I’m skeptical of Charity Entrepreneurship’s estimates. Really, cattle have negative utility?
Cattle avoid being factory farmed. So I’d bet the average cow would much rather be born than not.
Really, are shrimp so picky about their environment that they feel negative, how they are farmed? I’d think any place where they are alive and fed may yield positive utility to a shrimp.
So I am distrustful of their ratings. Kudos to your analysis, though, I think that’s the right approach, assuming good data being fed into it
CE’s cattle estimates are for factory farmed cattle (the “FF” means factory farmed), not for non-factory farmed cattle. So, I agree that they probably shouldn’t be used here as representative for cattle in general. That being said, I don’t think it matters much, because their population is small relative to other farmed animals included.
(FWIW, the shrimp welfare estimates are by the author and don’t come directly from CE, from my understanding.)
I’m not sure about shrimp welfare, but food is not the only challenge they can face. Poor enough water quality can kill them, and I’d guess water quality can be suboptimal and stressful without killing them. Without proper management, high stocking densities can throw off water quality, e.g. low dissolved oxygen, ammonia buildup, suboptimal pH. The weather can also affect water quality, including temperature, as shrimp farming is mostly done outdoors, and fast changes to conditions even within safe ranges can be stressful. That being said, I don’t know how good or bad water quality actually is on shrimp farms. I think there’s financial incentive to manage it well, because of increased mortality and poorer growth rates with poorer water quality. On high density farms, they’d probably all die without some management, like aeration for dissolved oxygen, although the oxygen levels could still be suboptimal for welfare. When I did look into it a few years ago, it seemed pretty good on samples of high density farms I saw (mostly for Vietnam and Thailand), but I’m not sure how representative the samples were, as I’ve heard it’s worse. It can be managed less well on lower density (extensive, semi-intensive) farms.
Maybe they also feel stressed being crowded at very high stocking densities (independently of effects on water quality and food availability), but I don’t know if that’s something that bothers them. The female breeding stock often have eyes removed (eyestalk ablation). There can be white spot disease breakouts. Their deaths could often be pretty painful, too, being potentially crushed by ice or other shrimp.
I’m skeptical of Charity Entrepreneurship’s estimates. Really, cattle have negative utility?
Cattle avoid being factory farmed. So I’d bet the average cow would much rather be born than not.
Really, are shrimp so picky about their environment that they feel negative, how they are farmed? I’d think any place where they are alive and fed may yield positive utility to a shrimp.
So I am distrustful of their ratings. Kudos to your analysis, though, I think that’s the right approach, assuming good data being fed into it
CE’s cattle estimates are for factory farmed cattle (the “FF” means factory farmed), not for non-factory farmed cattle. So, I agree that they probably shouldn’t be used here as representative for cattle in general. That being said, I don’t think it matters much, because their population is small relative to other farmed animals included.
(FWIW, the shrimp welfare estimates are by the author and don’t come directly from CE, from my understanding.)
I’m not sure about shrimp welfare, but food is not the only challenge they can face. Poor enough water quality can kill them, and I’d guess water quality can be suboptimal and stressful without killing them. Without proper management, high stocking densities can throw off water quality, e.g. low dissolved oxygen, ammonia buildup, suboptimal pH. The weather can also affect water quality, including temperature, as shrimp farming is mostly done outdoors, and fast changes to conditions even within safe ranges can be stressful. That being said, I don’t know how good or bad water quality actually is on shrimp farms. I think there’s financial incentive to manage it well, because of increased mortality and poorer growth rates with poorer water quality. On high density farms, they’d probably all die without some management, like aeration for dissolved oxygen, although the oxygen levels could still be suboptimal for welfare. When I did look into it a few years ago, it seemed pretty good on samples of high density farms I saw (mostly for Vietnam and Thailand), but I’m not sure how representative the samples were, as I’ve heard it’s worse. It can be managed less well on lower density (extensive, semi-intensive) farms.
Maybe they also feel stressed being crowded at very high stocking densities (independently of effects on water quality and food availability), but I don’t know if that’s something that bothers them. The female breeding stock often have eyes removed (eyestalk ablation). There can be white spot disease breakouts. Their deaths could often be pretty painful, too, being potentially crushed by ice or other shrimp.