I saw Joanna McArthur post about this today while I was using the weanimals stock library, and it inspired me to share it too. It is macabre, heartbreaking, and incredibly revealing. In parts of India and elsewhere, there is a practice known as khal bacha — Hindi for “skin baby.” When a calf has been taken from their mother, or has died, their skin may be stuffed with straw, hay, or sawdust to create a lifelike dummy. The dummy is then placed near a lactating cow or water buffalo during milking. Why? Because milk release depends on oxytocin, a hormone closely tied to maternal sensory cues. The smell, sight, and presence of what appears to be her calf can trigger her body to let down milk that she might otherwise withhold. It is deeply unsettling to see because it reveals something the dairy industry routinely asks us to ignore: milk is not simply “produced.” It is part of a mother–baby relationship. A mother may lick, nudge, sniff, call to, and repeatedly check the unresponsive ...