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> Very weird thing to hear from someone who claims to be a vegetarian I'm vegetarian for environmental reasons, not ethical. Nothing wrong with eating a chicke

> Very weird thing to hear from someone who claims to be a vegetarian I'm vegetarian for environmental reasons, not ethical. Nothing wrong with eating a chicken or a pig who had a good life on an open field for me

rmorey 4y ago
Within rounding error, no chicken or pigs are raised this way today
- Gordonjcp 4y ago
  In your country.
  - rmorey 4y ago
    Sorry, good point - worldwide it's only ~90% that are factory farmed https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/global-animal-farming-estimates https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/global-animal-farming-est...
    - marcosdumay 4y ago
      > However, there is substantial uncertainty in these figures No kidding. They could start by using a single (and known) definition for "factory farmed". Unless you are in the business of refining that data, this study is useless.
      - rmorey 4y ago
        it’s not useless, it’s just not that conclusive. Im pretty confident in saying a significant majority of animals raised for slaughter worldwide are done so in conditions commonly described as “factory farms”. We can quibble about the definitions all we want, but this is the dominant mode of raising animals for slaughter, that is clear to me
        marcosdumay 4y ago
        > in conditions commonly described as “factory farms” Except that this phrase doesn't mean anything.
        rmorey 4y ago
        hope this helps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intensive_animal_farming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intensive_animal_farming
        marcosdumay 4y ago
        There is no reason at all to believe that the dozens of definitions that study used for "factory farm" fits the few ones stated on that wikipedia link. And there is no overwhelming problem that applies to all of the few definitions on your wikipedia link either.
        rmorey 4y ago
        You said the phrase was meaningless, I disagree completely with that. We also disagree on the study, but that's a much more reasonable disagreement.
        marcosdumay 4y ago
        As your wikipedia link shows, people commonly describe as "factory farm" anything from places where animals go indoor in the winter all the way to places where the animals have no space to move. Or places that create a lot of sessile animals are placed. Or places where animals are gathered to eat. Or places engineered to be comfortable for animals that don't move a lot. And that is only if you stay within the reasonable people. Almost everybody with an impulsion to talk about this subject uses unreasonable definitions. How is a single name that applies to all that still meaningful?
        rmorey 4y ago
  - cute_boi 4y ago
    In a capitalist world where a small number of individuals possess significant wealth, the idea of free chicken is nothing but a myth. For the majority of people, money is the top priority and they will invariably choose it over any other option.
- the_af 4y ago
  Free range chicken exist (or sometimes a slightly less free version of this, let's not split hairs). Their meat and eggs are more expensive. I don't know if they are economically feasible large scale though.
  - cfn 4y ago
    They are feasible, lookup Joel Salatin for an example.
    - the_af 4y ago
      Thanks, will do! Because this is HN, where someone is sure to nitpick and/or take my next statement to logical extremes, I must be very careful about how I word this. I will regret it, but here I go: I like eating chicken. I know lots of tasty recipes. I understand this involves killing the animal. Yes, I don't do it myself, but I could if I wanted -- I'm not squeamish. But factory chicken make me uneasy, it seems well past the inhumane line, almost like an extermination camp for chicken. I think free range chicken are happier, for whatever degree of "happiness" their tiny bird brains can understand. I like thinking that the chicken I eat lived a happy if short life trampling on actual grass and all that "breeze in their feathers" stuff. Yes, in the end it still involves killing them, but I think it's way better.
      - nuancebydefault 4y ago
        Indeed if they had a happy life where they did not need to suppress their instincts too much (roaming, scratching the ground, picking with their becks for tiny life in the soil) and getting killed in an instance, why would you feel bad about the killing&eating parts?
        cfn 4y ago
        Killing a chicken is hard, I have done that many times and I it never get easier. After all it is a living thing and you feel it is distressed, angry and in fear. I know people that are impervious to that but I am not and understand why you would feel bad about eating animals.
floodle 4y ago
This is an odd argument. I'd bet the environmental impact of a battery farm chicken is less than a free-roaming chicken, in terms of hectares of land use, feed (less energy expended from movement), water use. So if you are vegetarian for environmental reasons and had to eat a chicken, you should go with the battery-farmed one. You would go with the (arguably mythical) happy chicken if you were vegetarian for moral reasons.
- Gordonjcp 4y ago
  It's actually ecologically and ethically better to have "barn" chickens, which live in massive steel sheds on trays with roosting boxes and perches about 50cm high, miles and miles of racking. They're free to move about at least in their "bay" and have the company of other hens that can wander about too. Sure, they don't get the marketing feelgood "sun on their backs and wind in their feathers", but they also don't get raptors, foxes, or rats. You can get rescue hens and they're just about savvy enough to figure out - after you've lost one or two - that predators are a thing, and you'll get an egg every couple of days per hen. They'll eat all the bugs in your garden (and most of the herbs, and the tops of your carrots) and shit everywhere.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- lm28469 4y ago
  If your moral compass is a boolean switch I guess. > feed (less energy expended from movement) Less muscles, more disease, worse health, lifespan of 4 weeks, &c.
- cfn 4y ago
  Arguing that the impact of free roaming chickens is higher than a battery farm tells me you haven't seen one or the other. Roaming chicken have a positive impact in the environment by spreading their manure over the land (where does this negative impact for anything that moves and eats comes from?) whereas chicken batteries stink for miles and produce a huge amount of sludge that contains heavy metals that is hard to process.
stickfigure 4y ago
> Nothing wrong with eating a chicken or a pig who had a good life on an open field for me Why vegetarian then? It's easy enough to buy meat that was raised on a local farm. Get a chest freezer, reach out to a local 4H club, and buy the whole animal. They'll butcher and vac-seal it for you. You could buy some kid's highschool project. I live an hour from SF and I get much of my meat this way. It's surprisingly inexpensive. There are agricultural communities close enough to every urban environment to make it worth the drive.

rmorey 4y ago

Within rounding error, no chicken or pigs are raised this way today

Gordonjcp 4y ago
In your country.
- rmorey 4y ago
  Sorry, good point - worldwide it's only ~90% that are factory farmed https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/global-animal-farming-estimates https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/global-animal-farming-est...
  - marcosdumay 4y ago
    > However, there is substantial uncertainty in these figures No kidding. They could start by using a single (and known) definition for "factory farmed". Unless you are in the business of refining that data, this study is useless.
    - rmorey 4y ago
      it’s not useless, it’s just not that conclusive. Im pretty confident in saying a significant majority of animals raised for slaughter worldwide are done so in conditions commonly described as “factory farms”. We can quibble about the definitions all we want, but this is the dominant mode of raising animals for slaughter, that is clear to me
      - marcosdumay 4y ago
        > in conditions commonly described as “factory farms” Except that this phrase doesn't mean anything.
        rmorey 4y ago
        hope this helps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intensive_animal_farming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intensive_animal_farming
        marcosdumay 4y ago
        There is no reason at all to believe that the dozens of definitions that study used for "factory farm" fits the few ones stated on that wikipedia link. And there is no overwhelming problem that applies to all of the few definitions on your wikipedia link either.
        rmorey 4y ago
        You said the phrase was meaningless, I disagree completely with that. We also disagree on the study, but that's a much more reasonable disagreement.
        marcosdumay 4y ago
        As your wikipedia link shows, people commonly describe as "factory farm" anything from places where animals go indoor in the winter all the way to places where the animals have no space to move. Or places that create a lot of sessile animals are placed. Or places where animals are gathered to eat. Or places engineered to be comfortable for animals that don't move a lot. And that is only if you stay within the reasonable people. Almost everybody with an impulsion to talk about this subject uses unreasonable definitions. How is a single name that applies to all that still meaningful?
        rmorey 4y ago
- cute_boi 4y ago
  In a capitalist world where a small number of individuals possess significant wealth, the idea of free chicken is nothing but a myth. For the majority of people, money is the top priority and they will invariably choose it over any other option.
the_af 4y ago
Free range chicken exist (or sometimes a slightly less free version of this, let's not split hairs). Their meat and eggs are more expensive. I don't know if they are economically feasible large scale though.
- cfn 4y ago
  They are feasible, lookup Joel Salatin for an example.
  - the_af 4y ago
    Thanks, will do! Because this is HN, where someone is sure to nitpick and/or take my next statement to logical extremes, I must be very careful about how I word this. I will regret it, but here I go: I like eating chicken. I know lots of tasty recipes. I understand this involves killing the animal. Yes, I don't do it myself, but I could if I wanted -- I'm not squeamish. But factory chicken make me uneasy, it seems well past the inhumane line, almost like an extermination camp for chicken. I think free range chicken are happier, for whatever degree of "happiness" their tiny bird brains can understand. I like thinking that the chicken I eat lived a happy if short life trampling on actual grass and all that "breeze in their feathers" stuff. Yes, in the end it still involves killing them, but I think it's way better.
    - nuancebydefault 4y ago
      Indeed if they had a happy life where they did not need to suppress their instincts too much (roaming, scratching the ground, picking with their becks for tiny life in the soil) and getting killed in an instance, why would you feel bad about the killing&eating parts?
      - cfn 4y ago
        Killing a chicken is hard, I have done that many times and I it never get easier. After all it is a living thing and you feel it is distressed, angry and in fear. I know people that are impervious to that but I am not and understand why you would feel bad about eating animals.

floodle 4y ago

This is an odd argument. I'd bet the environmental impact of a battery farm chicken is less than a free-roaming chicken, in terms of hectares of land use, feed (less energy expended from movement), water use. So if you are vegetarian for environmental reasons and had to eat a chicken, you should go with the battery-farmed one. You would go with the (arguably mythical) happy chicken if you were vegetarian for moral reasons.

Gordonjcp 4y ago
It's actually ecologically and ethically better to have "barn" chickens, which live in massive steel sheds on trays with roosting boxes and perches about 50cm high, miles and miles of racking. They're free to move about at least in their "bay" and have the company of other hens that can wander about too. Sure, they don't get the marketing feelgood "sun on their backs and wind in their feathers", but they also don't get raptors, foxes, or rats. You can get rescue hens and they're just about savvy enough to figure out - after you've lost one or two - that predators are a thing, and you'll get an egg every couple of days per hen. They'll eat all the bugs in your garden (and most of the herbs, and the tops of your carrots) and shit everywhere.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
lm28469 4y ago
If your moral compass is a boolean switch I guess. > feed (less energy expended from movement) Less muscles, more disease, worse health, lifespan of 4 weeks, &c.
cfn 4y ago
Arguing that the impact of free roaming chickens is higher than a battery farm tells me you haven't seen one or the other. Roaming chicken have a positive impact in the environment by spreading their manure over the land (where does this negative impact for anything that moves and eats comes from?) whereas chicken batteries stink for miles and produce a huge amount of sludge that contains heavy metals that is hard to process.

stickfigure 4y ago

> Nothing wrong with eating a chicken or a pig who had a good life on an open field for me Why vegetarian then? It's easy enough to buy meat that was raised on a local farm. Get a chest freezer, reach out to a local 4H club, and buy the whole animal. They'll butcher and vac-seal it for you. You could buy some kid's highschool project. I live an hour from SF and I get much of my meat this way. It's surprisingly inexpensive. There are agricultural communities close enough to every urban environment to make it worth the drive.