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You can now buy eggs from in-ovo sexed hens

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Re: You can now buy eggs from in-ovo sexed hens

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

male chicks aren't useful if we bring them into being we will have to kill them.

Male chicks make as good of soup as hens. However, roosters are assholes and don't get along with other roosters by the time they are butcher weight.

They don't get along with any animals, and the problem starts well before they're butcher weight. It's not uncommon for an entire hen house to wind up murdered if you don't sex your chickens.

Re: You can now buy eggs from in-ovo sexed hens

#34
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Male chicks make as good of soup as hens. However, roosters are assholes and don't get along with other roosters by the time they are butcher weight.

They don't get along with any animals, and the problem starts well before they're butcher weight. It's not uncommon for an entire hen house to wind up murdered if you don't sex your chickens.

> It's not uncommon for an entire hen house to wind up murdered if you don't sex your chickens.

Can you explain what you mean by this?

Re: You can now buy eggs from in-ovo sexed hens

#36

Is there really a big difference if the chick is destroyed shortly before or shortly after hatching? Why is hatched-or-not the ethical standard?

It's just a clump of cells. Maybe the hen isn't ready to start a family and is still discovering herself?

Her broody her choice.

Re: You can now buy eggs from in-ovo sexed hens

#37

[flagged]

Wait, so we can all agree that killing the male chicks is inhumane. But you think the solution, _to not birth the male chicks_, is just as inhumane?

If so, awful take. This is infinitely better and most definitely a step in the right direction.

Re: You can now buy eggs from in-ovo sexed hens

#38
post #11

If you were a chicken behind the veil of ignorance choosing your fate, would you choose immediate death (male) or a short, difficult, confined life (female)? To many advocates, it’s self-evident that the hen’s life is better than immediate death. This is not obvious to me. It depends on the hen’s quality of life.

Interesting perspective. Although the “death” can happen in various ways - humane or not humane.

But ultimately I can get behind the idea that the immediate death is the better outcome in the big picture..

Re: You can now buy eggs from in-ovo sexed hens

#39
post #11

If you were a chicken behind the veil of ignorance choosing your fate, would you choose immediate death (male) or a short, difficult, confined life (female)? To many advocates, it’s self-evident that the hen’s life is better than immediate death. This is not obvious to me. It depends on the hen’s quality of life.

They aren't choosing between being male or female they are identifying eggs that are going to develop into males early and removing them.

They are thus choosing between ceasing to exist before they are aware of their own existence and living approximately one day and then being ground up alive.

Re: You can now buy eggs from in-ovo sexed hens

#40

There's no way that math is right. The wikipedia article says the US culls billions of male chicks annually. Was this written by an LLM? heh

That kinda checks out. 1.2 billion hens are butchered in the US annually. So, maybe not multiple billions of male chicks in the grinder. But, certainly over a billion.

It might get to 2 billion if you count 375 million layers and some untold number of personal chickens.

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