If everyone in the world goes vegan, what happens to the domesticated animals we use for meat farming?
I have a question
- Thread starter SkepticalOfVeganism
- Start date
David3
Forum Legend
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If there is less demand for meat, then farmers will simply breed fewer animals. On livestock farms, animal reproduction is controlled by the farmer. Male animals are castrated, and breeding is selectively done by artificial insemination.
If everyone went vegan, then a small population of domesticated animals could still be maintained. One should remember that, similar to dogs, domesticated farm animals have been so modified by selective-breeding that they are no longer fit to survive in the wild.
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Lou
Forum Legend
as long as the world didn't go vegan overnight, supply and demand would work to reduce the number of livestock.
And as much as we hope these changes happen quickly, we all know they won't happen that quickly!
And if everyone DID go vegan overnight the companies would kill all the animals. Just like they're already doing. Except it wouldn't result in corporate profit or consumer pleasure and therefore we'd have a proper emotional response to mass violence.
Lou
Forum Legend
Without actually looking in up
Here in the US, Broilers and layers have a lifetime of just a few months. Pigs, less than a year. Cows, lest than 3 years.
So as long as it took at least a few years just the normal rate of death would be all that is necessary
The farmers would just not raise replacement animals. Farmers instead of planting animal feed would plant people food.
There is this one scenario that I have described here before but ....
An armada of alien spacecraft enter our solar system. They broadcast that they are on a peaceful mission. however when they send pictures of themselves they are very much look like cows, pigs, and chickens. Then the world goes vegan overnight.
Here in the US, Broilers and layers have a lifetime of just a few months. Pigs, less than a year. Cows, lest than 3 years.
So as long as it took at least a few years just the normal rate of death would be all that is necessary
The farmers would just not raise replacement animals. Farmers instead of planting animal feed would plant people food.
There is this one scenario that I have described here before but ....
An armada of alien spacecraft enter our solar system. They broadcast that they are on a peaceful mission. however when they send pictures of themselves they are very much look like cows, pigs, and chickens. Then the world goes vegan overnight.
Then I guess my faith in humanity gets restored?
Clairey
Vegan wannabe
After a while the animals would be pets. They would still live on the farms as pets while the farm produce is vegetarian/plant based.
Would there be enough food for everybody? I think that there would be and the people would be healthier.
There might still be a bit of cheese or roast beef every now and then but animals would not be bred for that purpose
Would there be enough food for everybody? I think that there would be and the people would be healthier.
There might still be a bit of cheese or roast beef every now and then but animals would not be bred for that purpose
permabulk
Newcomer
They would simply die of natural causes instead of being slaughtered.
majorbloodnok
Forum Senior
Extremely unlikely.
Livestock farmers produce animals to make money. If the market suddenly disappears, the animals they own become a pure cost for as long as they are alive, so would almost certainly be slaughtered as soon as it could be arranged and sold as pet food if necessary to offset the loss. If the market disappears more slowly, an individual animal’s fate would remain as it is now but farmers would breed fewer animals to replace until, one by one, farms would switch to other means of turning a profit.
As with most other walks of life, it‘s easy to predict what will happen by looking at the money trail; the least costly path and/or the most profitable. And that doesn’t involve allowing animals to live out their natural lives on valuable land and eating costly feed. Not the “nice” scenario but the most likely.
Clairey
Vegan wannabe
As far as i can make out xxxtentation is a rapper. This is a forum for a meat and dairy free diet and maybe lifestyle.
Clairey
Vegan wannabe
I'm not too worried about the scenario presented, because I doubt that it will happen. But, since we're talking hypothetical, if everyone in the world turned vegan (assuming that they also take on vegan ethics), then they would all respect animal rights and life and let the animals live out their lives in the most humanely feasible way possible. A planet full of "true vegans" wouldn't allow all of those animals to suffer. It would perhaps be awkward for a few years given the numbers of animals that industry has allowed to proliferate, but once the mass breeding ceased, the numbers would gradually diminish to more reasonable levels. It's a good question, and one I wish we had to actually deal with, but it's not a good argument against veganism. It's a potentially (hypothetically) solvable problem. Again, we're talking hypothetically, here. I don't think this scenario will actually happen anytime soon.
Clairey
Vegan wannabe
The problem is, this is what just sprang to mind, how would we keep the numbers under control?
Contraception?
Contraception?
