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Less birds in the same space.


Also, Prop2 is actually very badly constructed law because it doesn't define how big the new cages are supposed to be. The law literally only says the birds need to be able to fully extend their wings while turning around. But it doesn't give any hard numbers. It doesn't say if the birds need to be able to turn around while their wings are clipped, unclipped, pinioned(wing tip removed at the first joint while the bird is a chick), or anything else. That's a good 6-10 inches of ambiguity, plus no accounting for actual size of the bird. So anyone who builds new cages has no idea what standard they're being judged by.

Egg producers are basically stuck with either making cages so huge they'll never make money or leave the state.

I was talking to a duck farmer who keeps his ducks in sheds on wood shavings and under lights to keep them warm. He said he needs his birds clean as any kind of skin blemish gets him much much lower price from his asian buyers. Interestingly the wood shavings are turned regularly, changed regularly, and are i think 3-5 foot deep, all to keep the ducks clean. He said a water pond whilst probably be good for the ducks (my opinion) is a bad idea as it spreads too much disease. Duck water gets filthy as they clean their noses in it. I guess a trough that's changed regularly is actually better for the ducks health .

 Grey Templar wrote:


Cleanliness is one thing factory farms do quite well. Cement floors and cages keep animals out of their feces. Which reduces disease transfer.

Actually not so. Factory farms exist to maximise density for profit so the extra maintenance to slop out often just doesn't happen.
Factory farming due to its ethos of maximising productivity regardless of moral consequence is more likely to skip on animal care than non factory farming.
Wheras free range farming doesn't require this extra maintenance.

 Grey Templar wrote:

Laying chickens are actually less likely to injure themselves if kept in tighter cages. Leghorns are extremely flighty birds, they're easily startled. If they are given more space, they both waste energy running around their cage instead of laying eggs AND they're prone to injuring themselves because they can get running starts. And an injured bird will quickly get eaten by its penmates as chickens are extremely cannibalistic, once they taste blood they won't stop.

So your argument is that if an animal likes to has more space due to its instincts better control can be achieved by giving them less space. Which is needlessly cruel when free range eliminates this problem.
Also chickens fight each other because of the conditions they are kept, as do pigs. Take livestock out of a gulag and while they will compete they are less likely to peck/bite each other to death because of mental collapse.

Also the type of tight cages you approve of, that restrict an animal so that it cant peck.bite , also restrict an animal so that it cannot turn around, and in the case of fowl cannot spread its wings. They are reduced to machine components given enough room to feed gak and produce piglets/eggs. Wings atrophy of chickens caged in these conditions, which I suppose is OK to you because the egg servitors don't need wings to lay eggs, they do need to be able to stretch their wings for their health, both physical and mental.

 dogma wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

I would hope that its pretty dang obvious. Cement is put in so you can clean.

I suspect that most of us haven't worked on farms, so it isn't obvious that cement floors slope into a drain.

This assumes unreasonably that the staff regularly hose down, ignores that the animals have to lie in slurry between hose downs especially in fattener pens, and that the drains are often blocked by the amount of effluence produced by large numbers of animals being stored in a very small space.

Also the run off of fairly concentrated slurry cause local environmental problems. Free range and open pen swine fertilise their surrounding territory, factory farm swine produce too much concentrated slurry it causes produces a toxic bog.

 Orlanth wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:


Cleanliness is one thing factory farms do quite well. Cement floors and cages keep animals out of their feces. Which reduces disease transfer.

Actually not so. Factory farms exist to maximise density for profit so the extra maintenance to slop out often just doesn't happen.
Factory farming due to its ethos of maximising productivity regardless of moral consequence is more likely to skip on animal care than non factory farming.
Wheras free range farming doesn't require this extra maintenance.

As if you know better about this than someone who's made it their profession.

Farms which are not regularly cleaned are not profitable. They do indeed clean regularly. Good animal care = profit. Its not an inconvenience like you seem to think.

Free Range is one of those terms which doesn't man what you think it means. It means the animal isn't in a cage and has access to dirt. It does not mean it has a Pasteur to run around in.

Orlanth probably has me on ignore, but i thought my post outlined why a poultry (not egg) farmer would take good care of his charges and how they do.

It did indeed.

Meat chickens are actually not raised in cages to prevent their breasts from getting bruised. But even if they were given more space they wouldn't use it. Those birds gain weight so fast(due to genetics) that they do nothing but eat, drink, and sleep. Even if given all the space in the world.

UC Davis did a study with them giving them access to a grassy outside space. They wouldn't even go outside till they forced them to by putting their water outside. And they only ever went out there to drink.

 Bullockist wrote:
Orlanth probably has me on ignore, but i thought my post outlined why a poultry (not egg) farmer would take good care of his charges and how they do.

I don't have anyone on ignore, and never will, I am not the sort to be afraid of what anyone else has to say.

I read your post and from your descriptions including the deep piles of shavings its obviously not the same as the tiny cage battery farming discussed.

 Gogsnik wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
Why would you care about the suffering your food may or may not endure?

Indeed, why would you care...


NSFW

Spoiler:

And I care about the treatment of an animal bound to be butchered for my own consumption why? It's not a pet. It's not mine. It's not human. While if it is real, it's certainly unnecessary, but compared to other gak that happens even in my own nation, it's not even a problem. I won't even bother losing sleep or feeling remorse for the treatment of fodder until other far more important problems are solved.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Smacks wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
Why would you care about the suffering your food may or may not endure?

Because I'm not a sadist. Why on Earth would you want an animal to suffer unnecessarily? Just because an animal is destined to be eaten, doesn't mean it has to live a life of abuse.

And it's not my ward. I haven't a care for its existence- it's life is inconsequential and utterly meaningless to me, for its existence is purely to end up on my plate. Unless it adversely effects the quality of the meat, I couldn't care less. I don't want it to suffer, but I also don't care if it suffers.

 Wyzilla wrote:
Oh, and FYI, there is no such thing as morality, or at least not in the way people normally define it. There is nothing objectively "bad", merely that which is subjectively viewed by the observing party as a negative action, however what they think is ultimately irrelevant and without worth.

FYI, no one needs "good and bad being a human creation" explained to them by Captain Obvious. Morality might be a somewhat subjective human notion, but since humans and their cultures do exist, I can categorically say that there is such a thing as morality. To say that it is irrelevant and without worth is asinine. I'm sure there are plenty of people in prison who thought that other people's ideas about right and wrong were irrelevant. Now they have a lot of spare time to contemplate just how relevant other people's ideas turned out to be. Morality has as much worth as any other human endeavor, it is part of the glue that holds societies and cultures together. It might all exist in people's heads, but there is still no escaping it.

Except morality is easily escaped, and only exists as long as there others to observe and exact retribution depending on your actions. Outside of the eye of society and the contempt and retribution it directs, morality evaporates and loses all "worth' it has in a nation. Also as you seem to forget, there is no such thing as right, and there is no wrong. Saying something is morally "horrible" "sadistic" etc is without worth- it's a heavily biased view sourced from the culture of your upbringing. You are no more correct then the person or thing you label if you source your statement from your own morality- and thus it's worthless. Pointless. It has no value in a discussion, you're simply screaming a word that in truth has no actual definition. It's subjective. Fact on the other hand, that does hold meaning, as it is either objective, or as close to an objective statement that is physically possible.

 Wyzilla wrote:
I won't even bother losing sleep or feeling remorse for the treatment of fodder until other far more important problems are solved.

Which is a perfect example of the fallacy of relative privation. Appealing to bigger problems is a tried and tested way to make no argument at all.

 Wyzilla wrote:
And it's not my ward. I haven't a care for its existence- it's life is inconsequential and utterly meaningless to me, for its existence is purely to end up on my plate. Unless it adversely effects the quality of the meat, I couldn't care less. I don't want it to suffer, but I also don't care if it suffers.

In the grand scheme of things, all lives are inconsequential and utterly meaningless. Existentially speaking, meaning is something we bring ourselves. You would not like to be tortured and enslaved. Fortunately for you, other people cared enough about your inconsequential life to make laws protecting you. If you don't feel it is worth your time to save other living creatures from harm (or at least speak out against it) then that is your decision. But other people do feel they have time to care about that stuff, and they see great value and meaning in protecting other things from harm.

 Wyzilla wrote:
Except morality is easily escaped, and only exists as long as there others to observe and exact retribution depending on your actions. Outside of the eye of society and the contempt and retribution it directs, morality evaporates and loses all "worth' it has in a nation. Also as you seem to forget, there is no such thing as right, and there is no wrong. Saying something is morally "horrible" "sadistic" etc is without worth- it's a heavily biased view sourced from the culture of your upbringing. You are no more correct then the person or thing you label if you source your statement from your own morality- and thus it's worthless. Pointless. It has no value in a discussion.

You are trying to argue that morality has no "value" and no "meaning" because it is a human construct, but value and meaning are themselves human constructs. You can't use one fictitious construct to deny another. I never argued that anything was "objectively wrong". All I said is that people will start to view it as wrong.

Also, there is nothing especially subjective about harm or sadism. Those things can be objectively defined and quantified (within reason). Any reasonable person would agree that beating an animal constitutes harming it. A lot of human morality is based on the idea of doing no harm. Even outside a cultural context, non-psychopaths usually feel guilt and remorse when they harm others. Likely because empathy and kindness serve some evolutionary purpose. Nothing is entirely subjective (nor is anything entirely objective). Things mean what we as people agree that they mean. Most words are fuzzy and subjective in their "objective" definition. At what point does a lake become a sea, or a boat become a ship? If someone wants to go around saying "words have no meaning" then that is something they can rightly claim (philosophically speaking), but you can't have a discussion that way.

I ate four different animals tonight in honor of this school.

I agree with the sadistic temperament of your palate. Nothing shows a lack of morals like masticating somethings remains beyond recognition. Now I'm off to eat some sausages , I think that counts as a double mastication .

 Grey Templar wrote:

As if you know better about this than someone who's made it their profession.

Have you ever made it your profession to farm animals?

 Grey Templar wrote:

Good animal care = profit.

Sure, assuming "good animal care" is meant to lead to "profit". But "good animal care" often does not consider the well-being of the animal, which seems to be the issue here.

 dogma wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

Good animal care = profit.

Sure, assuming "good animal care" is meant to lead to "profit". But "good animal care" often does not consider the well-being of the animal, which seems to be the issue here.

Jesus, some of you witches have a bad view of farming. I work with a lot of primary industry people and i can tell you the health of their charges is #1 . It is NOT some by product of growing things faster. It is about getting maximum money (as you have said). Any good primary producer (whether that be grain to cows) will tell you in order to do that you need the right conditions (and low stress) otherwise the big growth doesn't happen.

In regard to highest feed to weight conversion the common thing is in all livestock above chicken ( and judging by ducks chicken is similar) is to grass/natural feed then take em to a feed lot for a few weeks and make em gorge for a few weeks to get the fat content up. chickens are a little more accelerated but in my country that's how it is.
You can argue gak from the 90's , i think most western farming is a lot different now.
I work with a lot of beekeepers, yeah sure they could just rip out the honey with no care for the hive, point is if they care for the hive they get more honey and the hive is happy. Yeah , happy, bees just want to work.The same stands for live stock, if you are breeding generations then you definitely do not want to stress out your breeding cows, same with chickens, everyone has heard of broody chickens?
Whilst i talk with bee keepers i also get a LOT of primary industry contact, and i can tell you animal care is highest on their agenda.

It isn't a happy accident, it is about getting the best return, and not some other moralistic crap.

IN farming why would anything other than return be applicable? that's what it is about ,like any other business. OK then, you want to be morally superior , don't eat ANY food from a supermarket, and i mean ANY coz i'm sure that broccoli grown in a super short time doesn't feel that great. it's not natural.it's natural rhythums have been strained and (shock horror) it cannot even breed naturally.

This focus on mammals is weird, plants and insects are things to, or we just chuck a gak about things that are closely related to us?
feths sake every time you eat a fruit/vegetable you are killing something before it had it's natural chance to reproduce.

Maybe living with bees for over 27 years has inflicted my view, but for gods sake, every time you eat, every time you walk, SOMETHING DIES.
There are things smaller than mammals. This whole moralistic crap breaks down when you realise every step you take on a natural substance something either dies or that step inhibits somethings growth.The "bioshphere" is a competition, not a fething inclusive party.
so don't walk.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
to me there isn't a difference between a cow and a bee.

 Bullockist wrote:

to me there isn't a difference between a cow and a bee.

You can't get a 12 oz steak of a bee.

 Steve steveson wrote:

 Bullockist wrote:

to me there isn't a difference between a cow and a bee.

You can't get a 12 oz steak of a bee.

I dunno those Japanese ones are getting big.

you can get far more than 12 pounds out of a beehive. continuously, forever.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Steve steveson wrote:

 Bullockist wrote:

to me there isn't a difference between a cow and a bee.

You can't get a 12 oz steak of a bee.

and a 12 oz steak of bee would be horribly exoskelitony.

then again every 12 pound of vegetables is due to a bee

and the whole difference between a bee ect... is a mod edit....so take it up with them.


mods doin the good job.

This focus on mammals is weird, plants and insects are things to, or we just chuck a gak about things that are closely related to us?
feths sake every time you eat a fruit/vegetable you are killing something before it had it's natural chance to reproduce.

At least in terms of the "living biosphere" comments that kicked this off initially, a great deal of it is because mammals are grossly inefficient in a lot of cases. Unless you're raising them strictly on marginal land that has no other real human use besides feeding animals you're probably taking a net resource loss on them for humanity, and certainly for the planet.

In terms of overall energy, land and waste costs you need to produce them mammals are going to give you less human edible output for the same input when contrasted with a great deal of the alternatives.

 Bullockist wrote:
you can get far more than 12 pounds out of a beehive. continuously, forever.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Steve steveson wrote:

 Bullockist wrote:

to me there isn't a difference between a cow and a bee.

You can't get a 12 oz steak of a bee.

and a 12 oz steak of bee would be horribly exoskelitony.

then again every 12 pound of vegetables is due to a bee

and the whole difference between a bee ect... is a mod edit....so take it up with them.




mods doin the good job.

You've never had a good 12 ounce steak? In Texas we'd call child protective services if someone mistreated their kid like that.
12oz is a minimum.

True fact. Once TBone the mighty ate a 3/4 burger. AT the time he was fighting weight at 8 lb, and wanted more. Thats 10% of your body weight.

 Bullockist wrote:
you can get far more than 12 pounds out of a beehive. continuously, forever.

Honey is good, but even 12lbs is no replacement for a good steak

 Chongara wrote:

This focus on mammals is weird, plants and insects are things to, or we just chuck a gak about things that are closely related to us?
feths sake every time you eat a fruit/vegetable you are killing something before it had it's natural chance to reproduce.

At least in terms of the "living biosphere" comments that kicked this off initially, a great deal of it is because mammals are grossly inefficient in a lot of cases. Unless you're raising them strictly on marginal land that has no other real human use besides feeding animals you're probably taking a net resource loss on them for humanity, and certainly for the planet.

In terms of overall energy, land and waste costs you need to produce them mammals are going to give you less human edible output for the same input when contrasted with a great deal of the alternatives.

While plants do give more calories for energy expended than animals do, not all food is equal. Protein is a necessary component of our diet and meat is the only way we could provide enough for the world.

for what its worth, we're not even close to running out of land to grow food on. Be it plant or animal. We'd be able to support many times Earth's current population before food became a limiting factor.

for what its worth, we're not even close to running out of land to grow food on. Be it plant or animal. We'd be able to support many times Earth's current population before food became a limiting factor.

And just think of all the soylent green....

 Grey Templar wrote:


While plants do give more calories for energy expended than animals do, not all food is equal. Protein is a necessary component of our diet and meat is the only way we could provide enough for the world.

for what its worth, we're not even close to running out of land to grow food on. Be it plant or animal. We'd be able to support many times Earth's current population before food became a limiting factor.

yup, and there are very good reasons why carnivores or omnivores tended to develop larger brains then pure herbivores.

"It’s likely that meat eating “made it possible for humans to evolve a larger brain size,” said Aiello. Early human ancestors probably consumed more animal foods — termites and small mammals – than the 2 percent of carnivorous caloric intake associated with chimpanzees.

The social implications of increased meat eating were interesting, said Aiellio. In most primates, there’s no food sharing between females and offspring, she said. But the difficulty of getting meat led to cooperative food sharing among early humans, strengthening the bond between a female and her offspring."

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2008/04/eating-meat-led-to-smaller-stomachs-bigger-brains/

either way,

its much simpler for a vegan or vegetarian to take the meat out of a school meal, or choose the vegetarian option, then it is for someone to have to add meat to a meatless menu.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Chongara wrote:

This focus on mammals is weird, plants and insects are things to, or we just chuck a gak about things that are closely related to us?
feths sake every time you eat a fruit/vegetable you are killing something before it had it's natural chance to reproduce.

At least in terms of the "living biosphere" comments that kicked this off initially, a great deal of it is because mammals are grossly inefficient in a lot of cases. Unless you're raising them strictly on marginal land that has no other real human use besides feeding animals you're probably taking a net resource loss on them for humanity, and certainly for the planet.

In terms of overall energy, land and waste costs you need to produce them mammals are going to give you less human edible output for the same input when contrasted with a great deal of the alternatives.

While plants do give more calories for energy expended than animals do, not all food is equal. Protein is a necessary component of our diet and meat is the only way we could provide enough for the world.

for what its worth, we're not even close to running out of land to grow food on. Be it plant or animal. We'd be able to support many times Earth's current population before food became a limiting factor.

If you don't mind, a question before I respond to this post:

Exactly how much time have you spent looking into food production, the relative return on plant vs animal-based protein sources and like the current state of and projected trends for the availability of arable land?

Its a simple matter of looking at the total available arable land on earth vs how much is currently in use and how much food is currently produced. As it is we produce far more food than is necessary for earth's population, lots of it just gets wasted. Arable land also only includes land which is used to grow plant crops, it doesn't count land which is only suitable for pasture and grazing of herd animals. This means there is plenty of land which could only be used to raise animals.

This is all without considering aquaculture or other methods of growing food on normally unfarmable land. It also assumes we use modern farming techniques everywhere and grow applicable crops.

I'm an Ag student at university so I have studied this in some detail.

Plant vs Animal protein is a clear winner for the animal. Some essential amino acids are not available from plant sources too.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Some essential amino acids are not available from plant sources too.

Could you please name them? It's clear one of us is grossly ignorant on the matter and if it's me I loathe to remain uneducated.

Here is an interesting article by Huffington Post.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-holt-gimenez/world-hunger_b_1463429.html

Hunger isn't caused by a lack of ability to grow food, nor our future ability to grow food. We don't lack the resources, and won't have a shortage for a long time.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Here is an interesting article by Huffington Post.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-holt-gimenez/world-hunger_b_1463429.html

Hunger isn't caused by a lack of ability to grow food, nor our future ability to grow food. We don't lack the resources, and won't have a shortage for a long time.

...you gonna name those Amino Acids or...?

EDIT: You should also like, read the articles to post to make sure they conclusion they reach at least vaguely resemble the one you're trying to use them to support.

Can conventional agriculture provide the yields we need to feed 10 billion people by 2050? Given climate change, the answer is an unsustainable "maybe." The question is, at what social and environmental cost? To end hunger we must end poverty and inequality. For this challenge, agroecological approaches and structural reforms that ensure that resource-poor farmers have the land and resources they need for sustainable livelihoods are the best way forward.

 Chongara wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Some essential amino acids are not available from plant sources too.

Could you please name them? It's clear one of us is grossly ignorant on the matter and if it's me I loathe to remain uneducated.

It appears I misspoke on this.

While you can get all essential Amino acids from plants, only animal proteins contain all the essential amino acids together. IE: no plant foods are complete proteins. Meaning that without meat its far harder to get all your essential proteins. They are histidine, lysine, threonine, methionine, isoleucine, leucine, valine, phenylalanine and tryptophan. Only meat has all 9 together in useful quantities.

Vegetarians and Vegans are also often deficient in several other important nutrients, like Vitamin B12.

The Catholics tried this track, saying that earth could sustain 15 billion people, so there is no need for birth control.

We cant feed the people we have properly as to do so requires a perfect society and ethical distribution.

Earth is also home to everything else, and we shouldn't be looking at the usable landmass as entirely space for human need.