The Youth of Slaughtered Animals

In the immediately prior post I noted the young age at which farm animals are slaughtered. In his fine 2014 book Meat Logic: Why Do We Eat Animals?, author Charles Horn provides a table of "Approximate Lifespans" for pigs, cows, and chickens, with entries both for natural lifespans and for ages at slaughter. Pigs can live 10-12 years according to Horn, but are slaughtered at about 6 months; cows can live more than 20 years, but "meat" their demise after 18 months; and, chickens, which live some 8 years naturally, are killed in about 7 weeks. (Veal is another awful story altogether.) That is, chickens get less than 2 percent of their natural lives, though cows get some 8% and pigs some 5%. But given the conditions of their lives, for many of them, the brevity is surely a blessing.