[ZFleck]

To those arguing that this is irrelevant, I urge you to search for a video of this "culling" yourself.

All the logic in the world can't ease my stomach after watching a conveyer belt of chicks get dumped directly into a meat grinder. It's simply not right. And while there are still many issues remaining in the meat industry (arguably its existence at all), this is one less.

[RansomStark]

I've seen it: It's gruesome, but I'm not sure if in-ovo sexed roosters have a better end, or if its just more palatable to watch.

Eggs take 21 days to hatch, in-ovo techniques work at 9 - 15 day post laying, depending on the technique used. Couldn't find any details on how developed the embryo is at 15 days, but 2/3's done feels pretty far along.

[rtkwe]

They develop very rapidly in their last couple days so the 15 day embryo is a long way from the 21 day hatchling: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-72004-y/figures/2

[dinfinity]

> All the logic in the world can't ease my stomach after watching a conveyer belt of chicks get dumped directly into a meat grinder. It's simply not right.

Where on the evolutionary scale do you draw the line and why, though?

Remember that the feeling you experience is a very messy heuristic that exists to perform a basic evolutionary function. People have similar feelings when Boston Dynamics robots (or similar things) are kicked/'abused', even though they would never attribute any awareness or even the experience of pain to them.

A feeling should always be the starting point of a rational appreciation of the situation; things are rarely "simply not right" and feelings are often wrong.

[timcobb]

> conveyer belt of chicks get dumped directly into a meat grinder.

I haven't seen it, and correct me if this is not the case, but it doesn't strike me as a bad way to go. Getting macerated beats most of the ways humans and wild animals die. Do these chicks have any idea "what hit them"?

[rtkwe]

It's mercifully fast but it's still absolutely mass wholesale slaughtering of chicks because they're economically inconvenient. Also as quick and near painless as the death is it's hard to get the image of the chicks going into the grinder if you've seen it, no matter how much you know that it's fast and the chick doesn't have time to feel anything it's pretty affecting.

[AlexandrB]

There's an effect where the visceral emotional response to an execution method overrides the actual cruelty of the act. Lethal injection, for example, is probably horribly painful for at least some of those that experience it[1] but it looks humane to observers. Meanwhile, the trusty guillotine would be my chosen way to go since it's nearly instant.

[1] https://eji.org/news/lethal-injections-cause-suffocation-and...

[rtkwe]

Nitrogen suffocation any day of the week in my opinion. Your brain lives long enough after the guillotine you definitely have time to feel the pain of the cut while your brain can't even register the hypoxic effects from N2 suffocation.

[tantalor]

More at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inert_gas_asphyxiation

Good demo here: https://youtu.be/kUfF2MTnqAw?si=Fi3590AiHdTBW3r8&t=329

[AlecSchueler]

There's plenty of time to feel excruciating panic walking up to bend over and lose your head. The cut itself may be instantaneous but that's not really all there is to it.

[XorNot]

It's been studied and short answer is: no. The alternative is CO2 asphyxiation, but the process is very fast and severs the spine almost immediately.

The bigger problem is chicks getting crushed to death by other chicks during processing.

Like a lot less happens to those chicks then say, when a flock of chickens is processed.

[thisislife2]

Are these crushed chicks also processed and sold (for example, as animal / pet feed)? If not, (I am wondering) why can't you just release them in the wild - in some park or forest and let nature take care of it - it's less cruel (in my opinion) if the chick becomes food for some other wildlife.

[beAbU]

Chickens learn from their mothers how to scrounge for food when they grow up free range. Releasing 1000s of tiny yellow chicks into the wild with no mother is way more cruel than current practises I reckon.

I reckon the chicken industry also generates way more male chickens than what a park can reasonably handle. People eat lots of chickens.

[slashdev]

How on earth is that less cruel? Have you seen how birds eat each other?

[thisislife2]

Moral justification - it becomes food for someone else thereby giving them life.

[archagon]

Not to get all woo, but it feels like a complete disregard for the sanctity of life. Animals are more than just an inconvenient package for protein.

[timcobb]

Thanks I understand and I wasn't trying to be callous but does the manner of death matter in this regard?