The calf’s gender is not quite a 50% crapshoot. Bull semen can be sorted by chromosome to produce 88% (at least) “purity” of division between X-chromosome (i.e. female calf) and Y-chromosome (male calf) so the farmer seeking to artifically inseminate a cow can bias toward the result he wants.
Thanks for the huge replies, too many to start shoving in loads of quotes but couple of points;
Thanks for setting me straight that its not a 50/50 split, hadn’t considered the sex selection side of it, but at least still a significant enough amount must be male then.
Good point about India, how hypocritical can you get, so its ok to turn a blind eye to animals being killed as long as they don’t do it themselves - got to love that!
And I totally appreciate people’s choices, whether they’re veggie and still eat dairy or fish or whatever, the only thing I object to is narrow minded hypocrisy - if you want to eat something or not eat it just get on with it and if you’re squeaky clean feel free to tell other people your views. But in this case a person is condemning one thing and brazenly doing the opposite just because its convienient.
After the replies this afternoon I had a ‘discussion’ with my sis about itand pointed out a few facts, she wasn’t too happy but it basically came down to vegan food being too pricey (and her not willing to give up her nice clothes and nights out to save the widdle cows) and her enjoying dairy/eggs while still maintaining its not as cruel as eating the actual meat. Right…
You can only reason with a reasonable man (or woman)
See? Now don’t you wish we coud edit? 
Thanks for the insightful clarification and details. The website might have been more accurate, I suspect much was lost in my quickie paraphrasing. In any case, it’s great to see such an informed answer.
Actually, with proper dietary management, acidosis and ketosis are fairly rare. Unless the 25 percent refers to lameness, which can be caused by many things: injuries to hooves, congenital/genetic defects, overgrown hooves, etc. Or does the 25 percent refer to the total number dairy cattle? Total number of herds? Dairy operators? Care to offer the address of the Web site you’re pulling this from?
Good animal husbandry calls for careful management of your herd’s feed and careful monitoring of herd health.
The age at which a cow is culled from the herd varies widely from producer to producer. To say that the average lifespan of a dairy cow is five years and not offer any more information does not take into account death from diseases, lightning strikes, or any other number of reasons. It’s not like dairy farmers belly up to the stanchion row and go, “Well, bossie, it’s been a good five years, but you’ve got to go. Have fun as a burger.” Not to mention the fact that, in the wild, it’s not like cattle aren’t killed by wild animals or die from untreated diseases.
Artificial rennet is actually more common in cheesemaking these days. There’s a shortage of appropriate calf stomachs. It comes from a variety of sources, including vegetables and microbes. Only cheesemakers in Europe use rennet traditionally harvested from calf stomachs, i.e. the lining scraped out and added to milk.
[tooting my own horn] Perhaps the OP or his sister would be interested in reading the Ask the Dairy Farmer’s Daughter thread I started last summer. [/tooting my own horn]
And, of course, by ketosis, I meant alkalosis. Long Time First Time is absolutely correct: ketosis is fairly common in dairy cattle.