http://www.wired.com/underwire/2012/02/ ... -solution/

They don't exactly have a pleasant existence at the moment, so is this a logical and appropriate step to take for future meat farming?

I think removing the cruelty element has got to be a good thing. Chickens have been shown to be quite intelligent and anything which removes suffering has got to be better surely?

As long as there are places like the http://www.bhwt.org.uk/ to save battery chickens that are used for egg production, and if we can get all british farmers to adopt the new egge process of enriched caging: http://www.bhwt.org.uk/cms/enriched-cages-and-colony-eggs/ then maybe this is the way forward for the actual meat rearing.

ION our girls will be arriving at their new home on the 24th March At least we can give those 8 girls a new lease of life and a happy living situation.

Mmm Zombie Chicken flesh

Or maybe we could, you know, just treat normal chickens properly?

Just a thought.

I don't think that will ever happen Rusty. It would be ideal, but farmers just don't have enough space to grow chickens properly and even if they did, they wouldn't turn enough of a profit to make it worthwhile to them. It's an unfortunate truth of chickens reared in this country, they don't sell for the same price as lambs or beef so it's harder to justify rearing them properly.

We could always change the law, and then import our cruelty like we do with electronics and clothes.

Hmm, so removing the eyes, cerebral cortex and (if that article's to be believed) its feet makes it more humane for the chicken? Now, I may have missed something here, but how does butchering the chicken while it's still alive make it kinder for the poor bird?

Chicken's about the only meat I really eat - this makes me want to go veggie!

The solution is largely speaking very simple; massively increase the space requirements per chicken, and also add in some additional regs about quality of that space as well. Then ban the import of any animal that doesn't meet those conditions.

The price of chicken will of course rise at this point. This is in no way a problem; we've got used to ridiculously cheap meat, and an economic benefit is no justification for the cruel treatment of animals.

I wonder if this means people will turn from veggie to carnivorous? One of the reasons is animal suffering, so if animals don't suffer, surely they'd be acceptable to eat the meat. You're basically turning them into vegetables!

My greater concern is it being used for humans.

How I understood it was that they would grow the chicken that way. Ie it would be genetically modified to not have the cerebral cortex etc... Instead of removing those parts from a normal chicken.

That's how I understood it anyway.

That's certainly how I wanted to read it, but I don't think it was clear from the article: "This would involve removing the cerebral cortex of the chicken"

I'm not sure how close we are to genetically breeding such creatures, but the idea of doing brain surgery on individual chickens doesn't sound like a cost saver!

And pork.

I reckon we lack the programming capability to define such a world.

But the Matrix was designed to "entertain" and "occupy" the mind. Instead of that, what if they took all of your brain except that needed to control your heart and breathing rates?

You would essentially be like someone in a coma.