Should ethical vegans become ethical vegetarians?

ALiasEX

When a cow stops producing milk and a chicken stops producing eggs they are killed for meat, aren't they? If a vegan starts consuming free range eggs and milk they will create the need for more cows and chickens in this area of farming. When they are killed for food, there will be a slightly less need for animals that are solely raised for meat. At the very least, won't this mean the animal will have lived a longer life, and possibly a better one depending on if the animal raised only for meat was going to be free range or not?

loveisdivine

I don't think they are slaughtered for meat for human consumption. Egg hens are different to meat chickens.

I think when they are done with laying hens they are slaughtered and possibly used for other animal feed.

The thing is is everyone suddenly became vegan, it would result in a lot of animals being slaughtered because they are no longer needed and the land would probably be needed for growing veg on. However the death's of those animals would, in my opinion, be "worth" it in order to ensure no more animals would be bred for slaughter.

pwurple

That's not how it works... Dairy herds are not the same breed of cattle as beef herds in general. Old hens don't become chicken in tescos.

freethink3r

loveisdivine wrote: »

I don't think they are slaughtered for meat for human consumption. Egg hens are different to meat chickens.

I think when they are done with laying hens they are slaughtered and possibly used for other animal feed.

The thing is is everyone suddenly became vegan, it would result in a lot of animals being slaughtered because they are no longer needed and the land would probably be needed for growing veg on. However the death's of those animals would, in my opinion, be "worth" it in order to ensure no more animals would be bred for slaughter.

Yeah, I think they're put in pet food, among other things.

And I agree with the rest of what you said too. It would be worth it like... how I think about it is "what's the point in them existing if they only exist to be killed and eaten?" As far as I know, the cows that are used in farming exist solely in that context and not as a wild species found anywhere else. It's cruel to keep them around just so people can eat them. That would be worse than their extinction. At least then they couldn't be exploited.

crazy cabbage

I think what the op meant is that if the whole world became vegan would cows and sheep and hens and ect die out? There would be no need to keep these animals. Who would? It wouldn't be profitable.

If the whole world was vegetarian then there would be a mutual beneficial arrangement whereby we provide these animals with room to live and food and a quality of life and in return we would take milk and eggs ect...

In my mind when any animal dies naturally i see no problem using that body for a good purpose. When i die i would want my body to be used for scientific research. Note that this is fundamentally different to rearing and killing me for scientific research. In the exact same way i don't at present see a problem using the body of a animals that died naturally to feed animals or whatever.

loveisdivine wrote: »

The thing is is everyone suddenly became vegan, it would result in a lot of animals being slaughtered because they are no longer needed and the land would probably be needed for growing veg on. However the death's of those animals would, in my opinion, be "worth" it in order to ensure no more animals would be bred for slaughter.

I don't agree with this. I don't think the mass extinction of that many animals could be ethical. The reason these animals couldn't live without us is because we domesticated them in the first place. We would be punishing their entire species because we domesticated them. This doesn't sit right with me.

Yes if the whole world became vegetarian a lot of animals would die but we wouldn't be talking mass extinction.