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One Step Posts

“But Why Chickens?”

8/28/2017

4 Comments

 
At One Step, we often get questions about why we focus on chickens.

On the one hand, people write with arguments about how terrible red meat is for the environment or human health. Our bottom line isn’t to save the Earth (which is impossible). We care only about reducing suffering as much as possible. In this realm, anything said against red meat leads to significantly more suffering. As Ginny Messina pointed out, Bad news for red meat is bad news for chickens … and for suffering.

The numbers are pretty staggering. The average person in the US will be responsible for the slaughter of about 26 factory-farmed land animals this year. If you could convince them to give up all beef, pork, and dairy, they still would be responsible for the slaughter of over 25 animals.

It isn’t all about numbers, though. It is also about the actual suffering. And here the picture gets even bleaker. For example, according to Harish Sethu, about as many birds suffer to death even before getting to the slaughterhouse as all the cows and pigs killed combined.

Just think about that.
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It is no wonder that when Veterinary Professor John Webster said that modern poultry production is “in both magnitude and severity, the single most severe example of man’s inhumanity to another sentient animal.”

Combined with the numbers and the cruelty is opportunity. Given the audience most likely to change, what potential change would have the greatest impact? In this case, the answer is again chickens.

And although some measures of aquatic animals killed are extremely large, the suffering caused and opportunity bring us back to focusing on chickens. (Much more on the question of fish in this blog post, and discussed in this podcast.)  


To learn more about One Step, please read this. Thanks so much!
4 Comments
Denise Brown
8/28/2017 07:49:49 pm

Please explain your statement that even giving up dairy, red meat, etc, one would still be responsible for killing 25 animals per year. What does that mean, exactly? Looking for clarity, please.

Reply
Matt
8/29/2017 05:47:03 am

Thanks so very much for taking the time to write Denise!
If you look at the lead graph here
http://www.onestepforanimals.org/about.html
Or at the link in the blog post, you'll note that the average person in the US consumes a small fraction of a pig, and a tiny fraction of a cow, every year. Because they are so small, almost all the land animals the average meat eater consumes each year are birds. It is really stunning. Again, you'll see more here:
http://www.onestepforanimals.org/about.html
Thanks so very much.

Reply
Laurent Goldstein
8/30/2017 03:52:25 pm

Thank you for what you do. People are oblivious to the suffering of chicken and turkeys . It is staggering

Reply
Matt
8/30/2017 03:53:56 pm

Thanks Laurent. We're doing our best!

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 It is easy to help animals!
​By simply not eating chickens, you remove the vast majority of your support for factory farms. Thanks!
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