If everyone became a vegan/vegetarian, what would happen to farm animals?

I mean, be serious. What would happen to our traditional countryside? If we aren't using these animals, there would be no need for them. Instead of making these animals extinct, couldn't we just research into more humane slaughter methods?





At the rate we're going, everything will be industrialized and who wants that? I don't!!!





Its better to have a life with suffering than not at all. Think of the pigs, cows and birds.





Oh, and whats more, these animals will have a worse life, classified as "Endangered Species" in some EVIL zoo or something





Anyone got a decent answer, please?

If everyone became a vegan/vegetarian, what would happen to farm animals?
Here is what would happen: they'd be let go or slaughtered. There would be little to no motivation to keep them, and it would not be cost-effective for most owners to breed them out. What would be the point for them? That is the irony of the vegan movement. If it succeeded 100%, all these animals would either be slaughtered anyway, or they'd be freed and would starve to death, eat our crops, or kill people by getting into the road. It would be an ecological disaster.





I don't mean that against anyone who chooses to be a vegan. It's a choice, and you have a right to do it. But if everyone did it, we'd have a serious problem on our hand.
Reply:Leave it to a Texan to say that vegans don't have to care about animals. Report Abuse

Reply:A decent answer?


Well, everyone becoming vegetarian/vegan would never happen as we are biologically meat eaters.


However, hypothetically if it DID happen, all the farm animals would have a big pi$$ up %26amp; celebrate life lol








I tried to give a proper answer....
Reply:They would evolve into Major League baseball players and look like giant shaved bears....sort of like Barry Bonds. That is why you must eat them and add plenty of horseradish. nm





Artsyfartsy-we do have happy cows here! I live in happy cow country, right next to the Rouge et Noir cheese factory and it is heaven on earth. BUY A BUS TICKET!!!





http://www.flickr.com/photos/pegslypoo/8...





Here are cows at Point Reyes...fartsy





http://www.flickr.com/photos/52787721@N0...


http://www.flickr.com/photos/trishabrunn...


http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/exec/cl/cacasa/im...


http://www.flickr.com/photos/trishabrunn...


http://www.flickr.com/photos/52787721@N0...


http://www.malt.org/
Reply:It's outrageous how many people don't have a clue!





Don't you know that humans impregnate the cows on purpose!





I don't want to explain anything to you, because you wouldn't understand even if I did tell you!!!!





I hate the way people think sometimes!!! It makes no sense at all!!!





I think that everyone who has a question against vegans and vegetarians should GOOGLE it first, before you look stupid!
Reply:we would stop breeding them and they would eventually die out except for the cute ones which would become our pets
Reply:They would be butchered and eaten, unitl no one wanted to do that anymore. Then the remaining ones would be slaughtered for their hides and any other thing of value that is not going to be used for food. Then, the farm animals that no one wants to buy for pets, etc. would either die of starvation, neglect, and perhaps a few of old age (if they are lucky enough to land in an animal rescue place).








I am a vegan, and I am not a vegan because I love animals. It is strictly for health reasons. I would cook meat for others to eat, and I don't regret killing a single chicken back when I was a kid. (We raised them, and butchered them for food.)





I don't care if animals who have miserable lives in some cage somewhere become extinct. They would be better off. If there are no or very few occurrences of them in the wild, it won't effect the ecology enough to make a difference, so to heck with it.
Reply:I don't think I could give you a decent answer because you're question is bogus.





Insert African-American slaves into that idea instead of farm animals and see how much sense your question makes against morality. With a few adjustments of course. Or perhaps native Americans.





Pigs, cows and birds are bred by demand...if the meat industry died out it would be replaced by a vegan industry and people would adjust - as it would take many years and couldn't happen instantly. I'd hope you realized this.





Evil zoo? Yea humane ways of slaughtering them is better then keeping them in ample pastures for people to visit and learn about them. much better. right. I'm trying to believe it..really. common.
Reply:They would die within days. Animals on factory farms don't live much past slaughter time if they even make it that long. Then we would be left with only the healthy animals from the handful of small farms that do things the right way.
Reply:they are living creatures they deserve to live and i know that it sounds great for every one to be a vegetarian or vegan... but the truth is that it will never happen i am a vegetarian because i made an oath to not harm animals but now that you know what pain they go through. It should be your choice on how to look at it. Truthfully the country would be great to see herds of free cows or birds and stuff
Reply:They'd eat all of our food!!
Reply:Most would die off naturally. There would not be even close to the amount of these animals there are now because most are artificially bred anyway. You don't honestly think that they stroll through pastures and mate happily do you? It appears that you asked this question in haste before thinking any deeper.





Randall: Not enough vegetables?? Are you kidding me? There are tons and tons that are thrown away each day because of the quantity. Without cattle grain fields, as stated...the world can be fed..and then some.
Reply:Congratulations, you win a prize. you are the Gazillionth person to ask this question in 2007





1 - these animals would not take over


2 - they would not go extinct


3 - jsut becuase we bring a live nito the world does nto mean we own it


4 - countryside woudl evolve into arable , forest and pasture for landowners ( horses, pet cows, sheep as we have )...guess what - thats exactly what it looked like 400 years ago !


5 - saying "everything will be industrialized " is silly, have you seen modern farming ?? Its hardly natural.


6 - "Its better to have a life with suffering than not at all"...are you really sure about that ?? If a doctor saves your babies live does that give them the right to own it and kill it for food when they feel like it ? Are you REALLY sure you would rather be born and caged for life than not be born at all ?





Its a bit arogant to say you know what animals would prefer





Why would cows, pigs, sheep etc become endanged species ??? We don't generally eat Zebra, elephant, giraffee, dog, cat, horse...are these all endangered ?





No.





They would evolve to natural population levels on common ground





Yours are all very silly comments typical of meat-eaters who haven't thought it through and haven't bothered to look at previous questions. You have brought nothing new to the debate.





"Anyone got a decent answer, please?" - sure, can we have a decent question to go with it ?
Reply:if everyone became a vegan/vegatarian what would happen is that meat industry would have slower production and also we would have a shortage of food. Since the herbivores that eat it the plants their would be more of a population. and then add 6 billon more or less to that caculation. some animals would die because of starvation.
Reply:I'm not a big fan of zoos myself, but it's better to be in a cage that's maybe 30 feet by 40 feet and have people take your picture than to be in a crate so small you can never turn around or lay down. You live your short life standing in your own feces and vomit, being pumped full of hormones and antibiotics, your muscles atrophied from disuse, your children taken from you. I can't imagine a worse way to live. If this were my life, I think I would opt out. Maybe it's just me.
Reply:The only way this would ever happen (and it wouldn't) - is if the government put a ban on eating meat and enforced it. I have absolutely no ethical issues about eating meat from donesticated animals specifically bred for human consumption. I am also a proponent of responsible hunting done to control animal population when it becomes too large. Anyhow, I like my steaks medium rare - and good luck taking it away from me!!
Reply:The idea of everyone becoming vegan or vegetarian on the same day is just preposterous. It's simply a matter of stopping breeding programs for these animals and eat whatever is still around until they are gone. There really isn't a huge need to preserve these animals as they are pretty much man-made breeds. Considering they aren't "wildlife" they wouldn't be in a zoo. It's also silly of you to personify these animals and say that a life of suffering is better than no life at all...please, like they understand why they are being tortured! Anyway, I'm not a vegan or a vegetarian, but I support the lifestyle and I love the zoo. I just think it is ridiculous that meaties always preach to veggies like they are terrible people and pushing their agenda on others, when as far as I can see, it is the other way around. You don't see commercials on TV for the broccoli council, but you certainly see Beef Council commercials. And I highly doubt those "happy cows" from California live in the conditions that are portrayed in the commercials. ~end rant~








GR- my good sir, that is a picture of a woman, not a cow.
Reply:I think that we would eventually consider them as pets like we do horses and other animals.
Reply:The real question is, what would we eat? There aren't enough vegetables in the world to feed us all. The price of vegetables would hit the roof, unless of course we started using genetically modified fruit and vegetables, and on the long run I feel that it would be worse for our health, just as it i now with hormone filled meat. I think there is a middle ground with vegetables and meat, all mixed in a balanced diet. Did you know that the human population is 6,613,946,325 and rising every second! Veggies for everyone? Get real. Sounds like "let's kill all the people in the poor countries so we can keep our way of life". That would do the trick, but I'd rather have chicken for lunch, thank you.


I'll probably get a lot of thumbs down on this, but do you even bother to think about it? Vegetables for all? Where are you going to grow them? In the the Amazon forest? Cut all the trees to make crops? Sounds like a perfect world! Save the cow kill all the other animals. Great, now I'm ranting...


This just in:


...all the grain that we use to feed animals could FEED THE ENTIRE STARVING WORLD... Are you serious? Do you have a back yard? Split it in half, in one part grow grain or vegetables, in the other raise rabbits or chickens. See witch one gives you more food, faster and cheaper. Don't forget, no hormones and no fertiliser. Live, learn and stop calling names to others that have an equally valid opinion.





Try rabbits, see if they'll die off. See if you'll have anything left in the veggie part of the yard too. It will be very educational for you. There are no natural predators for these animals their population will just grow out of control. Unless we let coyotes or wolves start roaming around the neighborhood. This is a really great idea, the more I think of it, maybe lions... ranting again, so sorry.
Reply:i HIGHLY disagree with your belief, but don't deny your right to believe it. i always believe that there's no point in life if you can't live it. to me, a tortured soul is not living life at all. and what makes you think that the animals would rather be abused and slaughtered than roaming freely in designated areas. yes, that's perfect. farmland could be kept aside and gaurded to protect these animals and people could have those jobs nurturing the animals instead of killing them.


PS the words 'humane' and 'slaughter' do not go together
Reply:Humans are destroying the world simply put.....








And most don't realize or care. Sad isn't it?
Reply:One way to look at is is that most farm animals are "produced" by the meat industry. It's actually unnatural to have as many animals as we do because they are being bred so quickly and fed hormones and special feeds to make them grow faster. I don't think the whole world is going to go vegetarian any time soon, but if more people did, the meat industry would just have to slow production.
Reply:If everyone became a vegan, it wouldn't happen all in one day. As people become vegans, the necessity for having huge industrial farming would decrease. Eventually the animals would die of old age and the others would be pets. Simple really. There is absolutely no way that intelligent human beings cannot find a way to live without torturing and slaughtering other creatures on this earth.
Reply:as people gradually came round to the idea of being veggi/vegan the animals in the farms would be slaughtered and eaten but if no more were being bred then soon enough all farm animals would be gone except for pets etc





the traditional countryside would be used to grow crops i spose or we could plant forests





i dont agree with zoos either but that cant really be changed
Reply:I already answered this question earlier but here it is again.


On the contrary. If we were to stop mass breeding of livestock through artificial insimination the population would level out to where the natural preditors would be able to control the population. Further, since less cattle would exist in more vegetated areas the farm crops would then be made to feed humans instead of animals, and the remaining farm lands from cattle ranches could be used to farm vegtables. This would create more affordable fresh vegtables and produce more corn and soy that can be used as alternative fuel sources cutting down on pollutants into the earth and atmosphere and cutting down on costs of fuel. Granted this process would take some phasing in time but I believe this would be the best thing for the economy, environment, and our over-all health.
Reply:i would love a hurd of sheep as my pets and i love pigs and cows ect..


they would be free from farmer freaks!
Reply:Well if we didn't eat animals, there would be no need to kill them. There would also be nowhere as much artificial insemination so they would be able to follow their natural life cycle instead of so much inturuption. They would continue to live on in the way that they were living originally until we had slaughterhouses, etc. I don't think its right to kill an animal- no matter how humanely you do it- so you can eat it. Think about it this way: if cows ran the world and they ate humans, if they all stopped eating humans, we would continue to reproduce and the population wouldn't be so grossley huge of us because there was no forced reproduction and forced murder.
Reply:To reduce the amount of methane produced it may be a good thing to reduce our consumption of beef etc.


However this could be phased in over a considerable period of time (consumer demand would dictate this) and no culling of animals would be required.


Good question in the main.
Reply:Well, right now, animals are forced to reproduce and are impregnated at unnaturally high rates - that go far beyond what nature intended. Humans force them to over produce so they can profit from them.





The meat industry is constantly telling us that milk does a body good, and meat is the best source of protein but there is NO scientific grounds for their propoganda. Beans have the highest rates of protein and are cholesterol free.





Drinking cow milk actually leaches calcium from your bones and is full of cholesterol. Heart disease is the biggest killer in America because of all the animal products we eat every year. For every human 90 animals are put to death each year. Can you imagine 90 of those animals being your precious dog or cat that you love? All animals have feelings and souls.
Reply:It is unrealistic to expect that everyone will stop eating animals overnight. As the demand for meat decreases, fewer animals will be raised for food. Farmers will stop breeding so many animals and will turn to other types of agriculture. When there are fewer of these animals, they will be able to live more natural lives.





Considering how the vast majority of farm animals are currently raised in modern industrialized agriculture (http://www.veganoutreach.org/whyvegan/an... ), these animals would have been far better off never having been born. The best moment in these animals lives is when they finally die, because only then does their suffering finally end.
Reply:There would no longer be a need to raise (=breed) all those farm animals, except maybe for milk and eggs. So, the grain that is now being fed to them could go to feeding humans instead. There is a theory that if all the grain that can be grown is fed to humans instead of animals we could wipe out world hunger.
Reply:To the moron who said they would eat all our food (Bill) are you retarded? Did you know that all the grain that we use to feed animals could FEED THE ENTIRE STARVING WORLD. You simply are speaking out of your booty. As for this question, I believe we could let the remaining animals live out their lives in pastures and after this generation, since we would have no use to breed and slaughter nearly 10 billion farm animals a year, we wouldn't have to worry about them being bred in those giant amounts any longer.