Billy in the Barn

This is Billy, a rescued Jersey cow who resides at Farm Sanctuary. I am not sure of Billy's story (every single animal at Farm Sanctuary has a story!), but it is likely that he was born to a dairy cow. Usually the males born to dairy cows are turned into veal calves -- so, to quote a worthwhile DVD entitled "Eating," "There's a little bit of a veal calf in every drop of dairy you consume!" Billy has a chronic lung condition, which he had when he came to the Sanctuary. It is incurable and there isn't much that can be done for him. Consequently, he wheezes a lot and has to stay up at the main barn -- luckily he has some bovine buddies there, named Dawn (a beautiful red Angus girl who is a loving surrogate mother), Linus (born to a prize Jersey dairy cow at the vet, but left to be euthanized when the farmer found out he was male), and Mario, a one-year-old Jersey boy found on a dead pile, with his leg broken, at a stockyard by a truck driver who could not leave him there to die.

Billy is huge, but he is so gentle and sweet. So far, he's still doing fine.