Would there even be any chickens left in the world if we didn’t raise them for something?? I mean, how well are wild chickens doing these days? They’ve probably been raised for human consumption as long as any other animal except possibly goats. I suppose if you go back 3000 years there might be wild chickens running around like pheasant or turkeys, but do they even remember how to fend for themselves? If we stopped using chickens for meat and eggs, and ended chicken farms, where would we put all the chickens we have now? In the wild to die? Or are we supposed to be obligated to keep feeding the chickens, even though we wouldn’t be using them for anything?
Just some of the myriad questions that would pop up if we ended the practice of raising animals for such purposes. Of course the first question would be “Where the fuck are my chicken wings??” Uttered by me, the man famous amongst my circle of friends for twice eating 50 burn-your-face-off wings in a single sitting. MMMM…chicken.
As a vegetarian who doesn’t like the way that animals are treated by many modern farming methods, i must say that while the process described in the OP sounds messy and little bit gross, it’s not top of my list of things to get riled up about. In fact, for me, the way these animals live (battery cages for chickens; small stalls for cattle, pigs, etc.) is more distressing than the way they die.
I also concede a certain inconsistency–the type that i think we all live with on one level or another–in that i still eat eggs and dairy products, even though laying chickens and dairy cattle are, IMO, among the worst-treated of all farm animals. If i can muster up the courage of my convictions, i might end up a vegan one day. Giving up milk and eggs wouldn’t be so bad, but i reeeeaaally love cheese.
And, regarding scylla’s post:
Growing up in Australia, i went to an agricultural high school where we learned a lot about animal husbandry techniques. One of our projects, in grade 8, was for each student in the class to hatch a chicken’s egg in an incubator, raise the chick until it was large enough to eat, and then chop its head off with an axe.* When the heads were chopped off, some of the chickens’ bodies would still flap and even run around a little, which was apparently some sort of muscular or nervous activity but did not indicate that the animal was actually alive. This might have been the cause of some of the movement you saw in that factory.
Needless to say, my vegetarianism came later in life. I sometimes wonder if it’s the result of post-traumatic stress.
Wow, were you trying to come across as a moronic ass, or was that just the real you shining through? Forgive me for having an opinion, oh Enlightened One. The rest of us are but simple savages, unfit to walk in the shadow of your Birkenstocks, unworthy of feeling the waft of celestial winds that eminate from your holiest of sphincters; we are but the crust on the bottleneck of your Beano, perpetually an irritant in your lentil stew.
Jesus, Carrot. Cut it the fuck out; your smug little attitude makes Baby Jesus weep.
Okay, okay… so that might have been a little harsh, in light of this:
Correction to my original post: please change “most” to “some”, mentally, when reading. I know one hell of a lot of non-self-rightgeous vegetarians, who are just dandy.
In any case, my problem is with people telling me not to eat meat. Listen, Mac, eat whatever the hell you want to. Eat gravel, if you want; it’s less cruel than eating vegetables (which are ALSO living things) if it makes you feel so very much better. But hey, I happen to be diabetic, and eating very little other than meat (chicken and fish, especially) IS the best thing for me.
No- what were you thinking you evil humanocentric “humanist”? You cannot use ponies in that fashion- to do so is to exploit them, and subject them to “animal slavery”.
I knew I shouldn’t have lent my techumsah to those two hayseeds. The really fowled (ha!) it up good.
Can’t be, as said being is possessed of the desire to eat the goats. Rather, I believe our friend is an angler who lays out line from the rear of his canoe. It’s a good way to catch walleye. I assume T_G_D would practice catch and release.
I would also like to second RexDart’s post. Whenever I hear from the “meat is murder” people, I wonder if they realize that they are advocating the extinction of entire species.
I’m pretty sure there are a lot of wild chickens out there. Especially in the third world, where most of the economies are apparently poultry-based. They’re relatively small, don’t need exotic foods. Hell, there are flocks of wild parrots living in downtown San Francisco. Chickens should have no problems.
Cows, on the other hand, are goners if humanity goes veggie.
As an ethical vegetarian, my immediate response to the OP was “How horrible!” to put another creature through the trauma of being fed point blank into a shredder. I’d imagine everyone is in agreement that that is an awful fate for a sentient creature, even if the lot of a chicken ain’t so bright in the scope of things, all told.
In reading the whole thread, my sadness is that such a tremedous waste has to occur, with the added pain of means of execution. The excess of execution happened because of a rampant disease. Do our farming practices enable that progress? From what I’ve seen, it does. It might be time to take stock and change our farming practice to a more humane one. If disease is running rampant through animal populations in an unhealthy environment, we need to realize that our bottom-line profit practices are short-sighted and detrimental to the actual bodies put through a shredder. The shredder. I find it sad that the those grinding wheels have come to that point.
How would a vegetarian, shocked by the methods used to kill chickens in the OP, feel about the slaughter of animals directly caused by the large-scale growing of grains and vegetables?
For every field of lettuce grown, scores of mice, snakes, insects and other field-dwelling animals are hacked to death by farm machinery used to plow the ground, sow seeds and harvest the crop. In addition, the destruction of natural habitats directly attributable to modern agriculture accounts for more animal deaths.
Is one not morally culpable for these deaths, just as meat-eaters are responsible for the chicken deaths in the OP? (I’m genuinely curious how ethical vegetarians feel here; I’m not just trying to stir anyone up for the sake of it.)
As an ethical carnivore, I wonder why you think it’s worse they were fed to the wood chipper “point blank.” Would it have been more acceptable if they stood off a distance and lobbed them in?
I don’t agree with that. It’s a chicken. It’s nothing like sentient. If you looked up sentient in the dictionary, there wouldn’t be a picture of chicken next to it.
I honestly can’t think of a less painful way to die than being thrown into a giant wood chipper. Their death was instantaneous. They went from “Old, sickly chicken” to “fine red mist” in the blink of an eye.
Okay, I’ll agree with you to the extent that I don’t like the idea of virulent diseases running through our food sources. What with Mad Cow Disease and all, we do really need to pay attention to the health of the animals we intend to eat. But as far as I’m concerned, it’s not about being humane, it’s about being hygenic.
Meh. They’re McNuggets on legs. Most of 'em are going to end up in one sort of shredder or another.
Well, if they didn’t come to that point, it probably would have hurt a lot worse.
So they just come out in a mist? Because it would be sort of cool if they came out in little chunks and then you had some kind of laser thing that would locate and roast them in a split-second. Of course, I suppose they would need to be plucked and disemboweled first…
