There are people raising rabbits for meat even today.

I've had rabbit a few times in Germany. Quite lean but not bad at all. It's not that common these days, you can easily avoid it but it's not hard to find either. There are many hobbyist breeders who sell their rabbits either alive or butchered. I think it's more common in Eastern Germany though because a lot of people there used to keep rabbits back when meat was rare and traded them with the government.

That seems to be almost exclusive to the Peruvian Andes region, I'm from Brazil and never hear of anyone eating a Guinea Pig there, or even in Argentina and Uruguay.

Fine. Who the fuck is eating chickens? Like the birds!?

in europe? everywhere. Watch roger and me, micheal moores original documentary, and see a lady skinning them.

We eat everything, even ourselves. Just need a little seasoning

Bolt gun and exsanguination is pretty common in abattoirs, right? I'd guess it's probably the same here

For chickens you can shove them into a modified construction cone and then cut off their head

They probably didn't know guinea pigs were domesticated for food, and neglected horses

Might also ask yourself how OP has been conveniently present for so many hamster deaths...

These were laying hens though. They would have been better off as zoo food than put in my freezer as crab bait. I don't think it's bad to be close to food production. I'm a farmer.

For one thing, you were probably really sure to keep the meat from being contaminated with animal feces, or from eating obviously sick animals.

You don't want to eat chickens that are older or that are unhealthy

Fluffy meowed and meowed, but didn't get to eat. So, Fluffy scratched and clawed, but then got turned to meat.

One of my favorite lines of all time.

hee, that was fresh.

bee euthanasia

Hey, at least it's a natural way to go, huh.

They are tossed in to be torn appart. Iirc predators love to go balls first if the prey does not mean too much effort for them.

Will they take edgelords?

sadly the big three stopped making half bloods

France as well

It wasn't unusual in the UK either.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_horse_meat_scandal

They eat horse in Korea as well.

Horse is common dog food in Australia

This tracks. I got to spend some time on a Dutch boat during some training in Norway (I'm from the US) and each meal came with an assortment of meat, and there was one that was like a 10" tube of meat that we called horse cock, because the Dutch sailors mentioned some of the meat was horse, and so it was obviously the 10" tube.

few parts of japan

Ahh yes, the classic tiger meal - euthanized Yorkshire terrier.

Zoos shouldn't even exist, they're inherently unethical. Asking people to donate family members they don't want to have them killed for food is insanity.

Responsible snake owners don't feed their snak live mice

Who's feeding anything live in this discussion?

Call it, friendo.

eww no you don't cook meat wtf

Short biological half life. It requires a working liver to detoxify.

I don't know. I was just told I can't donate the meat to a food program and I shouldn't eat it myself.

"It will be humane"

I'd say no as you need the right voltage and it hurts while they are dying... especially if you do it wrong. A well placed bullet is way faster and more humane IMHO

No, the other one

She's frothing at the mouth at the thought of getting American zoos to do this

I was reading a comment by a woman last year I think it was. Basically, her dog had gotten sick. Nothing major, but it required a bit more care than a healthy dog would. Long story short, she wanted to put it down because she couldnt be bothered. Now, my dog got sick a couple of year before. Needs injections twice a day, and then on top that, his eyes went. So he needed an op to see again. After the op it was 5 eye drops in each eye every few hours for like 4 months. It was a lot. And so far, its cost me around 15k all in, not including insurance. And no, I cant afford it.

I didnt blink when it came to caring for my dog, because thats the responsibility I took on when I got him. But others... They think its going to be all walks in the park, catching frisbees and meet cutes with attractive people. And then just toss their pets when it become inconvenient. Pets are always a weird one. Some people have compassion for living things, are other people are cunts... :)

Some people have compassion... other people are cunts.

That's the t-shirt right there, folks.

I mean you get this same argument when it comes to people saying that life needs to be protected above all else, and ignoring people's desire for access to euthanasia. I know that i personally would not want to go on living if my quality of life was suddenly diminished beyond a certain point, especially if it was going to be an additional burden on my loved ones. Obviously pets can't make this decision or communicate it, but i don't think you have any right judging people making that choice for their own beloved animals. Putting an animal down can be an act of compassion. But some people understand that and other people are cunts. :)

If you have a terminal illness they won't take you as they only want "healthy animals".

it's probably a bad idea for everybody else, as now there's a captive tiger, that is one that will be around humans forever, that also already are human meat, which is a suboptimal combination

Getting rid of doesn't equate to killing unless you're incapable of planning and managing for the future.

If I'm dying, give me to the birds. But if I've, stopped entertaining you, then fuck you.

Right? Fucking bunch of irrational horror-filled replies.

Alternatively, you're too good at separating humans and animals on emotional level, to the extreme degree.

Apparently nobody here bothered to read the article. It isn't about funding. Everybody's just putting their own emotional spin on it without even being aware of the details.

"In zoos, we have a responsibility to imitate the natural food chain of the animals — in terms of both animal welfare and professional integrity," Aalborg Zoo said in a post on social media.

The zoo in northern Denmark said that chickens, rabbits and guinea pigs were an important part of the diet of its predators, which need "whole prey," reminiscent of what they would hunt in the wild.

"If you have a healthy animal that has to leave here for various reasons, feel free to donate it to us. The animals are gently euthanized by trained staff and are afterwards used as fodder. That way, nothing goes to waste — and we ensure natural behavior, nutrition and well-being for our predators," Aalborg Zoo said.

You're painting everybody together with one brush. I'm against humanity ending, I'm against genocide, whoever it's practiced on. I also don't see a problem with this (what I do have a problem with is the number of commentors who didn't bother reading the article and are claiming it's because the zoo is broke).

I’ve also seen several calls for genocide against Jews. Pretty ironic for a platform that so loudly hates the current genocide.

Suggesting that the Palestinian side isn't an angel either and the Israelis are assholes too, will get you labelled as the world's most devout othrodox Jewish Zionist to the level of Theodore Hertzl himself.

What did you expect from the platform that was created because reddit banned extremists? Fewer extremists than the place that banned them? Why?

Maybe even pay the zoo to accept the donation?

Ill let you know next time I have extra tuna.

man of culture I see

We use everything. It all supports how we live. We do not use the grocery store very much and even though we are poor we actually give a lot of food away to our neighbors and friends. The roosters will be used for coyotes that are invasive species where we live and affect all the other populations that feed us.

Roosters are pretty tough and stringy. Fine for stock, not much for cooking

This is okay but why are they asking for pets, that is my problem. They can source these things themselves.

We should not have to reach that stage

I guess the key difference here is they specifically want healthy animals that might have otherwise been able to have been rehoused. So it’s not like when you have to put your dog down at the end if it’s life, it’s like if it had a couple good years left but you needed to move and couldn’t take him with you.

But they’re not taking dogs fwiw. Article just says chickens, rabbits, and guinea pigs. As well as maybe horses in the right circumstances.

I think it’d be pretty wild for anyone who eats meat themselves to criticize the practice of feeding a chicken to a lion. The vegans I can’t speak for but I think they would probably take issue way higher in the chain than this, such as keeping the predator animals in captivity for our amusement in the first place.

Either way I think it’s waaaaay overkill to suggest someone donating their pet rodent to a zoo shouldn’t be allowed to have children lol. The pet store you get them from feeds rodents to the snakes.

Hell, i would gladly have my body fed to the tiger, rather than have some crook selling my family some 8000€ coffing that they see me in once.

I think you're on to something. How about a tiger instead of the chair? I mean we could let the convict get a token weapon and do it in a way where people could observe it.

And btw coffins are a scam, somebody should set up a second hand coffin service. Your body gets roled away in a nice looking coffin, and off you go to the crematorium where you're dumped into the fire and the coffin goes on to the next deado.

Would you sell your dog to a person so they could eat it?

Why? If they wanna be useful they can become kitty food.

That's not really the argument, though. Cats are obviously, objectively, and indisputably carnivores. The question is whether they are obligate carnivores. If they can live healthily without detriment on a plant based diet, then they are not obligate carnivores. If they cannot survive healthily on a plant based diet then they literally require meat to live, in which case they are an obligate carnivore.

The moral, ethical, and health discussion around feeding cats (both house- and big-) a plant based diet is beyond my scope, but arguing whether the cat is going to go for the tuna or the spinach isn't the point. They'll clearly go for the tuna. The question is whether they need that tuna to survive, or if they could live (healthy and happily) without it, if they could get their nutrients from, and be effectively tricked by, a plant based substitute.

Yes, with an extremely customised, unnatural diet, a cat may survive a vegan diet. They rarely thrive.

They rarely thrive? If you're going to make a claim, you need to prove it with sources.

But the point is that they’re unable to do so naturally, most cats will not understand why their food isn’t what they’re naturally and instinctually supposed to eat, which causes them stress.

Again, on your claim about cats not understanding why their food is "unnatural", and particularly about it causing them stress, you need to back up your claims, because it sounds like you're just making stuff up. In fact here's a study finding virtually no statistically significant difference in palatability differences for dogs and cats in vegan pet foods vs others.

"For 1,135 cats, consideration of 15 behavioural indicators also indicated that diet made little difference to the food-oriented behaviour of the cats studied, except perhaps that cats on vegan diets lick their food less often, and cats on conventional diets leave more food. However, the feline comparison groups (particularly, raw meat n = 54) were relatively small, so inference of differences should be treated with caution.

Although palatability is important, animal welfare also depends on a range of other factors. However, the results from our study, which concur with limited existing studies in this field, do not support views that vegan pet food may have reduced palatability, and thus compromise the welfare of dogs or cats in this manner."

Cats have an instinct to chew on grass for digestive purposes, but that’s about it when it comes to eating plants.

Have you ever had cats and house plants in the same home? They are almost guaranteed to destroy virtually anything you grow, to the point that it's important for all cat caretakers to learn about which plants are safe to grow around cats. Here's a cat losing their mind over a purple sweet potato. Here's one about a cat who loves cucumber. A cat who gets downright aggressive over ciabatta. A compilation of videos of cats who feverishely nom on corn.

Here are the facts. Yes, it is true that cats have adaptations that make them adept hunters of smaller animals. It's also true that there are a some essential nutrients they can't make and must get from dietary sources - if we're counting "natural" sources only, some of those nutrients can only be found from consuming other animals - taurine being a notable example. But if you think cats should only eat what's natural, does that mean they shouldn't be fed formulated cat food either? That isn't natural, they supplement even meat-based ones with synthetic ingredients just like companies do with the vegan-friendly formulations. From an article that goes in depth on the state of the science on plant-based pet foods:

"For those who feel wary about the idea of synthetic supplementation, it is worth noting that meat-based cat foods are also synthetically supplemented with taurine and other essential nutrients. This is because the high temperatures and pressures used during processing can degrade naturally occurring taurine, and other fragile nutrients. Synthetic supplementation is a standard and safe part of pet food formulation and is necessary to meet an animal’s nutritional needs."

And just prior to that:

"Indeed, to date, three peer-reviewed scientific studies using both large-scale survey and clinical data have found that cats fed nutritionally-sound vegan diets enjoy health benefits as good as or better than those on conventional meat-based diets."

What all of this highlights is that, far from being "obligate carnivores," cats are opportunists who will take whatever they can get, and the "obligate" part only holds for situations in wilderness scenarios. The nutrients they need don't care where they come from, and synthetically supplemented formulations meet their needs just fine.

And I really want to drive the nail in the coffin on your appeal to nature fallacy. Is it natural for cats to be domesticated? Some people go so far as to never allow their cats out of the house. That doesn't seem natural, but it is safer for those cats. It also reduces those cats destructive impact on the environment. By contrast, surely it's more natural for people to feed their cats raw diets, resulting in them getting bird flu, right? Like it or not, we have changed cats and dogs forever. That is something we need to think more critically about, because even now we are constantly shaping and reshaping everything they are, and everything they are going to be.

Getting a proper vegan diet for a cat is extremely hard to do and unnecessarily stressful for cats.

I literally just did a search of "vegan cat food" on Amazon and sure enough it had results. Availability might be somewhat less than the more established brands - I'm sure thanks in no small part to people like you who make unfounded kneejerk reactions - but in places where it is available, is it really any harder to just choose one bag of bits over another?

Cat food in most cases already is discarded meat not fit for human consumption. You’re not exactly saving a lot of animals by forcing a cat on an unnatural diet.

While it is true that some of the meat in pet foods comes from waste products, that's far from the whole story. You are trying to paint a baseless narrative to make it sound like feeding your companion animals other animals is harmless, when it's really not. From a study on the environmental impacts of diets for dogs and cats:

"If all of these groups transitioned to nutritionally-sound vegan diets, the numbers of terrestrial livestock animals spared from slaughter annually were estimated to be (in billions), in the US: dogs– 1.7, cats– 0.2, humans– 7.8, and globally: dogs– 6.0, cats– 0.9, humans– 71.3. The numbers of aquatic animals killed for food annually are far higher, and the use of nutritionally-sound vegan diets would also save billions of aquatic animals, in all dietary groups."

And on environmental impacts:

"Considering environmental impacts on land and water use, emissions of GHGs, acidifying and eutrophifying gases, and the use of biocides, very substantial impact reductions were associated with the use of nutritionally-sound vegan diets, in all dietary groups. With respect to land use, for example, if implemented globally such diets would free up land larger than the areas of the following nations: dogs–Saudi Arabia or Mexico, cats–Japan or Germany, humans–Russia–the world’s largest country, combined with India. With respect to water use, such diets would save freshwater volumes greater than all renewable freshwater in the following nations: dogs–Denmark, cats–Jordan, humans–Cuba. With respect to GHGs, such diets would reduce GHGs by amounts greater than all GHG emissions from following nations: dogs–South Africa or the UK, cats–Israel or New Zealand, humans–India or the entire EU."

If you’re vegan, feed your cat meat. If you don’t want to do that, don’t get a cat.

And what about people who already have animal companions from before they went vegan? And why shouldn't people consider plantbased formulas for their animals even if they themselves are not vegan? Sorry, but contrary to your belief, the status quo is anything but innocent. And while more research needs to be done to more deeply understand health impacts for other animals, that's something that can only happen if we push for it.

Plus, as cultivated meats become more available, that will take away every excuse you have. Sorry, but we can all do better, and that's not just limited to what we ourselves choose to eat. Like it or not, this conversation will not go away, and it will only get louder as evidence continues to get stronger - just as it has for human diets.

And to turn this back on topic, that goes for other animals in captivity as well. Notice that in my original comment I never made any declarations that we should just start feeding plants to predators. That would be irresponsible, obviously. I posed a question, and did so because, just like with dogs and cats, it's probably the case that a lot of claims about predator nutrition are more assumptions, and less science.

Let that sink in. The thing you are irrationally reacting to is a call for greater scientific understanding. Your entire comment is basically an elaborate appeal to tradition fallacy.

No it isn't, unless it's done improperly. What objectively is animal abuse is feeding the ground up body parts of animals to anyone, including other animals.

https://plantbasednews.org/opinion/opinion-piece/plant-based-diets-dogs-cats/