Archive:000/Limits to sustainable animal consumption: Difference between revisions

Q:&emsp;"What about chickens & pigs?"<br />

A:&emsp;Since chickens & pigs are not ruminants, they depend on eating grains and other foods that humans ''could have'' eaten instead - this ''includes'' the "table scraps" often mentioned by people who own chickens.{{x|To see how to really use vegetables to the fullest, see [[food/full_use#vegetables]].}}

[[Backyard chickens]] can't solve the ''food-inefficiency'' problem, but they ''can'' at least reduce the ''animal cruelty'' problem. Backyard chickens are generally treated better{{x|with some exceptions,<!--TODO: write about electric fences--> unfortunately}} than chickens in [[factory farms]]. Also, chickens are useful on crop lands because they can eat insects that would otherwise be pests.{{x|This can help with [[crop yields]]. Chickens also poop which can help [[fertilizer|fertilize]] the soil, but from a higher perspective, this doesn't add any minerals that weren't already there in the first place (the [[soil]] page will explain this in more detail).}} This could certainly contribute ''some'' chicken & eggs to the food supply, but it probably wouldn't be much compared to the status quo of chicken consumption.{{qn}} To be fair, when it comes to exceeding the "limits to sustainable animal consumption", chicken isn't as bad as beef{{x|for the same amount of meat}}. Cows have a much worse [[feed efficiency]], which is a problem when they are fed grains.