Oh no. Kitten advice? Please?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Don't put them out, they'll die. So she'll be happy she got them back for about a day, and then they'll be dead and she'll be sad. For a day, and then she'll forget about them, which is what will happen once you put them somewhere she can't hear them.

Really?  I'm not saying you're wrong, I don't know much about cats, but it seems strange to think that cats are dependent on human assistance to get through infancy.  Seems like if mothers couldn't keep their kittens alive, cats should have gone extinct by now.

They're not dependent, but the mortality rate for feral kittens is pretty horrible. Why do you think we're not completely overrun by feral cats? Most of them die.

The reason why most of them die is because people intervened when their ancestors were faced with the same situations, thus short-circuiting natural selection...

Thank you, professor.  Next, will you kindly explain why I don't give a fuck?

[Kai]

Don't put them out, they'll die. So she'll be happy she got them back for about a day, and then they'll be dead and she'll be sad. For a day, and then she'll forget about them, which is what will happen once you put them somewhere she can't hear them.

Really?  I'm not saying you're wrong, I don't know much about cats, but it seems strange to think that cats are dependent on human assistance to get through infancy.  Seems like if mothers couldn't keep their kittens alive, cats should have gone extinct by now.

They're not dependent, but the mortality rate for feral kittens is pretty horrible. Why do you think we're not completely overrun by feral cats? Most of them die.

The reason why most of them die is because people intervened when their ancestors were faced with the same situations, thus short-circuiting natural selection...

Not that there's anything WRONG with that. Simply, domesticated animals require human assistance for survival. Its no different for dogs or cows or any other domesticated organism, and thereisn't anything wrong with that. Seriously, agriculture, which is ALL domestication in some way or another, is what allows us to be sedentary in large groups rather than nomadic in family groups.

[Triple Zero]

Not that there's anything WRONG with that. Simply, domesticated animals require human assistance for survival. Its no different for dogs or cows or any other domesticated organism, and thereisn't anything wrong with that. Seriously, agriculture, which is ALL domestication in some way or another, is what allows us to be sedentary in large groups rather than nomadic in family groups.

Well, except for the splody-chickens.

You know, the ones that, even if you take em to a free range and let them play with the other chickens will just sit on their ass and grow and eat and grow until they sort of crush themselves from the inside with their own meat like 6-8 weeks after hatching. Which is still about twice as long as they would have had in the meat-factories.

I mean, sure, domestication is all fun and games, until your chickens strangle themselves with their own meat, you know?

This sort of nonsense is IMO the only valid reason for vegetarianism. And the reason why I try to buy mostly bio/eco/hippie/organic meat, even if bio chicken breast is more than twice as expensive, I'll just eat less of it then.

[Kai]

Not that there's anything WRONG with that. Simply, domesticated animals require human assistance for survival. Its no different for dogs or cows or any other domesticated organism, and thereisn't anything wrong with that. Seriously, agriculture, which is ALL domestication in some way or another, is what allows us to be sedentary in large groups rather than nomadic in family groups.

Well, except for the splody-chickens.

You know, the ones that, even if you take em to a free range and let them play with the other chickens will just sit on their ass and grow and eat and grow until they sort of crush themselves from the inside with their own meat like 6-8 weeks after hatching. Which is still about twice as long as they would have had in the meat-factories.

I mean, sure, domestication is all fun and games, until your chickens strangle themselves with their own meat, you know?

This sort of nonsense is IMO the only valid reason for vegetarianism. And the reason why I try to buy mostly bio/eco/hippie/organic meat, even if bio chicken breast is more than twice as expensive, I'll just eat less of it then.

Sorry, I didn't say anything about domestication ethics, only that theres nothing wrong with the overall process of domestication, even understanding that it removes wild type fitness from the animals (and plants for that matter). 

[Triple Zero]

not ethics? but if you say "there's nothing wrong with", by making that distinction, you are making moral judgement and therefore automatically in the domain of ethics?

then I must really misunderstand you, what do you mean by "nothing wrong with", if not that?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

It can also be argued that some species have cleverly exploited humans through self-domestication and as a result have thrived. Had Felis silvestris lybica never been domesticated, it would still be few and limited to a pretty small geographical area. As the result of domestication, yes, housecats are less fit to survive in the wild, but they are on every continent and very numerous. What is the measure of success for a species?

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

not ethics? but if you say "there's nothing wrong with", by making that distinction, you are making moral judgement and therefore automatically in the domain of ethics?

then I must really misunderstand you, what do you mean by "nothing wrong with", if not that?

Well there's a difference between "nothing wrong with domestication" and "Nothing wrong with manipulating hormones and genetics to create disfigured critters that cannot actually survive due to choking on their own neck  meats".

Sorta like I see nothing wrong with not eating meat.... but I think Vegans are just completely insane. 

[Iason Ouabache]

It can also be argued that some species have cleverly exploited humans through self-domestication and as a result have thrived. Had Felis silvestris lybica never been domesticated, it would still be few and limited to a pretty small geographical area. As the result of domestication, yes, housecats are less fit to survive in the wild, but they are on every continent and very numerous. What is the measure of success for a species?

From Daniel Dennett:

"Domestication of both plants and animals occurred without any farseeing intention or invention on the part of the stewards of the seeds and studs. But what a stroke of good fortune for those lineages that became domesticated! All that remains of the ancestors of today's grains are small scattered patches of wild-grass cousins, and the nearest surviving relatives of all the domesticated animals could be carried off in a few arks. How clever of wild sheep to have acquired that most versatile adaptation, the shepherd! By forming a symbiotic alliance with Homo sapiens, sheep could outsource their chief survival tasks: food finding and predator avoidance. They even got shelter and emergency medical care thrown in as a bonus. The price they paid—losing the freedom of mate selection and being slaughtered instead of being killed by predators (if that is a cost)—was a pittance compared with the gain in offspring survival it purchased. But of course it wasn't their cleverness that explains the good bargain. It was the blind, foresightless cleverness of Mother Nature, evolution, which ratified the free-floating rationale of this arrangement. Sheep and other domesticated animals are, in fact, significantly more stupid than their wild relatives—because they can be. Their brains are smaller (relative to body size and weight), and this is not just due to their having been bred for muscle mass (meat). Since both the domesticated animals and their domesticators have enjoyed huge population explosions (going from less than 1 percent of the terrestrial vertebrate biomass ten thousand years ago to over 98 percent today), there can be no doubt that this symbiosis was mutualistic —fitness-enhancing to both parties."

What was this thread about again? 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Squiddy got infested with cute kitties!

[Triple Zero]

not ethics? but if you say "there's nothing wrong with", by making that distinction, you are making moral judgement and therefore automatically in the domain of ethics?

then I must really misunderstand you, what do you mean by "nothing wrong with", if not that?

Well there's a difference between "nothing wrong with domestication" and "Nothing wrong with manipulating hormones and genetics to create disfigured critters that cannot actually survive due to choking on their own neck  meats".

they didn't use hormones in the experiment, btw. it was in a dutch documentary-series "de keuringsdienst van waarden" (a pun on the dutch FDA's name), they bought this little new-born chick and then brought it to a nice friendly chicken range with other chickens and fed it good quality food and played with it in order to give it a happy life instead of the meat-factory life. but then one day it just fell over.

you can watch the episodes online, but I doubt they're very interesting without the subtitles. but good fun to watch, they find out really odd stuff about some of the bullshit surrounding the origins of food and consumer goods (not just meat, also orange juice, and menstrual pads).

Sorta like I see nothing wrong with not eating meat.... but I think Vegans are just completely insane. 

Absolutely. No disagreement there

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

they didn't use hormones in the experiment, btw. it was in a dutch documentary-series "de keuringsdienst van waarden" (a pun on the dutch FDA's name), they bought this little new-born chick and then brought it to a nice friendly chicken range with other chickens and fed it good quality food and played with it in order to give it a happy life instead of the meat-factory life. but then one day it just fell over.

you can watch the episodes online, but I doubt they're very interesting without the subtitles. but good fun to watch, they find out really odd stuff about some of the bullshit surrounding the origins of food and consumer goods (not just meat, also orange juice, and menstrual pads).

There are many reasons this so called "experiment" (entertainiment?) sounds suspect to me. I am passingly familiar with commercial chicken meat strains, and first, are simply hybrids of recognized breeds, usually Cornish and White Plymouth Rock. Cornish do tend toward obesity, are expensive to feed because of their body size, and are relatively poor layers, but they don't tend to spontaneously collapse under their own weight and die.

Second, a sample size of one chick is completely meaningless.

Third, chickens just up and die sometimes. It's usually bacterial. Rarely, it's congenital. I've seen this discussed on the chicken forums many times.

Fourth, if these chickens are special strains designed to not be able to live to adulthood, how the hell do they make more of them? In the lab? They have to be able to live to breed, and those that don't, can't pass on their genes. Trying to raise a whole bunch of them just to get a few who will survive would make breeding them prohibitively unprofitable.

Fifth, why did they play with the chicken? I don't understand that part. Chickens do not especially enjoy being played with.

[fomenter]

i am with Nigel on this one exploding chickens sounds a lot more like a  urban legend/propaganda that Peta  would start than profitable animal husbandry

[Triple Zero]

Fifth, why did they play with the chicken? I don't understand that part. Chickens do not especially enjoy being played with.

it's a lighthearted documentary, they took the piss on the organic meat industry just as much by exagerating the Wonderful Life chickens should have according to the pictures organic products packing material.

also the documentary series doesnt really set out to "prove" anything, but just document.

and in the bio industry, yes they just need a fertilized egg and a machine.

as for your other questions, I will watch the documentary again with a critical eye and see if it might just have been a chicken that was defective for reasons unrelated to being a bio industry chicken (I don't really remember the details it's been a while).

all I can say, given the reputation of the documentary series itself, I'm inclined to trust them, and definitely rule out urban legend/peta propaganda (that's not their angle, they just document the bullshit that is going on in the consumer goods industry, a lot of it is about marketing as well btw, trying to find that authentic italian village where the Bertolli pasta sauce is made as seen in the commercial, except that it turns out to be a Dutch brand and the old authentic lady actress is Spanish). but they're not trying to prove anything, just showing things, in a light hearted manner. and it's very interesting.

[Suu]

I want a pet chicken.

[0]

I want a pet chicken.

I WANT AN OOMPA LOOMPA NOOOOOW!