• Nora@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    Modern chickens were bred so that they produce so many eggs that they literally drain their bodies of calcium. It wears their bodies down. Seeing them as someone to be exploited and only as a means to produce eggs is what is abusive.

    In order to keep them healthy, you have to give them either an implant that stops them from producing eggs or feed the eggs back to them so that they recover the calcium.

    Plus, what happens when they get old and stop producing eggs? Then what do you do? Do you just keep them around? Or do you kill them and then eat them? Doing that would also be abusive.

    • NSRXN@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 day ago

      Seeing them as someone

      most people don’t see chickens as people, so this isn’t a concern. they’re animals, not someones

      • Nora@lemmy.ml
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        24 hours ago

        You’re an animal too.

        And yes, they are someones. They are sentient. Each individual has personality. Whether people acknowledge that or not does not make it not true.

        • NSRXN@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          24 hours ago

          I’m a person. humans are animals, that is true, but we are distinct in important ways. denying this is dehumanizing.

          • Nora@lemmy.ml
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            19 hours ago

            No, that is a speciesist take. We are not distinct in the ways that are most important. Among many similarities non-human animals feel pain and don’t want to die. Those are the most important ways that we are the same.

            Do you think humans evolved in a vacuum? We share a lot of similarities in our brains with other types of animals that also have brains.

            It is not dehumanizing. Here’s a quote to think on: “When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression”

            • NSRXN@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              14 hours ago

              When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression

              i’m not equal with animals. this is just more dehumanization.

            • NSRXN@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              14 hours ago

              that is a speciesist take

              speciesism is rational. i wouldn’t ask an elephant to engage in a discussion on lemmy.

              • Nora@lemmy.ml
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                11 hours ago

                Speciesism is not rational. I’m assuming you would not apply the same standards to a human that had the same intelligence as a chicken?

                Say we had a person with the same intelligence of a chicken. Would it be okay to milk them and use them for their milk? Or to use any part of them for ourselves? To eat them?

            • NSRXN@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              14 hours ago

              non-human animals feel pain and don’t want to die.

              we don’t know that any non-human animal understands personal mortality, so we need to clear up an ambiguity in your syntax there. the don’t even know if they know they colud die. if you don’t know you could want something, to say that you don’t want it is almost tautological. we can’t say teher is any evidence they want not to die, though.

        • NSRXN@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          24 hours ago

          you are using an expansive definition of “someone” that most people don’t recognize and most disagree with.

          • Nora@lemmy.ml
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            20 hours ago

            Most people thought slavery was okay at a certain point in time… Just because most people think something doesn’t make it right.

        • NSRXN@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 day ago

          I’m a person. humans are animals, that is true, but we are distinct in important ways. denying this is dehumanizing.

            • NSRXN@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              1 day ago

              one of the important ways we are the same is our comparable physiology that allows us to have a symbiotic relationship in which we provided them with food and protection and the ability to reproduce, while gleaning for ourselves nutrients.

              • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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                1 day ago

                Our comparable physiology also triggers our empathetic instincts, which allows us to understand their emotions in a basic way.

                And when we kill them, it hurts us.

                Have you ever killed an animal? It feels bad.

                • NSRXN@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  1 day ago

                  our empathetic instincts, which allows us to understand their emotions in a basic way.

                  this sounds like anthropomorphism

                  • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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                    1 day ago

                    Yeah, we anthropomorphize anything with a face. It’s a natural human pack instinct. Obviously chickens don’t have the same emotions as humans so we can’t understand them perfectly, but we can tell when they’re afraid or aggressive or nice.

                    And when we kill them it feels bad. There’s a reason people who work in slaughterhouses have higher rates of depression, insomnia, anxiety substance abuse, and even suicide.

    • GregorGizeh
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      2 days ago

      They do exactly that, they mix the crushed up eggshells under the chicken feed to help them recuperate. As for when they get old, they keep them until they die naturally, though they have also given some older chickens to an animal sanctuary/petting zoo thing in the region before.

      I certainly abhor industrial scale animal abuse as is practiced, but as a life long vegetarian myself who is used to more harmonious animal husbandry I also believe there is an ethical way of keeping animals as livestock (and benefiting from their produce).

      • Nora@lemmy.ml
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        2 days ago

        Are they eating their eggs? That would be the only problem I could see with that situation. seeing them as something to be exploited for what they make, rather than as individuals.

        Whenever I wonder if something is abusive, I just compare it to what it would be like if they were a human. If there was a human woman in your care with the same intelligence of a chicken, you wouldn’t think it was okay to milk them and drink their milk. That would be fucking weird.