What would happen to cows, chickens, pigs and other animals, if humans stopped eating them?
This question is inspired by the vegan/vegetarian questions being asked at the moment.
There are about 19 billion chickens in the world, about 1.5 billion cows, and loads of other animals too.
What would happen to all the chickens, cows, pigs and so on, if we all became vegan and closed down all our farms?
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They’d all star in Disney/Pixar movies & grow fat off the profits…lucky bastards.
This is one reason I believe in humane raising of animals for food and eating some meat instead of vegetarianism or factory farming.
Live out their lives and die just like every other animal.
@tinyfaery No – they wouldn’t be being raised (after the first lot died.)
They would probably not exist.
I asked this during a discussion on Fluther. I didn’t ask the question directly, but inside another discussion. I was told it was a hypothetical and would never happen so there wasn’t any point in answering the question.
Good question, @poisonedantidote.
@tinyfaery, where would they live out their lives?
I don’t see any reason why cattle and poultry could not fit into modern ecosystems. The species will decline, but not disappear.
The termination of factory farming would restore the natural order, fundamentally.
@bk I don’t have all the answers. The problem would hardly span a decade. A blink of an eye.
They’d live out their lives on animal sanctuaries.
Like I said, I don’t have all the answers. Fuck. The fact that living, breathing, feeling beings weren’t being tortured, systematically, is a step up from anything.
^That’s a good answer.
They’d become nearly extinct.
How many would die from starvation? Or from exposure? Disease? It would be horrible.
No way. Chickens can live almost anywhere. Cattle need grassland. We have a lot of that; so much more if there were no factory farming.
Over it. You’re being dense and I don’t have the patience or the tact.
How are they going to survive in New York, Maine, Connecticut without someone putting up hay to feed them in the winter or putting out water or feed for them.
If humans stopped eating such farm animals then there would no reason for keeping them alive and so they would all quickly die off one way or another.
We had a calf with a fever from a weed who was moaning in distress behind my house several years ago. Someone rented the pasture and I couldn’t in touch with them. The only thing I could think about was that I didn’t want that calf dead on my fence line because of the smell, flies and hazard to my spring water. That sounds harsh, but it is true.
Can you even begin to imagine what it would be like if animals were left to fend for themselves just to die? That is beyond cruel. Who would keep them just for the love of them? It is difficult to find dog and cat rescues because of the costs. Do you have any idea of the costs involved in keeping large livestock? Or even poultry?
Keep in mind, if we don’t eat meat, we will need much more land for vegetables to be planted, so there would probably be less land for cows to get their grass from.
Also, feeding all these animals in sanctuaries would be very expensive if we were not profiting from selling them as meat after.
The question would also apply to all the other animals that have not been mentioned yet, such as sheep, with a whapping 7.5 sheep per person in New Zeland alone.
Also, releasing 1.5 billion cows to go where they like would probably cause some traffic accidents as well as other unwanted problems.
Finally, some people are already making plans for turning insects in to food, as there is already a food shortage in the world. If we keep our meat and vegetables, we can just about feed the 7 billion people we have with the fertile land we have at hand. Soon we are expected to hit 9 billion people on the planet, if we are all vegans, there will be even less spare fertile land.
Personally, I think the realistic view is all the animals would be killed, to prevent them walking on to highways and what not, or if they are released, they would damage the environment.
So, what was the reason or motivation for wanting to stop raising animals for food and advocate that people become vegetarians?
I’m thinking, that it would probably be possible to do without problems, if we transition slowly to vegetarianism, but there is a bigger question here I think. How are we going to keep feeding everyone?
You already have things like the horse meat scandal in Europe, and that is with 7 billion people, and with meat and vegetables as a food source. Once the population grows to 9 billion, scientists are saying mass starvation will become inevitable, as we do not have a big enough planet to farm food for 9 billion people, and no one is saying it will stop at 9 billion either.
Anyone know any good soylent green recipes?
I think Frankenfood is on the way in, alas!
I eat meat in order to save cows and pigs from extinction. Yeah, that sounds good. :)
We would all have to take up Hinduisim.
They would not exist. Population-wise, we are doing wonders for farm animals. And it’s not like they could live in the wild once we’d decided we were finished with them.
And to be fair – they only exist the way they are now because of artificial selection. There weren’t herds of dairy cows grazing ancient savannahs.
As to whether the current populations would be slaughtered, that would depend on how quickly the world decided to act on this change. My guess is that it would take place over a generation or two, so numbers would dwindle. Otherwise, yes – mass slaughter.
Domestic livestock would not survive well in the wild, but…they also would not become extinct due to many farm animal rescues and others living on rural properties that would keep tham as domestic pets/companions.
I have a 15 year old goose I raised from a 10 day old gosling and he has been the light of my life forever. If I had a million dollars I would have a farm animal sanctuary for these creatures that nobody ever gets to know on an intimate basis, beyond their body parts stuffed into plastic wrappers and injected into a can.
If goose liver pate was the last food on on earth I’d eat dirt before I consumed the body parts of a creature that has been, every bit as much of a “dog” to me for all these years.
Dude, not gonna happen, and not my problem anyway.
They would get sent on space missions or used to colonize space sub stations.
Ferrel Pigs do very well, too well. They are pretty destructive.
There would be no point of raising cattle if people stopped eating beef, the same thing with chickens & pigs. Now sheep would continue to be raised for their wool (but in lesser numbers). However, I do not see this happening anytime soon, especially since so many of our food products now have GMOs in them. However, many of the animals that we eat are now fed the grain products that contain the GMOs (so it is a ‘catch 22’ situation).
@Linda_Owl Why would GMOs make any difference? Also, it is the food that is the GMO, the food does not contain GMOs.
Well, they can’t survive in the wild, so without people raising them and caring for them, they’d eventually die out.
I don’t think it will ever happen so I won’t worry about it. I do wish though that humans would start having compassion and common sense and realize that animals need a decent life if they are to be healthily edible. Not only is factory farming cruel and inhumane, it is not good for the creature or the creatures who consume it.
The value of an animal seems to become moreso when they are almost extinct. They tell me that is why whales have such prominence and modern day pirates trying to protect them, because some species are almost extinct. So maybe if livestock were to become almost extinct, people would care more about their welfare.
@poisonedantidote Over 50% of all agriculture in the US goes towards feeding livestock. I do not see an issue with having enough land/crops to feed everyone. I can’t remember what book, but I had read that for every acre of land used to grow food for humans, there are 14 acres used to grow food for meat-based diets. And, I think, the amount of corn/oats required to make one 8 ounce steak, is equal to at least 45 bowls of human food. I’ll look for the information so I can provide a link or two.
I would imagine the breeds of animal that we have bred purely for food (meat, dairy and eggs) will more than likely die out, they are not designed to survive in the wild. However, the wild breeds of cattle, goats and sheep would continue to survive as they have for years. We may not have Friesians roaming the plains but we’ll still have Bison (I hope – they’re one of my favourite animals) I really don’t know about chickens and such, what wild birds did they come from?
@Leanne1986,red junglefowl. Domesticated chickens have been around for thousands of years.
@bkcunningham Wow, thank you. I have learnt something new today! So, clearly, chickens would carry on regardless!
Domesticated means that humans have tended to them, @Leanne1986. There are wild chickens in warmer climates around the world. They are much more aggressive and leaner than the chickens humans raise around the world though.
If you know anyone who free ranges their chicken, you’ll know that even then they are kept very controlled in a safe area and must be well cared for to keep them healthy.
Yeah… for people who think that domesticated animals would “return happily to the wild”, this is incredibly unrealistic. They would starve or be picked off by predators; neither is a particularly pretty death, however romantically we like to think of nature. And if some species should miraculously thrive in the wild – this would inevitably mean the destruction of wild species that currently occupy those niches. This is cannot be a win/win scenario.
I had a Jungle Fowl rooster once, he was magnificent!
Beautiful mahogany red and very alert and a fierce protector of his hens.
His name was “Zanzibar” and he sure was a cocky guy. ;-)
Sadly he was lost in a massacre one night when I forgot to lock the coop and the raccoons slaughtered half my flock.
I was devastated and it became forever known as “The great Mt. Aukum chicken massacre of 1995.” lol
Zanzibar. You have too much fun, @Coloma. lol I hope you are hanging in there. <3
@bkcunningham I am,kinda, sorta, every day is a new adventure. Life has a way of surprising us,over & over again.:-)
The cruel wilderness would shrink their numbers dramatically. There would be lots of untreated diseases, starving and other forms of misery. Ethical farmers treat their animals much better than the wilderness does. Romantic wilderness is a human fantasy.
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