4 ms·

I'm sure there have been chickens that lived to 12 years old, but most breeds I know of live 5-8 years. Saying that chickens live for up to 12 years is like sa

I'm sure there have been chickens that lived to 12 years old, but most breeds I know of live 5-8 years. Saying that chickens live for up to 12 years is like saying humans live up to 130 years. Yes, it happens, but the majority die in what, their 70's or 80's? I'm not sure what you want to do about roosters. I'd be willing to bet most male jungle fowl die young in the wild too due to lack of flock protection and battles for territory and mates. A more humane way to kill them would be better, but the fact that they don't go to some farm somewhere that somehow has space to keep them more or less separated as they generally don't get along with other roosters is kind of just a fact of life. That would be quite the lonely life when you think about it too. The same way breeding stallions are often miserable and starved for equine interaction.

PlatonicSkittle 6y ago
> but most breeds I know of live 5-8 years. Yeah up to 12 was meant to communicate a rough upper bound, not typical lifespans. Same for the 4 years or regular egg production figure, upper bound. The important part is that hen lifespans are significantly longer than their egg laying years, and all commercial and many individual farmers don't want to spend money on a hen that doesn't lay eggs. > I'm not sure what you want to do about roosters. Well, we could not breed them in the first place, since we know they'll need to be immediately killed.
- msrenee 6y ago
  If you had said 8 or 9 years, that would have been a reasonable way to communicate that they live longer than they lay eggs. When you pull out a number like 12 years for an animal that can die of old age at 6, you're either misinformed or exaggerating to make your argument stronger. I think we're going to be at odds with each other on livestock no matter what because of different views on death. If an animal lives a long, rough, miserable life and dies of old age, that to me is an awful thing to do to an animal. If an animal lives a pleasant but short life and is well treated before it is humanely killed, I see no tragedy in that. My problem with eating meat is that the animal's short life is not a good one in the vast majority of cases. However, I have no problem at all with that life being ended humanely well before they reach old age. Death in itself is not a tragedy. Living in poor conditions or past the point where you can function without pain absolutely is.
  - PlatonicSkittle 6y ago
    I'm going to drop the age point. You're assigning more significance to the specific number than I intended. > Death in itself is not a tragedy. Living in poor conditions or past the point where you can function without pain absolutely is. Do you hold the same stance when it come to human life? Or what about the penguins in the article? They lived typical penguin lives and were presumably killed relativly quickly.
    - msrenee 6y ago
      Yes. At least my own for sure.
    - msrenee 6y ago
      I don't know how replies and edits work on this site. I didn't see most of your post when I replied. The problem I have with what happened to these penguins is how wasteful it was. Relatively little was produced and everything else was wasted. And using a living creature as fuel to render its compatriots into a low-quality, low-yield product. The fact that they died isn't really the upsetting thing to me here. It's the wasteful nature of the process and the impact on the species and the environment. I'll happily, very happily in fact, eat bison. They're delicious. I would have no problem killing and butchering one myself. Shooting them en masse and leaving the carcasses to rot as happened early in the history of the US is beyond repulsive to me.

PlatonicSkittle 6y ago

> but most breeds I know of live 5-8 years. Yeah up to 12 was meant to communicate a rough upper bound, not typical lifespans. Same for the 4 years or regular egg production figure, upper bound. The important part is that hen lifespans are significantly longer than their egg laying years, and all commercial and many individual farmers don't want to spend money on a hen that doesn't lay eggs. > I'm not sure what you want to do about roosters. Well, we could not breed them in the first place, since we know they'll need to be immediately killed.

msrenee 6y ago
If you had said 8 or 9 years, that would have been a reasonable way to communicate that they live longer than they lay eggs. When you pull out a number like 12 years for an animal that can die of old age at 6, you're either misinformed or exaggerating to make your argument stronger. I think we're going to be at odds with each other on livestock no matter what because of different views on death. If an animal lives a long, rough, miserable life and dies of old age, that to me is an awful thing to do to an animal. If an animal lives a pleasant but short life and is well treated before it is humanely killed, I see no tragedy in that. My problem with eating meat is that the animal's short life is not a good one in the vast majority of cases. However, I have no problem at all with that life being ended humanely well before they reach old age. Death in itself is not a tragedy. Living in poor conditions or past the point where you can function without pain absolutely is.
- PlatonicSkittle 6y ago
  I'm going to drop the age point. You're assigning more significance to the specific number than I intended. > Death in itself is not a tragedy. Living in poor conditions or past the point where you can function without pain absolutely is. Do you hold the same stance when it come to human life? Or what about the penguins in the article? They lived typical penguin lives and were presumably killed relativly quickly.
  - msrenee 6y ago
    Yes. At least my own for sure.
  - msrenee 6y ago
    I don't know how replies and edits work on this site. I didn't see most of your post when I replied. The problem I have with what happened to these penguins is how wasteful it was. Relatively little was produced and everything else was wasted. And using a living creature as fuel to render its compatriots into a low-quality, low-yield product. The fact that they died isn't really the upsetting thing to me here. It's the wasteful nature of the process and the impact on the species and the environment. I'll happily, very happily in fact, eat bison. They're delicious. I would have no problem killing and butchering one myself. Shooting them en masse and leaving the carcasses to rot as happened early in the history of the US is beyond repulsive to me.