Is it illegal to kill pregnant animals?

Answer 1

Geesh! It legal to kill -- I was going to get sarcastic there - sorry - the answer is that there is not enough information to answer the question -- FIRST do you mean "to commercially slaughter" - or do you mean if you raise it yourself and you own both the cow and the calf? And what do you mean by "Pregnant" - do you mean is the cow SHOWING or if the cow is zygotic? And what conditions are you talking about - are you talking about a completely healthy cow, or a cow that is sick, infirm - or just plain too old to give birth safely? I take it you have not seen a cow give birth. Sometimes those odd looking come-alongs (or even the plain regular ones that are almost too clean) that are hanging on the back of the ranchers truck are not to pull the truck out of a ditch, they are there to help pull the calf out of the cow, and those really LONG gloves are not for working in mud that is between your elbow and shoulders deep, if you catch my meaning. So your question really doesn't have enough information in it - though there are some basic rules. RULE NUMBER ONE: YOU OWN YOUR COW. That means you can pretty much do ANYTHING you want with it. ("pretty much" being the operative word) , in a commercial operation it's just not possible to test EVERY SINGLE COW - Gestation varies by bread with averages being between 270 and 299 days, (about a month difference) though 275-280 days is the generally given answer - once a few cows start delivering, other cows tend to follow in rapid succession even if their breed is known to be a week or two longer than the 275 average. They 'bunch up' together and all kind of look out for each other while they are birthing. So even if you plan delivery a week or two apart, sometimes the bunching behavior will over come your timeing, and you can have delivery around the clock without stop for two weeks or more. A cow comes into heat ABOUT every 30 days OR SO. And unless you have a 24/7 watch on the cow in heat, it is not out of the question that if it is in a field of cattle you are going to harvest, and a bull breaks down the fence, inseminates the cow, you get the bull back to his field, and you proceed with the harvest -- you have just harvested a pregnant cow. So you really do need to ask a specific question to get a specific answer. I don't know a rancher who would spend the money to check every single cow in that field, and then wait a year or more before being paid for this years harvest - the chances are very great that the rancer would go belley up and lose his or her ranch if such laws existed.

IN GENERAL: IF YOU OWN THE ANIMAL AND IT'S OFF SPRING THE ANSWER IS YES -- but there are many 'if's involved in the answer. See below for SOME of them.

Think about a cow that is 50 days Pregnant - how would you know in a mechanized plant? And what would you do with the cow if it was -- you bought it, so you own it, so you are responsbile for it -- what would you do? Feed lots do not have pastures, would you take the cow you paid x per pound on hoof and feed her, graze her, vaccinate her, irrigate the field, over-winter the cow, or the cow and calf - and if you deliver the calf - then what would you do with the calf? Raise it? Kill it? Hand raise it? Sell it? Would you EVER break even? No. Cattle come in many different breeds for a reason: some give more butter, others give more milk, others put more weight per pound of feed, some take drought, some take cold, some marble their meat. And so harvest is just that: harvest - and please think of it as a harvest - the question doesn't seem concerned with if you would crush an apple into juice if it had an insect inside it, nor one of those rare apples where a seed sprouted early and you cut it open and dang! If there isn't a sprouting seed inside! -So do you plant the seed? where? Is it legal to cut down an apple tree someone planted on your land if they lived in an appartment? If they planted it in a park -- could the city or country cut it down, or mow it down if you put it in a grassy area? YOU ALMOST KILLED A BABY APPLE!!! WHAT ARE YOUR MORAL OBLIGATIONS? And really, do you check to see if the apple has an insect in it, and if it does, do you do your research so you can raise it from worm through pupa to adult -- then 'set it free with the birds?" -- or do you try to make sure that you release it where birds are not likely to get it -- so you rais it to near adult hood -- Those are the IMPLIED moral obligations to the question. The question seems harmless, but behind the question are entire camps of religious and moral fervor.

So to make everyhting easy -- IF YOU OWN THE ANIMAL AND IT'S OFF SPRING, YOU CAN HARVEST IT. JUST LIKE YOU HARVEST YOUR APPLES FOR PRESSING, AND WHAT ARE YOUR MORAL OBLIGATIONS FOR THE SPROUTED SEED? OR DOES THAT MORAL OBLIGATION FALL UPON THE PROCESSING PLANT FOR HAVING SOLD YOU A 'PREGNANT' APPLE?

So because every breed has it's own use and is raised different ways - some range cattle, or 'home herds' are 'left to nature' - and insemination happens 'naturally' - in many herds where a farmer is improving his stock, the cows are artificially inseminated. When you truck up your free roaming range herd for auction or sale, you really have no clue which cow is pregnant and which is not - you PRESUME that harvest is taking place MONTHS after a 'mother' has given birth to her 'baby'. In most cases, when running range cattle, you allow the mother one year or so to look after her 'baby' because it's a brutal world out there. Though you can be grown in very nice surroundings like Montana, Wyoming, -- even Wisconsin has some land that is about as close to cow heaven as you can get - The intermountain west - between the Sierra and Rockies is not exactly 'heaven' to a cow and her baby, food is scares, water can be hard to find, and some winters can make Michigan or New Jersey look like southern Florida. So there really is no way that you will know if the cattle you are eating was raised on alkali water and the wild brush and grass of the Great Basins and Ranges, or if it was raised on the verdant rolling meadows and fields of Wyoming or Montana - though the chances are that your dog is eating the range cattle and the top notch stores and restaurants are selling well raised cattle from Wyoming or Montana. And if you buy from a large commercial store chain -- you probably get a mixture of what ever they happen to have within the price range the store is willing to pay -- and low end every day mass market low profit stores do not buy top quiality meat - and pregnant cow meat is not 'top quality' since many of it's nuriants are being used to feed it's calf. So on the very low end, think 'fast food' -- and trust me - where every penny adds up, they are not buying top quality meat - even if they call it by a top quality cut. There is prime rib that my Malamutes and shephards would have a hard time eatting, just as there is rib meat that will melt in your mouth.

YOU OWN YOUR ANIMAL. You can pretty much do what ever you want with it. Is it legal to 'put down' pregnant dogs or cats? I think a quick call to your local "Shelter" will tell you the answer, and if we are going to do that to 'mans best friend', a herd of wild cattle from the middle of Nevada will have far fewer laws that protect them. The laws about cattle are changing, and your local Brand Inspector no longer just checks the history of the brand(s), he is also checking 'bands' - which say what herd the cow came from, what vaccinations they have had and when, sometimes even a record of insemination - and that line of cattle - So LET'S REPHRASE THE QUESTION: IF YOU OWN YOUR ANIMAL AND IT'S CALF, AND YOU KNOW THAT IT IS PREGNANT AND IN ABSOLUTELY PERFECT HEALTH AND ALL THE TIME PERIODS BETWEEN VACCINATIONS AND HARVEST HAVE BEEN MET, IS IT LEGAL TO HARVEST THE ANIMAL? The answer is absolutely YES. Though why a rancher would want to kill a calf that will replace the mother are few - some are very valid - for example, if giving birth would kill the cow and the cow is not in labor the meat will be more tender and you save her from dieing a long and painful death, or the calf is known to be deformed and you are raising beef cattle and not milk cattle, or you have to sell off some of your herd to make a payment on your ranch or equipment, then sacrificing two cattle is worth it. Sometimes feed is just too much and you have to cull your herd before spring birthing - most births are timed for spring and often you will have your heard come into heat a week or two apart so you are not having to help deliver more than one calf at a time. But that is an entirely different question. Sometimes, perhaps most of the time, that calf is worth more than the mother, and if artificially inseminated, it ALWAYS has the potential to be FAR more valuable than the mother - IF YOU OWN THE ANIMAL AND THE CALF YOU CAN DO ABOUT WHAT EVER YOU WANT. Sometimes I might pay you to have one of your heifers inseminated and I would pay you for the maintenance of the cow so that I could have the calf, then the answer is NO because you do not own both animals, I own the Calf. So while your question did not give enough information to be simply answered, there are many considerations when it comes to harvesting a given cow, pregnancy is only one of them. A few times in my life I have been surprised that a cow was pregnant thinking that the insemination did not take. And since cows come into heat ABOUT once a month or so, there is a chance that insemination takes place out of sight and you simply do not know especially by visual observation at one or two or three months, and there WAS a law, you would not be able to harvest a cow without blood and lab work. This would sure drive up the price of meat -- So since cattle are harvested usually in the fall, after a season of eating, and then time in a pasture to fatten up, the chances of harvesting a pregnant cow are small. Though harvest can happen anytime - and if you are running bulls and cows together, you just can't tell. The rule of thumb is IF YOU OWN THE ANIMAL AND ANY POSSIBLE CALF, YOU CAN DO JUST ABOUT ANYTHING YOU WANT WITH IT. And that includes harvest. Though if it helps you, most harvest plants do not like to buy meat that has a lower resale value - but some cultures place a high value on unborn calf that's about 8 months or so along, and that is a specialty market that does exist, though I do not know much about the laws which regulate it, though I would be surprised that laws would be different. The last thing you need to know is that while the USDA oversees many federal regulations, most federal regulations are minimal and apply more to processing plants than they do harvest - and virtually none apply to home harvest. The laws you would be most interested in would be your state laws, and you would be surprised at the difference between states, though the general rule of thumb is that if you own it you can HUMANLY harvest it. And the main ways to do that are: electrical stun-shock gun, slitting the throat, or shooting it in the head. This applies to any "farm animal", the main exception I can think of are foul where severing the head from the spine is so simple, it is the preferred method of home harvest. Though you CAN get a vet to come visit you and he can just use euthanasia with the animal, like say your dog or cat -- but also a horse or cow or Musk Ox, -- just about anything, but then you would not want to eat the meat because it cloud contain enough chemical to kill you.

Answer 2

As far as I know it is illegal to kill pregnant animals. It is only legal if the animal is in very bad pain. Hope this helps.

Answer 3

Yes. A cow in pretty well any stage of gestation can be commercially slaughtered.