Home / B. Harm, death and welfare / Part DIR
"Milk and eggs don't kill anyone."
milk and egg production kills too, just out of sight. In egg production, male chicks are culled at hatching: an estimated 7.83 billion in 2024. In dairy, the cow has to be made pregnant to produce milk, the male calves have little value and the cows themselves are slaughtered when production drops. The egg and the milk don't kill directly; the system that produces them does.
Short answer
Eggs and milk don't kill directly, but producing them does. The male chicks of laying breeds are useless to the industry and are culled at hatching: almost 8 billion a year by one estimate. A cow only gives milk after giving birth, the calves are taken from her, and she herself is slaughtered when production drops. Being vegetarian is a step, but it doesn't take anyone out of that chain.
For children
To have eggs to sell, farms hatch lots of chicks. Half of them are boys, who don't lay eggs, and they are killed right after hatching. And for a cow to have milk, she has to have a calf, which is taken away from her. So even if no one kills the hen or the cow right then, many animals pay the price of eggs and milk.
"What do you think happens to the male chicks of laying hens?"
Como pode aparecer
"I'm vegetarian; that's enough."
"The cow doesn't die to give milk."
"An egg isn't a chicken."
"Milk is natural; the cow makes it anyway." (which leads to C10)
"Cheese is the last thing I'd give up."
"What harm does an egg do?"
"I only eat free-range eggs." (which is B2)
"What about the eggs from my rescued hen?" (which is F6)
The strongest version
"I'm vegetarian; that's enough. The cow doesn't die to give milk, and an egg isn't a chicken."
Strongest version (steelman):
- P1What makes eating animals wrong is killing them.
- P2Milking a cow or collecting a hen's eggs doesn't require killing the animal.
- CSo consuming milk and eggs is not wrong.
P2 is true in the narrowest sense: the act of milking or picking up an egg kills no one. The problem is what commercial production requires for that act to happen.
The argument is valid. Its soundness fails at P2, understood as a description of the supply chain, and at P1, which reduces harm to death and ignores the suffering of production.
Full answer
- a
Reconstruction and diagnosis
The argument looks only at the last link in the chain:
Product What the consumer sees What production requires Eggs An egg in a carton Hatcheries, culling of males at hatching, slaughter of hens when laying drops Milk Milk and cheese Repeated pregnancies, separation of the calf, slaughter of the males or rearing them for beef, slaughter of the cow when production drops - b
Where the argument breaks
1. Male chicks are culled.
Laying hens are breeds selected to lay eggs, and the males of these breeds don't grow enough to be profitable as meat. So most are killed at hatching. Faunalytics estimated 7.83 billion male chicks culled worldwide in 2024. Some countries, such as Germany and France, now require sexing in the egg, which avoids part of this culling, but they are the exception.
2. The hens are slaughtered too.
When laying drops, hens stop being profitable and are killed, long before the natural end of their lives.
3. There's no milk without pregnancy.
Cows, like all mammals, only produce milk after giving birth. To keep production going, they are made pregnant again and again, and the calves are separated from them so the milk can be sold.
4. Calves and cows go to slaughter.
Male calves of dairy breeds have little value and are usually slaughtered young or raised for beef, and cows are slaughtered when their yield declines. The dairy chain is also a meat chain.
- c
Data and sources
Source What it says Note Faunalytics, global chick culling, 2019-2024 7.83 billion male chicks culled in 2024, up from 7.08 billion in 2019 Estimate based on egg production data Physiology of lactation Cows only produce milk after giving birth Basic fact of animal science - d
The strongest counter-reply: the problem is the industry, not the product
The most serious version admits the culling and slaughter but says they are consequences of industrial production, and that it's possible to produce eggs and milk without killing: raising the males, keeping the cows until the end of their lives and leaving the calf with its mother.
- e
Why the counter-reply doesn't reach the conclusion
That system barely exists at scale.
Keeping the males and the unproductive cows until the end of their lives would make eggs and milk many times more expensive. It isn't what people buy.
Even there, the animal is still a means.
Repeated pregnancies and separating the calf are still needed for there to be milk to sell.
The rare case exists, and is dealt with separately.
The egg from a rescued hen, which feeds no industry, is discussed in chapter F6 precisely because it is an exception.
Reasoning errors
Logical
Is the form valid?
Cropping to the last link
Epistemological
Does the evidence support it?
Not knowing the process
Moral
Is the criterion coherent?
Reducing harm to direct killing
Biases
Extrapolations
The principle being tested is: "if obtaining the product doesn't require killing at that moment, it involves no killing".
If it applied to…LeatherTap to see
It would be innocent, because the skin is taken from an animal already dead
Leather helps fund slaughter (I3)
If it applied to…Products of slave laborTap to see
Buying the final product would be innocent
No one accepts this
If it applied to…Male chicksTap to see
They wouldn't count, because they're not in the egg
They are part of the cost of every egg
Contradictions
But pays for it when buying eggs.
Separating the calf is the basis of dairy production.
And still funds the death of other animals through milk and eggs.
What the argument gets right
What is true
There's a real difference between eating an animal and consuming something it produces. Being vegetarian greatly reduces the number of animals killed directly, and it's an important step that deserves recognition. There are also rare cases, like rescued hens, where an egg involves no industry at all.
But
But in commercial production, eggs and milk don't come from animals who simply give something without losing anything. They come from a system that needs births, culling and slaughter to work. Anyone who doesn't want to kill animals finds, in milk and eggs, the same animals by another route.
Connections
Usually comes before
Usually comes after