The dairy industry has launched a campaign in an attempt to favorably promote dairy products and the struggling industry — and it’s not going so well. Februdairy, observed during a month usually dedicated to Valentine’s Day and Black History, was (ironically) launched by an ex-vegan animal scientist in response to the wildly successful Veganuary campaign. And vegans have taken it over.

The group’s X (formerly Twitter) account dates back to 2017 (@Februdairy, in case you want to troll them), and consists mostly of a hashtag campaign on social media using an X account with ~3,000 followers (they haven’t posted since 2020). By comparison, Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM) has 73,000 followers.

Countless other vegans on X have co-opted the hashtag and have been successful in exposing the truth behind the closed doors of dairy. The truth dairy farmers don’t want you to know.

The campaign has doubled down in the past with a viral challenge where people are encouraged to drink a pint of milk and then nominate their friends to do the same. So, in other words, Februdairy challenges people to consume cow’s milk that was stolen from mother cows and then coax their friends into drinking even more of this milk that was produced and intended solely for the cow’s newborn.

“There’s been a lot of bad press around the dairy and meat industry,” says Abi, a supporter of the Februdairy campaign who works for an agricultural supplier in Sussex, England. “People tend to read things online and generalise farmers into the idea that they all run farms in an intensive factory way.”

This comment aside, on any dairy farm cows are impregnated against their will, forced to give birth, and forcibly have their calves taken from them so they can steal their milk.

There is no “sensitive way” to do this. Then Abi went even further toward supporting a vegan argument.

“There’s a big myth that every single male-born calf is shot at birth. Some are — a lot aren’t,” she says. Abi’s partner runs a farm in Sussex which takes on male calves that can’t be used for milk. “They are reared for beef. They stay on until they are about two.”

Re-read that paragraph and highlight the points where male calves are NOT killed as part of the dairy industry — we’ll wait. Any female calf born in the dairy industry has a fate worse than death in that they are subjected to a (short) lifetime of constant impregnation. Over and over until they are spent.

“Obviously, vegans are on the rise, which nobody has any problems with,” Abi continued. “It’s the fact that they come out in force to slate farmers, using this false propaganda. It’s essential that farmers have that voice now more than ever.”

We’re still waiting for Abi to point out the “false propaganda” and still waiting for “Februdairy” to take off.