairy states, and very good news for the 1.8million dairy cows in California!

While we're on the topic of changes for animals, the city council of Santa Monica (also in California) has voted in favour of drafting new legislation that will restrict animal 'declawing' – ie. the practice of painfully removing animals’ claws.

Meanwhile, over the other side of the world in a little place often known as 'the lucky country', farm animals aren't so lucky. Recently The Greens in ACT (and Tas for that matter) put forward a Bill that would ban battery cages from ACT (meaning only one business would be affected) and the Liberals and Labour teamed up to shoot it down (same story in Tasmania).  With the many other parts of the world making huge advances for animals, it is disappointing that Australia is still dragging its feet.