These 10 Cows Are so Cute, They Can Trump Your Love for Steak (PHOTOS)

The warm weather is mostly gone for the season, and you’re trying to crank out a few more backyard barbecues before your green lawn is replaced with a cover of red and yellow leaves. For your end of the season celebration, you simply can’t resist the “perfect” opportunity to purchase the essentials: steaks, burgers, and brisket. Your barbecue is now complete, and you can’t help but take pride in what you have accomplished. With just a few more sunny summer skies in the coming weeks, nothing could rain on your parade!

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Cue the rain … we’ve herd enough.

In 2014 alone, over 12,000 cows were shipped to slaughterhouses within the United States. Rarely given protections under federal laws, cows are forced to lead a life full of neglect and cruelty. Packed into tight feedlots that lack a soft, grassy pasture or  warm shelter, cows are forced to live in their own waste. The dung present in feedlots then releases noxious chemicals that, when inhaled, can give cows chronic respiratory problems and make breathing painful. Although an individual can easily reach the age of 25 years, the typical beef cattle will only live for about one to three years.

Besides the animal abuse involved with cattle farming, it is one of the most destructive forms of agriculture on the planet. Cattle farming requires “28, 11, 5 and 6 times more land, irrigation water, greenhouse gas, and nitrogen than the production of poultry, dairy or eggs.”

Farmed cattle are fed diets of soy and corn (crops that fatten animals up, but require more water than most other crops). When you account for all the water it takes to grow these crops for cattle consumption, the total water footprint for one pound of beef equals out to 1,799 gallons. Grass-fed cattle may sound like the better option, but these bovines produce about 50 to 60 percent more greenhouse gas emissions than their feed-eating counterparts.

In the end, we think it’s pretty safe to say that you’re going to want to rethink the staples at that barbecue you were planning, click here for some more planet-friendly alternatives. After checking out these adorable porkers who are much cuter than they are tasty, we think it’s time for the little piggies to moo-ve over and make some room for some totally precious cows who will utterly convince you that a plant-based burger is a better option!

1. This cow, happy cow, who is udderly in LOVE with massages!

2. Your new hair-do is simply bo-vine.

Jim Champion/Wikimedia Commons

3. Nobody can resist a calf smooch.

Mercy for Animals/Flickr

4. Talk about an open range!

5. Why hit the hay when you can hit the beach instead?

6. Yup, this rescue cow has mastered the art of leisure.

7. Everyone could use a little bath!

8. Moo-ve over and show some affection!

9. Cows don’t have friends? Bull-oney!

Morning Ag Clips

 10. Ah, basking in the warm glow of the sun is universal. 

Wikimedia Commons

Lead image source: Marilyn Peddle / Wikimedia Commons