Why do we prefer to only slaughter male animals?

We definitely do not slaughter only males. Not by a long shot. I used to raise sheep. We would keep a few ewe lambs but others absolutely went for meat. Dairy cows are killed at a younger age than beef cows and used as hamburger. Their calves, both male and female are used for meat as well with only about 25% kept to replace those cows. Pigs - we eat females too. Most of the chickens you eat are female. They are broilers. The males don’t grow as fast and are more gamey tasting.

Female farmed animals are used for breeding/milk/eggs and then they are slaughtered. The dairy industry is the beef industry, the cows just suffer for longer until they are slaughtered.

Scout said:
Female farmed animals are used for breeding/milk/eggs and then they are slaughtered. The dairy industry is the beef industry, the cows just suffer for longer until they are slaughtered.

Dairy cows are killed for meat at younger ages than beef cows are killed. A beef cow will be kept alive until she can’t have calves anymore but a dairy cow is killed around the age of 5 because they produce less milk after that. Absolutely dairy is more cruel.

One male can successfully impregnate an entire herd of females. A female can only carry a set number (usually 1 in large mammals) of young at once. So if your herd can survive on one male and any number of females, the males are more disposable. Standard practice with cows is to have one breeder bull with really good genetics and slaughter the rest. Females are more important so the standard is to keep many females and only slaughter the ones you don’t want to breed for whatever reason. It’s basically about maximizing the chance of the next generation having good genetics.

I don’t like slaughtering animals…Period but I think the reasoning is one male can produce many babies from different females. Females produce many from the body…

One male can service multiple females. But only females can bear young. It’s why men go to war. It’s why men dominate in dangerous professions. Averaged out births equate to one child per woman. For males, it’s either 1 or zero.

Depends on the species. Sometimes older females might go to slaughter and maybe someone was concerned the meat from an older animal wouldn’t be as good? I’m just speculating why someone might be offended because that’s the only semi-logical conclusion I’m coming to. We’ve raised chickens for meat before, but when we get a batch of broilers it’s often a mix of female and male and it doesn’t make a difference.

It’s not about equality really, it’s more about the males in the world being more “expendable” so to speak. Having more females alive is biologically more effective than having more males alive in terms of reproduction. There’s less of a risk for the species if you kill off one male versus one female.

They don’t kill roosters; we kill hens for meat.

MichelleRoberts said:
They don’t kill roosters; we kill hens for meat.

We eat both here. We keep some roos, but not a lot and only the nice ones.

MichelleRoberts said:
They don’t kill roosters; we kill hens for meat.

No we don’t, hens produce eggs and more chicks, males don’t, so we eat the males.

Wilder said:

MichelleRoberts said:
They don’t kill roosters; we kill hens for meat.

No we don’t, hens produce eggs and more chicks, males don’t, so we eat the males.

There are meat hens too.

Wilder said:

MichelleRoberts said:
They don’t kill roosters; we kill hens for meat.

No we don’t, hens produce eggs and more chicks, males don’t, so we eat the males.

Actually when we talk about the egg industry - we don’t eat the males. They are killed at the age of one day. Hens don’t need roosters to lay eggs. The laying hens are then eaten after one or two years laying. A different breed is used to be raised for meat and killed at 5 months or so. For these we also tend to have more females because they grow faster and don’t taste gamey. Males are killed for pet food.