Is selective breeding capable of meaningfully changing an animal’s capacity to suffer? Domestic animals have brains that are 15-35% smaller than their wild counterparts, so there is some interaction between domestication and intelligence.
Is anyone working on genetic engineering or gene drives to make farm animals less able to suffer?
It doesn’t seem likely someone is working on this right now.
Just as an aside, as you can see Gatheny mention, there might be concrete conditions (ascites and tibial dyschondroplasia) that are well understood and feasible to improve, but haven’t been focused on (at time of writing).
I’m completely not a subject matter expert and very uncertain, but it seems possible that changing capacity to suffer with genetics might be more complicated than other ways of improving welfare through genetics.
With the level of breeding involved, it’s possible that the animals’ brains and nervous systems have been “co opted” for productivity.
To give an example, modern laying hens need a certain level of light . More or less light and they don’t lay as much. Also, massive broiler growth is probably supported by an unnatural appetite that is probably related to hormones and aggressiveness. Both of these seem like they involve some behavior pathway.
So it’s possible that trying to modify their brains might really harm production, or not work at all. This is not just because this is hard in regular animals, but also because of how pushed the animals genetics have been.
I think the above is somewhat informative speculation, but I am not sure about this.
It doesn’t seem likely someone is working on this right now.
Just as an aside, as you can see Gatheny mention, there might be concrete conditions (ascites and tibial dyschondroplasia) that are well understood and feasible to improve, but haven’t been focused on (at time of writing).
I’m completely not a subject matter expert and very uncertain, but it seems possible that changing capacity to suffer with genetics might be more complicated than other ways of improving welfare through genetics.
With the level of breeding involved, it’s possible that the animals’ brains and nervous systems have been “co opted” for productivity.
To give an example, modern laying hens need a certain level of light . More or less light and they don’t lay as much. Also, massive broiler growth is probably supported by an unnatural appetite that is probably related to hormones and aggressiveness. Both of these seem like they involve some behavior pathway.
So it’s possible that trying to modify their brains might really harm production, or not work at all. This is not just because this is hard in regular animals, but also because of how pushed the animals genetics have been.
I think the above is somewhat informative speculation, but I am not sure about this.