Trusting these numbers, your cage-free campaigns are very cost-effective. Each hen lives for “60 to 80 weeks”, i.e. 1.34 years (= (60 + 80)/2*7/365.25), so your cage-free campaigns improve 71.0 hen-yeas per $ (= 53*1.34). This is 6.57 (= 71.0/10.8) times the 10.8 hen-years per $ implied by Open Philanthropy’s adjustment of Saulius Šimčikas’ estimate, and respects a cost-effectiveness of 24.2 DALY/$ (= 6.57*3.69).
The above implies your cage-free campaigns are hugely more cost-effective than your meal replacement program, as I would have expected. Assuming all replaced meals had 1 portion of chicken meat from broilers in a conventional scenario, which I think overestimates the cost-effectiveness of the program, this would avert 4.18 chicken-days per replaced meal. Consequently, the program would eliminate 0.0343 chicken-years per $ (= 3*4.18/365.25). I estimate eliminating 1 chicken-year of broilers in a conventional scenario is as good as averting 0.754 DALYs. So the cost-effectiveness of the program would be 0.0259 DALY/$ (= 0.0343*0.754), i.e. 0.107 % (= 0.0259/24.2) of that of your cage-free program.
In contrast, it is unclear to me whether your program to help mother pigs is more/less cost-effective than your cage-free campaigns. Mother pigs have a breeding lifetime of about 3 years, so your program to help mother pigs improves 63 pig-years per $ (= 21*3). This is 88.7 % (= 63⁄71.0) as many animal-year per $ as your cage-program, so there would not a major difference in cost-effectiveness between them assuming the improvement per animal-year is similar.
Have you considered moving funding from your meal replacement program to your cage-free campaigns and program helping mother pigs?
Thanks for sharing, Caroline, and welcome to the EA Forum!
Trusting these numbers, your cage-free campaigns are very cost-effective. Each hen lives for “60 to 80 weeks”, i.e. 1.34 years (= (60 + 80)/2*7/365.25), so your cage-free campaigns improve 71.0 hen-yeas per $ (= 53*1.34). This is 6.57 (= 71.0/10.8) times the 10.8 hen-years per $ implied by Open Philanthropy’s adjustment of Saulius Šimčikas’ estimate, and respects a cost-effectiveness of 24.2 DALY/$ (= 6.57*3.69).
The above implies your cage-free campaigns are hugely more cost-effective than your meal replacement program, as I would have expected. Assuming all replaced meals had 1 portion of chicken meat from broilers in a conventional scenario, which I think overestimates the cost-effectiveness of the program, this would avert 4.18 chicken-days per replaced meal. Consequently, the program would eliminate 0.0343 chicken-years per $ (= 3*4.18/365.25). I estimate eliminating 1 chicken-year of broilers in a conventional scenario is as good as averting 0.754 DALYs. So the cost-effectiveness of the program would be 0.0259 DALY/$ (= 0.0343*0.754), i.e. 0.107 % (= 0.0259/24.2) of that of your cage-free program.
In contrast, it is unclear to me whether your program to help mother pigs is more/less cost-effective than your cage-free campaigns. Mother pigs have a breeding lifetime of about 3 years, so your program to help mother pigs improves 63 pig-years per $ (= 21*3). This is 88.7 % (= 63⁄71.0) as many animal-year per $ as your cage-program, so there would not a major difference in cost-effectiveness between them assuming the improvement per animal-year is similar.
Have you considered moving funding from your meal replacement program to your cage-free campaigns and program helping mother pigs?