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Baby chicks cost $6 at a supply store, but I can get a rotisserie for $5? What is the real cost of having chickens? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 day ago by Melobol@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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I do not understand the mathematics behind the dilemma. I'm assuming only the firts chicks cost money, because down the line they will breed.
But feeding them, housing them - vitamins and doctoring costs a lot of money.

So anyone with couple or more chickens - how much does it cost to have them on the table? And realistically how many eggs do you get?

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[-] TheCornCollector@piefed.zip 1 points 21 hours ago

The concept seems pretty clear to me from a quick look on wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentience

Sentience is the ability to experience feelings and sensations. [3] It may not necessarily imply higher cognitive functions such as awareness, reasoning, or complex thought processes.

Also further down:

Animals such as pigs, chickens, and fish are typically recognized as sentient. There is more uncertainty regarding insects, and findings on certain insect species may not be applicable to others.

And if you don't like wikipedia here is the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

[...] we raise cattle, chickens, and pigs. Evidence from their behavior, their brains, and their evolutionary origins, adduced in Allen 2004, Andrews 2016, and Tye 2016, supports the view that they have mental lives and, importantly, are sentient creatures with likes and dislikes. Even chickens and other “birdbrains” have interesting mental lives. The exhaustive Marino 2017 collects evidence that chickens can adopt others’ visual perspectives, communicate deceptively, engage in arithmetic and simple logical reasoning, and keep track of pecking orders and short increments of time. Their personalities vary with respect to boldness, self-control, and vigilance.

[-] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 1 points 11 hours ago

Even that Wikipedia article refers to several definitions for sentience, ranging from experiences sensation through ability to make choices all the way up to human-level consciousness. Sci-fi stories have used it to mean "human-like" when the word "human-like" was inappropriate for the story, but vegan literature uses it in what might be its original definition, which could be broadly termed as "able to sense."

Speaking of literature, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article is a literature study, not an attempt at objective definition. I think any honest assessment agrees that there isn't an objective definition here, partially because we don't understand most of the questions we're asking, let alone the answers.

I said more about it here, but in short, I think it's perfectly reasonable to select a definition of sentience that includes chickens. I just also think it's perfectly reasonable to select a definition that doesn't.

this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2026

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