Video - World's Largest Hatchery - Um, wow.

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Originally Posted by Xei

Your post inspired me... I suddenly wondered why nobody had done that, it should be possible...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_vitro_meat

Apparently the only thing holding it back is financial considerations.

I wonder what the hell the moral implications of this'd be...

Which has the moral high ground; eating meat which didn't come from a conscious animal, or eating meat from an animal which had a life?

I bet it's largely moral taboo holding this back at the moment... and I bet it'll be waived when mass starvation sets in in the Westernised world.

Edit: This is bizarre... personally if there's no particular incentive either way I'd go for real animals, because you're creating conscious beings; as long as they're not in poor conditions.

PETA however is providing a $1,000,000 prize to the lab which firsts produces in vitro chicken... I think that's ridiculous, that's just... deleting animals. Billions of animals which would have lived will never have existed.

This really goes straight to the crux of moral philosophy. It's confusing stuff.

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My body is "alive". My body and all forces acting of it are a direct result of innumerable cells, each of which satisfy the conditions for life on their own. My sperm cells, even when separated from my body, still move around and carry out an actual task beyond 'sit there and metabolize'. If cells are removed from me unharmed, they can be put into a petri dish in a laboratory and grown in culture while still performing the functions of life on their own. If my cells are anything like the cells in a chicken or cow, then how is in-vitro meat any less alive than a chicken or cow raised the regular way?

Um because in vitro meat doesn't have a brain... and is hence no more conscious than a rock?

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Originally Posted by Xei

Um because in vitro meat doesn't have a brain... and is hence no more conscious than a rock?

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So your definition of life is based around consciousness?

Alive as cabbage and most people don't see a moral conflict in eating that.

I have an idea. All of those male chicks that are being thrown into the grinder could instead be thrown into a big container and PETA and so forth could buy all of the male chicks and keep them alive on big ass farms. The hatcheries would no doubt rather make money off the male chicks than just throw them into a grinder. This could be done with enough support and financial contributions. Who's up for it?

Great idea! It'll restart the economy! 8D

You're conflating suffering and death. There is only a brief instance of suffering associated with the grinder. Focus on the females having their beaks singed off?

I dunno about that though. I trim my chickens' beaks back all of the time. If it hurt the that much, then they wouldn't be able to eat.

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

You're conflating suffering and death. There is only a brief instance of suffering associated with the grinder. Focus on the females having their beaks singed off?

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I was throwing out an idea for those who are pissed about the grinder, but I was being sarcastic. There is no way in Hell any organization is actually going to do that.

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Originally Posted by A Roxxor

I dunno about that though. I trim my chickens' beaks back all of the time. If it hurt the that much, then they wouldn't be able to eat.

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Why is that normally done?

If it grows to long, then they can't eat, and when they peck amongst each other they can seriously injure one another. But mainly for the eating thing. It's a bigger problem for males though, since they mount the hens and peck at people. Not a major thing, though. I do it about once in a while when they start to grow out. They keep them dull most of the time, but we keep them in in the winter and they start to grow out. That's probably why they cut them like that in the hatcheries: they won't be out wearing their beaks down.

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Originally Posted by A Roxxor

If it grows to long, then they can't eat, and when they peck amongst each other they can seriously injure one another. But mainly for the eating thing. It's a bigger problem for males though, since they mount the hens and peck at people. Not a major thing, though. I do it about once in a while when they start to grow out. They keep them dull most of the time, but we keep them in in the winter and they start to grow out. That's probably why they cut them like that in the hatcheries: they won't be out wearing their beaks down.

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Ah. That seems okay to me... like trimming your cat's or dog's nails or something! I didn't know beaks grow back out. Maybe they do it in a more extreme way in the hatcheries... like cutting off enough to never have to trim them again.

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Originally Posted by Licity

So your definition of life is based around consciousness?

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No but I have no particular moral qualms about killing things which are alive but not conscious, for example killing bacteria or harvesting wheat.

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Originally Posted by A Roxxor

That's probably why they cut them like that in the hatcheries: they won't be out wearing their beaks down.

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Apparently they even do it in the free range and organic category of farms.

http://www.upc-online.org/winter07/debeaking.html

This strikes me as a pretty unbiased article but that could just be because I'm biased. If you read it, let me know what you think.

EDIT: By unbiased, I of course mean that they make a good argument, not that they don't take a side. They clearly do. Poor choice of words but I lack a better one.

Ok. Well now I don't know what to think. On the one hand trimming beaks prevents a load of problems (which, by the looks of it, could also be prevented by using free-range farms), but on the other it causes acute/chronic pain in addition to new problems.

And there are problems with free-range farms as well.

At this point it seems like there are going to be issues with chickens regardless.

Interesting, I guess. Doesn't seem like there is a way around it, though. One way kills livestock, the other may cause accute pain in the beak and face...

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

Apparently they even do it in the free range and organic category of farms.

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Why would they need to de-beak them in a proper free range farm, though? You'd think the problem would get handled as in nature there. (ie. the beak gets ground on sand and stone during normal activities, so that it won't become too long.)

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Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

http://www.upc-online.org/winter07/debeaking.html

This strikes me as a pretty unbiased article but that could just be because I'm biased. If you read it, let me know what you think.

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The article was good, they presented the fact and drew conclusions from them.

I'm so glad I'm not in the ag business. Creating food is gross, no matter how you look at it. If I had my way, I wouldn't have to eat at all. I would just photosynthesize by the pool all day.

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Originally Posted by Robot_Butler

I'm so glad I'm not in the ag business. Creating food is gross, no matter how you look at it. If I had my way, I wouldn't have to eat at all. I would just photosynthesize by the pool all day.

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:D Heh heh.

This is a most interesting and informative thread. Thanks for presenting all sides so well everyone.
I haven't watched the videos or read the links yet (I've been catching up on Hulu :D), but I will before I go back to the "Farm".
The Buddhists perspective particularly interested me (not that I agree 100%... but it's pretty close lol).

Back in 2001 I bought around 75 rabbits of differing ages, sexes, and types with the intent of going into the rabbit business (for both meat rabbits and pets). I was completely ignorant about them though and it ended disasterously for the most part. But when I bought them, the lady selling practically gave me all of her hens and her rooster.
I didn't think I would enjoy raising chickens at all but it was terrific.
Unlike rabbits, chickens are VERY hardy and "hard to kill" (via ignorance). They were free range (no enclosure at all) and they thrived. The kids loved searching the yard for the eggs (even though they roosted in their coop, they liked to lay their eggs under fallen branches and cars lol).
When I let the rabbits out of their cages they too began thriving.

I was also "given" three pheasants and learned just how bad beaks can be. The owner had warned me that the male had a taste for blood and she wasn't kidding. Though they had more than enough room to roam, he pecked the female and killed the chick.
I later learned that chickens can develope the same bad habit (though I never personally had a problem).

I think education is the number one thing that can help unnecessary abuse and deaths of animals. But even that isn't good enough. It seems the world we live in becomes more and more apathetic with the passing of each year. If it doesn't directly effect someone, a lot of people simply don't care.

When I was a kid, my uncle took me fishing. We brought back several fish and I cried and became VERY angry when he de-scaled his catches without first removing the heads. I hd no problem killing my fish and eating them, but I thought the least I could do was put them out of their misery quickly.
I was a wierd kid though. When I was 5 my grandma caught me playing with a poisonous bug. She told me to get rid of it but I kept finding it and never had a problem lol. When I was 7 and living in Puerto Rico, I caught and played with the tarantulas, "poisonous" bull frogs, tree frogs and hung lizards from my ears as if earrings :D At around the same age, I pulled the wings off a fly and then cried for days.

Humans are supposed to be more than mere animals. We have the capacity for empathy, compassion and mercy. Such things simply aren't hard-wired into the brains of animals. They don't have moral delimas (sp).
It seems many people want to shed their humanity to be just another animal controlled by instincts and desires alone. :/

And here I am, having high and lofty ideals, eating at McD's and smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day. We work with what we have, I guess. I would love to have my own operational and private farm, but I'm too lazy.

Oh yeah... chickens CAN and DO thrive in the wild. Just go to Kauai, Hawaii. It's an awesome sight :D
http://www.govisithawaii.com/2008/07...wild-chickens/
http://citynoise.org/article/3625

I just ate some spicey chicken from KFC, it was good.:D

Oh jeez, this again.

Essentially, I only have one question;

What is the alternative? How ought these chicks be separated and prepared for eating?

The fact is, all of humanity is not vegan nor wants to be. We need facilities to farm chicks. How ought they be done then?

Now people say, "Nicely.. sympathetically" but what does that even mean? We sing to the chicks before knifing them? How ought they be killed?

~

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Originally Posted by O'nus

We sing to the chicks before knifing them? How ought they be killed?

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Crucifixion!