[cgriswald]

You're not comparing humans to humans. You're comparing cows to (say) chickens. The underlying assumption then is that chickens and cows share the same experience of pain. That's not proven, seems unlikely to be the case, and is, in any case, currently unmeasurable.

[philipswood]

Agreed, but battery farming conditions sometimes makes it a easy call to make.

The “quality of life” (hard as it is to measure) of battery chickens is clearly not good.

We’ve kept some pet bantam chickens and I was surprised by what intelligent, curious and communicative creatures they where.

[hackernewds]

why is the experience of pain the standard? would anaesthetics present an ethical conundrum