Nikita Teryoshin

Verden, Lower Saxony, Show of the Best

Final of the 43rd Show of the Best in Verden, Lower Saxony, one of the most important annual awards for dairy cows in Germany: One of the most famous German dairy cows, Lady Gaga, is led into the ring. Fog, spotlight, red carpet, roaring applause, judges in suits, and the owner Henrik Wille – all men. The only lady: Lady Gaga, known from newspapers and television. She won the Show of the Best a total of three times as well as numerous other competitions and was regarded as a model dairy cow: healthy and pregnant well into old age and with an enormous milk yield. Lady Gaga had seven calves and, according to her owner, died in her shed after a short illness at the age of 13 – with the herd book number FR5454809453 and a lifetime production of 125,000 liters of milk.

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Pia Wallner, animal keeper and deputy director of dairy farming at the Meiereihof research station, University of Hohenheim

Cows like Lady Gaga are not slaughtered at the end of their lives, but – like dogs and cats – are usually euthanized if they become seriously ill at an advanced age. If the genetics and husbandry are optimal, even high-performance cows can grow very old. 

Incidentally, few wild cattle in the wild live longer than a year. The vast majority of calves and young cattle are killed by predators and their death is often far more painful than the death of domestic cattle in the slaughterhouse.

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