It seems like there’s a value judgement to be made on more instances of possibly very intense suffering and drawn out slowly suffering to death, and the chronic frustration and other suffering that comes from living in a cage. As someone who gives substantially more weight to more intense suffering than the average, I’m not convinced that this is a good tradeoff, and I don’t know if preference tests could tell us much while getting ethics approval. I remember you mentioning that hens would hurt themselves to get out of cages in an EA Global talk, but I wonder if the pain is anywhere near that of suffering to death.
That being said, I don’t have a good feel for how exactly they are dying, but I assume dying conscious and without painkillers is usually very bad.
With respect to 4 and a more demanding ask, I had in mind additional marginal improvements (possibly costly for the industry) that would guarantee mortality rates would not increase. Actually, it’s total on-farm deaths that matter more to me than the rates, so just increasing the prices enough could reduce demand enough to reduce those deaths. I don’t know what specifically, though.
Yeah I find that even equally aligned and informed EAs have a very wide range of priors on how to compare acute vs. chronic suffering in animals. I agree that slowly dying probably almost always causes a lot of suffering, and dying of something like cannibalism seems particularly horrific. That’s the main reason why I don’t want advocates to ban debeaking, at least until producers have worked out how to achieve much lower mortality rates. And I totally agree on the need for continued work to ensure producers install the highest welfare cage-free systems.
it’s total on-farm deaths that matter more to me than the rates, so just increasing the prices enough could reduce demand enough to reduce those deaths.
If cage-free hens are less productive, then there might still be more total deaths in cage-free despite higher prices?
I don’t have a copy of the book to check, but I thinkCompassion, by the Pound says that cage-free hens lay fewer eggs.
A 2006 study gives some specific numbers, although this is for free-range rather than cage-free:
Layers from the free range system, compared to those kept in cages, laid fewer eggs, (266:295), [...] they had higher mortality rate (6.80 % : 5.50 %)
These sources are 1-2 decades old, so maybe things have changed since then, though probably the trend of cage-free hens being somewhat less productive remains true.
Thanks!
It seems like there’s a value judgement to be made on more instances of possibly very intense suffering and drawn out slowly suffering to death, and the chronic frustration and other suffering that comes from living in a cage. As someone who gives substantially more weight to more intense suffering than the average, I’m not convinced that this is a good tradeoff, and I don’t know if preference tests could tell us much while getting ethics approval. I remember you mentioning that hens would hurt themselves to get out of cages in an EA Global talk, but I wonder if the pain is anywhere near that of suffering to death.
That being said, I don’t have a good feel for how exactly they are dying, but I assume dying conscious and without painkillers is usually very bad.
With respect to 4 and a more demanding ask, I had in mind additional marginal improvements (possibly costly for the industry) that would guarantee mortality rates would not increase. Actually, it’s total on-farm deaths that matter more to me than the rates, so just increasing the prices enough could reduce demand enough to reduce those deaths. I don’t know what specifically, though.
Yeah I find that even equally aligned and informed EAs have a very wide range of priors on how to compare acute vs. chronic suffering in animals. I agree that slowly dying probably almost always causes a lot of suffering, and dying of something like cannibalism seems particularly horrific. That’s the main reason why I don’t want advocates to ban debeaking, at least until producers have worked out how to achieve much lower mortality rates. And I totally agree on the need for continued work to ensure producers install the highest welfare cage-free systems.
If cage-free hens are less productive, then there might still be more total deaths in cage-free despite higher prices?
I don’t have a copy of the book to check, but I think Compassion, by the Pound says that cage-free hens lay fewer eggs.
A 2006 study gives some specific numbers, although this is for free-range rather than cage-free:
These sources are 1-2 decades old, so maybe things have changed since then, though probably the trend of cage-free hens being somewhat less productive remains true.