Emily the Cow

On November 14, 2005 , Emily bolted from the killing floor and focused on survival by jumping over a 5-foot high gate out of a slaughterhouse. She escaped and spent a month in the snowy woods. She was very brave and very strong having eluded the police, slaughterhouse workers and animal control officers for forty days and forty nights.

This is a true story.

I met Emily and heard of her stories. When she escaped the slaughterhouse she was a two year old cow who could not produce milk, so the milk industry decided that she was not useful and unprofitable. Dairy cows are usually slaughtered when they are 5 or 6 years old because their milk production declines and those who cannot produce milk are immediately slaughtered. There are horrifying stories of how cows are treated before they are slaughtered.

Emily was found by the Randa family who recognized the connection between human suffering and animal suffering. They took her into their family and brought her to a sanctuary. The Randas bought Emily from the slaughterhouse and she was welcomed to her new home at the Peace Abbey on December 24, 1995 .



Emily became the campaign for the Farm Animal Reform Movement, which is a non-profit public interest organization that promotes planetary health through plant based eating. This organization advocates plant-based vegan diets to save animals. Emily was involved in the conferences that voiced animals’ rights.

She was also an important member of the Hindu community. She attended religious events at the nearby Hindu Temple . In Hinduism, the cow is highly respected and worshiped. One of the reasons why Hindus worship the cow is because of a cow named Kamadhenu who was believed to be the mother of all the cows. In Hindu Mythology, Kamadhenu was a miraculous cow who could give her owner whatever he desired. Visitors from India came to bless her as a sacred cow and brought her a handmade sacred cow blanket. She was happy, healthy and safe.

Things began to change in early March. Emily began to lose weight and her abdomen filled with fluid…Emily had cancer. Her cancer had been growing inside of her since the age of two, which prevented her from becoming pregnant and producing milk.



The mammary gland of a calf and the udder is almost fully developed by six months of age. By this stage the udder has four separate glands and a median ligament, teat and gland cisterns. As the udder increases in cell size and cell numbers through lactations, the milk producing capacity increases. However, a cow cannot produce milk until she is pregnant. With Emily, a plausible explanation would be that as her udder increased in cell size and numbers, they must have produced and reproduced cancerous cells. These cells could have prevented her from becoming pregnant and prevented her from producing milk. There was very little that the doctors could do for her.

Sunday, March 30, 2003

Sherborn , Massachusetts

OnEmily died in her sleep of uterine cancer. The whole community came to give their respects to her. Lewis Randa summarized in his eulogy over Emily that “Emily was more that just a cow. She was, for people who loved her, an important creature who put them in touch with a greater understanding of animals and how humans should treat them. Her eyes would melt your heart and make you appreciate what animals have to offer.” She is now buried at the Peace Abbey in



Information taken from The Story of Emily the Cow compiled by Meg and Lewis Randa

© 2007 The Peace Abbey

Posted By: Nelina Bridge (9)

