I think as long as they get to walk around flap their wings, you know, peck the ground socialize a little while we grow them. Yeah? I’m far far from being knowledgeable about the industry.
I have been in poultry houses, watched them gather the chickens, watched the processing line every step of the way. In my opinion, it’s about as humane as you can get, understanding that the poultry do get killed.
I have been in hog-raising facilities and in processing plants, and I would say the raising facilities aren’t as easy as the poultry houses, but the processing is not significantly less humane.
I raise cattle myself, and they live in luxury compared to what wild cattle would live with. There are four phases to beef production. First, the cow/calf operation. Pretty benign. Then there’s “backgrounding”, also just young animals eating the green leaves of things like wheat or rye grass. Then there’s feed lot, which is not terrible, but it’s aesthetically disgusting (and not really needed) and then there’s processing. I have never been in a beef processing plant, but I suspect it’s a lot like hog processing.
I think animals are part of an ecosystem God made simply because He loves it. And I believe people are part of that, and are meant to be part of it. Something we need to realize is that fully 1/3 of the habitable part of the world’s surface is grassland. It won’t grow anything else. People can’t digest grass. So, for that 1/3 of the world, God has given us ruminant animals that can eat grass and turn it into high-quality protein that we can digest.
As I said, I believe we’re part of the ecosystem, and our raising and eating ruminant animals is part of it every bit as much as tigers in the jungle are.
