usernamesAreTricky
JusticeForPorygonIndustrial egg production is the vast majority of egg production. Using the word only there is perhaps a bit misleading when for instance, 98.2% of US egg production is from factory farms [1]
I’m not sure one can call any of those methods painless either
US Factory Farming Estimates
How many animals are factory farmed? We estimate that 99% of US farmed animals are living in factory farms at present. By species, we estimate that 74.9% of cows, 98.6% of pigs, 99.8% of turkeys, 98.3% of chickens raised for eggs, and over 99.9% of chickens raised for meat are living in factory farms. Based on the confinement and living conditions of farmed fish, we estimate that virtually all US fish farms are suitably described as factory farms, though there is limited data on fish farm conditions and no standardized definition. Land animal figures use data from the USDA Census of Agriculture and EPA definitions of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations.
The industry is slowly evolving away from it tho. I’ve seen “no chicken killing” or something similar on labels in German shops.
The technology for it that currently scale to higher egg consumption rather well among other potential problems
They have not yet tried to sell the technology to the US egg industry but, even if they did, the volume it can handle is currently too low for this technology to be used to get rid of chick culling across the board.
[…]
One issue that complicates these efforts is the difficult-to-answer question of when an embryo becomes a chick. Some researchers say day seven is when chick embryos can begin to experience pain. If that’s right, sexing the eggs eight to 10 days after incubation as Respeggt does, and 14 days as Agri-AT does, may still end up inflicting pain on the embryo, which could be trading one animal welfare problem — culling — for another
Culling unhatched eggs seems less cruel to me than culling <1 day hatchlings. Cute-bias, I know.
Seems to scale somewhat in Europe, talking many many millions of eggs per year too.
At least trying is better than nothing.
Not saying it’s perfect, but tech is advancing thought it would be interesting to add that to this thread…
Lileath
alx
SchmooChickens are domesticated to the point that they cannot survive in the wild / have no ecological niche. Without some small scale animal agriculture like backyard chickens they would go extinct, though you could argue it’s for the best.
Personally I think small-scale egg farming is not exploitative when the chickens are treated well.