Hi Carla,
Just as a side note, I'm not casting judgements about raising hens and so forth -- I'm just exploring the issue for the sake of discussion.
All good questions that you asked, ta33.
1. True, but we don't intentionally expose them to that risk. We watch over them, but s**t happens. I have seen a hen killed by a hawk. I'd say it is fast. Where the whole picture is concerned, that hen had a mighty good life until the end. Also, sometimes a backyard farmer kills a chicken very fast & mercifully. In my case, esp. if it is an old hen, I don't mind too much that it died to keep the hawk's babies alive. But it's the hen's feelings that matter.
I understand what you're saying. I have no problem with hawks being hawks. Although one could make the same argument for humans eating chickens, too.
2. This is a typical going-in-circles argument. I could just as soon ask a person born in a literal jail to its mother, a baby who was destind to stay there all its life, if that is fine with him - if his life is "worth" living. I don't know. Ask a suicidal person if he wishes he had never been born; ask seriously disabled, pain wracked person how he feels. You will get a variety of responses.
Some of our chickens are hatched under a hen, and cared for by that hen, and sometimes by other hens, also.
I'm not talking about factory farming here -- I think we both agree that is really awful and unacceptable. But what about the bison who spent his entire life roaming in open grassland before being killed humanely? That animal had the benefit of living a pretty good life that it wouldn't have otherwise experienced. Why is it morally unacceptable to raise an animal that lives a good life and that also provide lifes and energy for another living creature?
I guess what I'm asking is what is so bad about death, given the high quality of life experienced? A life that would have never been experienced without the need/desire to raise that animal for food.
I wonder if there aren't deeply emotional (fear-based) beliefs surrounding the issue of death for humans that make them uncomfortable with the idea of animals dying.
3. I have seen dead chicken bodies pretty much stepped-over and ignored by the other chickens. Whether they "suffer" in some inchoate way, a way that I myself can't perceive, I don't know.
I agree, I don't think there is any way to really know for sure since chicken thoughts/feelings are private. My point is that if other chickens are not experiencing pain and suffering at the loss, then what's the problem with the dead chicken? With human beings, if someone shoots me dead tommorrow, that will create alot of suffering for other people still living -- family, friends, etc. But I myself do not experience any loss (assuming a relatively painless death) -- I'm dead, how can I experience anything?!? "I" obvious don't care that I'm dead -- I'm dead after all! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />
As I have posted in the past, no living thing, esp. not humans, can exist without killing something or other, directly or indirectly. Some people would therefore conclude that it doesn't matter at all, then.
I certainly would not conclude that! Far from it -- to me it's all about minimizing pain and suffering in other living creatures, which is one of the many reasons factory farms are so heinous. It matters very much, imo.
I just disagree: I think that we have a moral responsibility to attempt to reduce the suffering that we cause in the course of living our lives. You do your part and I do mine. Personally, I don't carry a measuring stick, but I can't help noticing when people take a don't-give-s**t attitude.
No disagreement there. To me, it's about minimizing pain and suffering . . . death is just a part of the circle of life -- nothing to be feared or demonized or held up as some target of moral outrage.
