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> the males grow large enough to be edible,

It would seem to me these are still killed. Lacto-ovo vegetarians might still prefer no-kill egg as shown in the article.

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Unless the chickens are kept after they finish laying eggs, no commercial egg laying is no kill. Most battery or free range hens are killed (or if they're lucky, rescued for home use) at a year old as they approach their first moult.

At the very least it's still less-kill.

How is it less kill if all the male chicks are raised then used for meat? Same number of chickens being killed either way, some just get slightly longer to live.

Some die before you have the chance to kill them.

I was specifically talking about the method from the OP, where male chicks aren't killed (unless you count destroying the egg as killing them).

A farmer friend told me that as egg production declines due to aging, feed consumption actually increases. This was among the factors that drove a soft-hearted novice chicken rancher of his acquaintance out of the business.

You don't have to kill them to eat them, as long as you aren't eating all of them. A lot of poultry live in conditions where they have no use for wings or thighs anyway.

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