Again, I am no fan of keeping animals indoors, nor of intensive farming generally.
However...
In the modern, indoor-all-the-time systems, cows always have their own comfy bed, always have space at the trough and have plenty of nutritious food to eat, have rotating brushes they can go and scratch themselves on, some of the sytems have parlours where the cows go to be milked by robots whenever they want - which means she never feels uncomfortable, ladies 
The real key here is for people to pay their food proper respect. Pay a proper price for it so that it isn't so cheap they buy half-gallon containers and then throw half of it away.
Farmers produce as much milk the supermarkets can sell, and then the buying public throw half of it away. That is the thing to rant about.
Well said,
I know of many many dairy farms, I work on my family dairy farm and am very involved and interested in animal welfare
I can (almost) guarantee, if you go to a tiny 150 cow dairy farm, the cows nearly all dont have as comfy beds, not enough in many cases with many cows having to lie in the passage-ways, I dont know of any 150 cows dairys who have cow pedometeres (to predict a cow going lame so prompt treatment can be carried out), cow back scratchers, rubber matting on the floors instead of concrete, very strict hygeine rules etc
The 600-900 cow dairys I know of all have the above, yet why if we are talking about increasing cow numbers up to 1,000 is it suddenly called a "super-dairy" when a 600 cow or 900 cow dairy isnt?
Also the cows are generally kept in superb condition, have every wish catered for, live in comfort within a constant environment, yes the average lactation number in dairy cows is 3 (so they live to 5) but is 5 years in a comfortable environment so much worse than say 8 years in a less comfy environment..... a cow doesnt know that 5 years is shorter than 8
Our dairy farm has 180 cows milking, they give approx 8,000 litres per year, they are kept indoors from october to april (6 months of the year) they are buffer fed throughout the year as they can only really produce 4,000 litres off just grass, they are milked twice per day, after each milking if given a choice they would always prefer to stay in the cool yard and eat silage than take the trek back out to grazing.
These "supa-cows" (hate that term, they are just high yielding holsteins) are doing 9,000-10,000 litres of milk per year, thats 33.3 litres of milk given per day on average (for 9,000 litres) over 270 milking days per year, basically 15 litres per milking, thats not actually that much different to 8,000 litres per year over 270 milking days being 29 litres per day, 14.5 litres per milking
The cows are fed much more accurately although using the same TMR method as a smaller farm might, however as bigger farms usually can afford just 1 person to do the full time feeding only and no other tasks, they usually ask for a margin of error less than 3%, so when mixing the maize, grass, mollasses, minerals, compound and straw together in the wagon using the loader they have much more time to do it all to the exact kilo needed per cow
when the feed is not done accurately in minimal amounts the cows themselves dont notice but the nutrients may be off balance wich can effect milk production, if the feed is done with a larger amount of error then yes of course they would become ill!! when I have tipped too much mollasses in the mixer wagon they have always got the squits after, im pretty sure anyone would!
I sometimes can work 16 hr days on the farm, so therefore yes I do try and get the feeding done within an allocated time, so my margin of error can not be 3% like on a bigger unit, it is probly around 5% and I am a good and carefull feeder.
So yes Giant farms may = putting smaller farms out of business
but please dont anyone suggest that bigger farms = low animal welfare
I can talk all day about dairy....
