Answering Mail
Our friend Deepa, in Pondicherry, was exploring the tension between harvesting dairy for human consumption, and consideration for the happiness and well-being of the ruminants themselves, mother and child. Seema paalu, a traditional pudding in her part of India, is made with colostrum, and Deepa is an inspired cook. She asked us how we strike a human/animal needs balance on our farm:
Hi, Deepa! You're right; if our agricultural practices make the animals' lives unhappy, we're not practicing good agriculture. That's not hyper-sensitivity on our part, it's just the truth. It's not that hard to find ways so that everyone on the farm -- all species -- are winners. 
I've got six cows with calves under them right now, and numbers are definitely part of the answer. I can leave calves with mamas and still get the milk I need (several gallons per day). I don't like taking calves from their mothers (even though, if we have to do that, we then bottle feed them for several months). It makes both calves and mamas unhappy to be separated before Baby is several months old, and it makes for less healthy, less vigorous calves. The first time I let a cow raise her own baby, I really saw the difference!So, we keep as many dairy animals as we need to responsible manage our sunlight and grass harvest, and then we take what the calves will leave us -- a gallon or two per cow per day, usually. Eventually the calves get so big they aren't leaving the quantities of milk we need -- then we let one or two of the cows nurse all the calves, and we get all the milk from the other cows. Dairy cows are really good mothers, and ours have always fostered extra calves easily. It's a good system.As for colostrum, you're right, you can make custards just as good from milk; and you're also right, that by the fourth or fifth day from calving, what you're getting is already pretty much milk. Colostrum is just a first food, nutrient-dense and full of probiotics, to clear out the calf's gut and prepare it for milk digestion with big communities of probiotic lactobaccili, and the cow only makes a limited quantity. In a dairy animal, though, that's still more than baby is going to take, so we generally end up harvesting several gallons of colostrum and colostrum/milk in the first few days after calving. We freeze extra colostrum (it makes an excellent tonic for animals who are poorly), and sometimes provide some to folks with special health needs. I've cooked with it a little. Colostrum makes a much firmer pudding/curd than milk does, but I love delicate custards, so I mostly use milk.
Thanks for the question, Deepa. I love your reverence for cooking, for food, ingredients, and simple things. I aspire to escape the plastic trap, too! Blessings from Appalachia --