# @robbie_lockie on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DdGiWF9oGfp
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/70313946-robbie-lockie-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/494627abba.jpg
- **Posted:** 2026-09-10T09:40:41.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** Robbie Lockie | Creative Technologist (@robbie_lockie) — https://gondola.cc/robbie_lockie

## Caption

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 hide. And when the dummy is removed after milking, she may show signs associated with separation distress: bellowing, agitation, and searching behaviour.

This is not an accusation against individual farmers trying to survive within difficult systems. It is a reminder of the emotional reality behind a product we are often taught to see as ordinary, neutral, or harmless.

Cows and buffaloes are mothers. Their bonds with their babies matter. Their bodies, instincts, and grief are real.

Thank you to weanimals for making images and stories like these visible, and to its founder Joanna McArthur, whose post inspired this one.

These photographs were taken in India by Sudip Maiti in collaboration with FIAPO and We Animals Media.

#WeAnimalsMedia #JoAnneMcArthur #milk #DairyIndustry #india

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## Tags

dairyindustry, india, weanimalsmedia, milk, joannemcarthur

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