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World's first no-kill eggs go on sale in Berlin (2018)

theguardian.com

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Re: World's first no-kill eggs go on sale in Berlin (2018)

#411

Post by canthonytucci »

GuB-42 wrote: post #321
pr0zac wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eggs don't feel pain, live chicks do. For some people that is very important, it might not be for you but its a very clear difference.

That's why I'm wondering. I've seen chick shredding videos, and these machines are fast. You can't even see the killing process unless it is in slow motion: chicks just disappear and ground meat falls down the other side. If the machine is working correctly, I'm not sure the chicks have time to process pain, we are close to the limits of what a nervous system is capable of.

What about the time spent on the way to the machine, the sound, the smell?

Perhaps we can rationalize that they “don’t know what is going on” but it seems unlikely that they are having a good time.

In general baby warm blooded animals want to be near their mothers.

Better to cull pre hatch.

Better still to just eat lentils.

Re: World's first no-kill eggs go on sale in Berlin (2018)

#412

Post by stickfigure »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #405
stickfigure wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I definitely love having roosters! The crowing makes me happy. But our polish started mounting the most developed hens at 19 weeks, and the other two (silkies, believe it or not) wanted in on the action less than a month later. Too many roosters for the number of hens, and the girls were getting frazzled. The thing I'm hoping for out of this "no kill" technology is the ability to buy sexed fertile eggs at the ag…

Can I ask what method you use to cull? I originally got the birds for myself and my daughter to take care of but my wife fell in love with them and she treats them like babies, which is fine, but even when we've had very sick hens killing ourselves has been off the table and we've ended up paying vets big fees to take care of it. She wants more birds in the spring but I'm not going to go along with that unless this b…

Lately it's been the "Coyote Method".

Not deliberately, of course. Either hawks or coyotes (not sure; we're in the process of setting up cameras) have taken several of our flock. We're still figuring out what to do about it.

We've tried the broomstick method but it's hard. What works best for us is to take a traffic cone, cut off the top of it, mount it upside down, stuff the chicken in it so their head is poking out the bottom, and slit their throat with a very sharp knife. It's gruesome and if your family is squeamish it won't go well. But they go quick and drain out, so cleaning is easier.

Re: World's first no-kill eggs go on sale in Berlin (2018)

#413

Post by slothtrop »

dzolob wrote: post #271
slothtrop wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is a whole lot of citation needed on this reply, not to mention you’re talking about consciousness as something that can be clearly defined and measured. With sentience it's speculation, and that's part of the point I'm making. I responded to an ethical claim on the basis of sentience (no citation) by bringing to question what it means to be sentient when some beings e.g. insects demonstrate it. Notwithstandi…

It might be regarding insects, but I don’t think it is that much regarding farm animals. Also, not being able to nail it in a materialistic framework does not put it in the nothing can be known/fair game territory. But let me set this aside since it might obscure our dialog. What surely can be measured is the degree of immune system depression this animals experience, how far do their life cycles deviate from control…

> Just don’t pretend there is a gray area in what this animals will be experiencing and what does this means in terms of their lives.

To reiterate, this is a fair assessment as per pain, stress. This is easily detected in the animals. Where a gray area exists to me is commodification, i.e. there is no reason to believe captivity in a safe environment would lead to some sort of existential crisis for the animals. There's a persistent argument from a sizable base that holding animals in captivity is inherently immoral, with sentience as the basis. This is the usual response to the notion that animals can and should be killed fairly painlessly/quickly without persistent stress.

Re: World's first no-kill eggs go on sale in Berlin (2018)

#414

Post by slothtrop »

LesZedCB wrote: post #368
slothtrop wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suggest listening more to what vegans have to say about veganism rather than what meateaters have to say about it. That is precisely what brought me to my conclusion. > As I said before, I think you're prejudiced towards vegans and don't really understand what we're about. To the extent that I see the vocal base as having an absolutist view compared to yours, yes. If you're insinuating more connotations associate…

> I'll rescind it the day I see a vegan suggest there is such a thing as ethical meat/egg consumption. It will never happen. your statement is a "there exists" one just presented themselves. will you rescind, or just continue to move the goalposts?

For your pleasure: rescinded. That was implicit in the post you quoted. Has this brought any value to you?

I'm not moving goalposts. I'm explaining my position.

Re: World's first no-kill eggs go on sale in Berlin (2018)

#415

Post by sempron64 »

grecy wrote: post #347
kelnos wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this just depends on your values and moral code, and there's no clear right or wrong here. I personally do not see a problem with using animals as food. If that's good enough for all the other omnivores and carnivores in the food chain, it's good enough for humans. There are certainly a lot of problems with the sustainability and humane-ness of our livestock farming, but I don't see "become vegetarian/vegan"…

> But I also recognize that a lot of people just don't have any kind of emotional response to this sort of thing, and that's ok too I will guarantee that a massive percentage of people do in fact have a very strong emotional response to this kind of thing, but it's all just "out of sight, out of mind". If you make people be involved in the killing of millions of baby chicks, they'll suddenly care very, very much. Our…

For all of history until 100 years ago, and even now in about half of the world, poultry was purchased in live markets. The vast majority of the population did not/does not flinch to see their poultry slaughtered after seeing it a few times. For humans, generally, Eating takes priority over empathy to animals. Therefore I doubt it would be different if we were involved in the slaughter of our food. I suspect even if the all people were taken to tour agricultural facilities, the majority would accept the cost.

Re: World's first no-kill eggs go on sale in Berlin (2018)

#416

Post by Razengan »

To everyone who keeps bringing up that creatures eating each other is simply nature, the way things have always worked for eons:

We are not simply just eating animals.

In nature there is an equilibrium; every prey has a chance to escape. If an species cannot avoid predators, that species ceases to exist.

In our world there is no such merciful release.

We force millions of creatures to be born and live their entire lives in cramped squalid conditions only to be butchered off, sometimes for no good reason at all. [0][1]

That’s not nature. That is a fucked up hell.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22993157

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24990724

Re: World's first no-kill eggs go on sale in Berlin (2018)

#417

Post by colechristensen »

krageon wrote: post #403
colechristensen wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a moral difficulty here where western societies care a lot about the beginnings of things and can’t stomach things ending, as if the only desirable world is one in which we all experience immortal bliss until the heat death of the universe. Every living thing exists by consuming other living things in some way or another. Every living thing has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Most animals are at least in s…

> as if the only desirable world is one in which we all experience immortal bliss until the heat death of the universe. This is a very fast step beyond this point, which I think does not do it justice. This end goal is worthwhile and logical and it is not reasonable to pretend it somehow isn't the only desirable world.

The point is that there is such an aversion to endings that many people simply do not have any sense of where death and discomfort fit in to life.

I used “as if” not because i think many people think this way, but because it is the de facto way of thinking when you only strive to avoid endings.

In other words, people lack an appreciation for death and are so afraid of it they try to pretend like it can not exist.

Re: World's first no-kill eggs go on sale in Berlin (2018)

#418

Post by cmrdporcupine »

stickfigure wrote: post #412
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I ask what method you use to cull? I originally got the birds for myself and my daughter to take care of but my wife fell in love with them and she treats them like babies, which is fine, but even when we've had very sick hens killing ourselves has been off the table and we've ended up paying vets big fees to take care of it. She wants more birds in the spring but I'm not going to go along with that unless this b…

Lately it's been the "Coyote Method". Not deliberately, of course. Either hawks or coyotes (not sure; we're in the process of setting up cameras) have taken several of our flock. We're still figuring out what to do about it. We've tried the broomstick method but it's hard. What works best for us is to take a traffic cone, cut off the top of it, mount it upside down, stuff the chicken in it so their head is poking out…

The only predator incident we've had was the fox. We'd never even seen a fox around here before. Coyotes, yes. Foxes never. Broad daylight, while we were eating dinner, came out and found feathers everywhere. We had gotten lazy since we got the rooster, never had the roll out fencing electrified. My wife still hasn't forgiven herself.

Re: World's first no-kill eggs go on sale in Berlin (2018)

#419

Post by JacobSuperslav »

thelastwave wrote: post #305
JacobSuperslav wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker News, where technology > empathy

The solution is obviously to invent empathy technology.

I love it ;) A device that will allow us to interpret other's feelings without empathy?

Re: World's first no-kill eggs go on sale in Berlin (2018)

#420

Post by stickfigure »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #418
stickfigure wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lately it's been the "Coyote Method". Not deliberately, of course. Either hawks or coyotes (not sure; we're in the process of setting up cameras) have taken several of our flock. We're still figuring out what to do about it. We've tried the broomstick method but it's hard. What works best for us is to take a traffic cone, cut off the top of it, mount it upside down, stuff the chicken in it so their head is poking out…

The only predator incident we've had was the fox. We'd never even seen a fox around here before. Coyotes, yes. Foxes never. Broad daylight, while we were eating dinner, came out and found feathers everywhere. We had gotten lazy since we got the rooster, never had the roll out fencing electrified. My wife still hasn't forgiven herself.

Sorry to hear about your dude. I wish our roosters were that motivated. Even trimming his crest, our polish is practically blind so he's constantly being surprised by everything. He's useless for protection and frequently goes after our toddler. Our two silkie roosters are/were pretty timid, which is good and bad. Unfortunately our favorite (by appearance and temperment) was taken recently.

We didn't pick the roosters, we just ended up with the 3 because some of the chicks were unsexed. A well-tempered bantam would be nice.

We could fence them into a smaller area... but we like letting them roam around the property. Tough choices.

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