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Comment by ornornor | Hacker News Reader

That’s how we get all their milk, how we get meat (the calf isn’t kept around for more than a few weeks/months), and rennet to make cheese (it’s the digestion liquid that’s in their stomach while they eat milk, must kill the animal to extract it)

Same with eggs, they don’t exist in a vacuum. To get eggs you have to have chickens, and to have chickens you must grind male chicks alive as they hatch because they don’t produce eggs. And hens aren’t supposed make eggs year round but we make them anyway with artificial lights etc, which drastically shortens their lifespan.

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> And hens aren’t supposed make eggs year round but we make them anyway with artificial lights etc, which drastically shortens their lifespan.

I kept a flock of 25-30 hens on my property for a few years. Other than moulting they produce eggs ease round. The production slows drastically in the dark winter months for the older hens (1 for 3 days, say) but some continue to produce nearly daily (I think the cycle is something like 26-28 hours). The only time we had artificial light for them was on days when it was so cold we kept their coop door shut and turned on the interior light.

the way eggs are industrially farmed is generally not like this

I think they are addressing the claim "hens aren’t supposed make eggs year round"

Worse I’m afraid, chickens will give most eggs in their first year and are killed after, because they become unprofitable. I know an ecological farmer that charges a bit more for eggs and is able to keep them alive for 2 years, but that’s the max. They can easily live for 10 years plus.

> to have chickens you must grind male chicks alive as they hatch because they don’t produce eggs

Bit of a leap there.

How so? What do you think breeders who sell hens do with male chicks?

Some places sex the eggs. Germany, France, Switzerland and many other places completely do without so it is hardly mandatory.

Other places use male chickens for meat, despite them being sub-optimal.

I think the grinding of male chicks is an interesting case because it's actually pretty low on the suffering and distress spectrum, but high on the visceral reaction scale

> grinding of male chicks is an interesting case because it's actually pretty low on the suffering and distress spectrum, but high on the visceral reaction scale

And nothing requires they be ground alive versus e.g. introduced into a nitrogen atmosphere and then minced. (Or simply neutered, raised and sold as capon.)

or feed them live to an alligator farm or zoo

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