Is Vegan Outreach right about how many animals suffer to death?

There is no dispute over the fact that an overwhelming majority of the animals that die at the hands of humans are those that are killed for food. But, unfortunately, it is also true that they receive a smaller share of human compassion than that warranted by either their numbers or the intensity of their suffering. Few organizations have tried to expand this share as unceasingly and single-mindedly as Vegan Outreach, a small non-profit focused on reducing animal suffering. However, in making its argument and explaining why it exists, Vegan Outreach makes a startling claim about animals used for food:

“... every year, hundreds of millions of animals—many times more than the number killed for fur, in shelters, and in laboratories combined—don’t even make it to slaughter. They actually suffer to death.”

Sources cited
  1. M. Ball. A Meaningful Life (brochure). Vegan Outreach, December 2008. (link, accessed December 27, 2013)
  2. Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. National Furbearer Harvest Database. (link, accessed December 27, 2013)
  3. USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service. Mink (Annual Report). July 2012. (link, accessed December 27, 2013)

Just to make sure nobody missed what is startling here, let me emphasize that Vegan Outreach is not comparing the number killed for food against the number killed for other mentioned reasons; it is comparing the number who suffer to death in the food industry even before they reach the moment of slaughter against the total number killed for all of those other reasons combined. Is Vegan Outreach right, or is this claim just a well-meaning hyperbole? Well, let’s examine this claim step by step for the United States, starting with the animals killed in shelters, for fur, and in laboratories. In the following, the size of each circle is representative of the number of animals under discussion in the accompanying paragraph.

Animals killed in shelters, for fur, and in laboratories

Sources cited
  1. HSUS. Common Questions about Animal Shelters. (link, accessed December 27, 2013)
  2. USDA, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Annual Report: Animal Usage by Fiscal Year (2010). July 2011. (link, accessed December 27, 2013)
  3. Department of Defense. Animal Care and Use Programs for Fiscal Years 2006 and 2007. (link, accessed December 27, 2013)
  4. F. B. Norwood and J. L. Lusk. Compassion, by the Pound: The Economics of Farm Animal Welfare. Oxford University Press, 2011.
  5. R. Singh et al. Production Performance and Egg Quality of Four Strains of Laying Hens Kept in Conventional Cages and Floor Pens. Poultry Science 88(2), February 2009. (link, accessed December 27, 2013)
  6. USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service. Chickens and Eggs. December 2013. (link, accessed December 27, 2013)

In shelters: There are thousands of independent community shelters in the US which are not monitored by any national organization. Some states, such as California, require shelters to report euthanasia statistics, but most states do not. Estimates of the number of companion animals killed in shelters in the US are usually based on extrapolation from the data for states such as California or some other sample of shelters for which data is available. The HSUS estimates that the number of companion animals killed in shelters in the US today is around 4 million each year.

For fur: The overwhelming majority of the animals we kill for fur in the United States are either wild animals that are trapped or ranch-raised mink from fur farms. In the most recent year for which data is available (2011) from the National Furbearer Harvest Database, we trapped and killed about 6,764,370 wild animals. According to a USDA report on mink pelts, the number of mink killed in fur farms in 2011 was about 3,091,470. That makes a total of about 9,855,840 animals killed for fur annually.

In laboratories: The most recent USDA publication on animal use in research reports that 1,134,693 animals covered by the Animal Welfare Act were used in research in 2010. There is no publicly available data on animals not covered by the Animal Welfare Act. However, the Department of Defense (DoD), which reports on all animals it uses in research, offers us a clue. Its most recent report on animal care and use suggests that 90.26% of the animals used in research in fiscal year 2007 were those not covered by the Animal Welfare Act (rats, mice, birds, and most non-mammals). If we assume that DoD labs are representative of other labs that use animals, we are led to an estimate of the number of animals used in research each year at approximately 11,646,000.

Animals who suffer to death

Sources cited
  1. United Egg Producers. General US Stats. (link, accessed December 27, 2013)
  2. C. W. Ritz, A. B. Webster and M. Czarick III. Evaluation of Hot Weather Thermal Environment and Incidence of Mortality Associated with Broiler Live Haul. Journal of Applied Poultry Research 14(3), 2005. (link, accessed December 27, 2013)
  3. USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service. Poultry Slaughter. January 2013. (link, accessed December 27, 2013)
  4. M. Petracci et al. Preslaughter Mortality in Broiler Chickens, Turkeys, and Spent Hens Under Commercial Slaughtering. Poultry Science 85(9), September 2006. (link, accessed December 27, 2013)
  5. C. P. Laster et al. Effects of Dietary Roxarsone Supplementation, Lighting Program, and Season on the Incidence of Leg Abnormalities in Broiler Chickens. Poultry Science 78(2), February 1999. (link, accessed December 27, 2013)
  6. USDA, National Agricultural Statistics Service. Poultry Production and Value. April 2013. (link, accessed December 27, 2013)
  7. National Chicken Council. U.S. Broiler Performance, 2011. (link, accessed December 27, 2013)

Caged layer hens: In both intensity and duration, the suffering experienced by layer hens in conventional battery cages has no parallel. Extreme confinement with prolonged suppression of natural instincts leads to frustration, anxiety, and aggression. Constant pecking by other hens and abrasion with wire-mesh cages causes an eventual loss of feathers with bald patches of exposed skin. Continued pecking on the featherless skin leads to what the industry calls tissue pecking, which may lead to death. I am not sure there is a worse way to die, but according to Norwood and Lusk, professors of agricultural economics and authors of Compassion, by the Pound: The Economics of Farm Animal Welfare, one-third of layer hen mortality can be attributed to this. But again, every hen who dies in her cage is one who suffers to death, whether she dies of tissue pecking, cage layer fatigue (an extreme form of osteoporosis), egg peritonitis, or starvation as a result of having gotten herself stuck in the cage wires with no way to reach food and water.

According to the most recent USDA report on chickens and eggs, the number of egg-laying hens totaled 351 million in the US (which include about 296 million hens whose eggs we eat and about 52 million hens whose eggs are used to hatch new chickens we eat). In counting the hens whose eggs we eat, I will only consider those hens who die during the laying period in a conventional cage as having suffered to death (and not during the rearing period before they begin to lay eggs), a distinction that is only rarely made in both academic and industry estimates of the mortality rate. According to a recent study, published in Poultry Science in 2009, the mortality rate during the laying period of hens in conventional cages ranges from 7.78% to 15.8% depending on the strain. To be conservative, I will use the lowest number, 7.78%, in this post. Since a hen lays eggs for about 2 years, about 296/2 = 148 million hens begin laying eggs during each year. According to the United Egg Producers, as of March 2012, production from caged systems is about 94.3% of the total. With that, we can estimate that about 10,858,000 hens whose eggs we eat actually suffer to death annually.

Chickens dead on arrival: Yes, the industry uses the term ‘dead on arrival’ for animals that die between the time they are put into crates/trucks for transportation to the slaughterhouse and the scheduled moment of slaughter. Chickens arrive dead for a number of reasons including dislocated or broken hips from rough handling, congestive heart failure from the stress of catching and transport, exposure to cold or excessive heat, or just from starvation because of feed withdrawn from them in their last days to reduce fecal contamination. These are all animals that suffer to death even before they reach slaughter. Agri Stats, Inc., a statistical research and analysis firm serving agribusiness companies, is quoted in a 2005 article in the Journal of Applied Poultry Research as having estimated the percentage of broiler chickens who are dead on arrival at 0.35% in the United States. According to the USDA report on poultry slaughter, 8,428,814,000 chickens were turned into meat in 2012 and, so, it can be estimated that about 29,604,000 broiler chickens died during transportation for slaughter. The pre-slaughter mortality rate is even higher for spent hens who, having been confined in a cage for most of their lives, have more fragile bones. Data from another study conducted in Italy (its dead-on-arrival numbers for broiler chickens match the US numbers and, therefore, it is a fair assumption to extrapolate to the case of spent hens in the US) suggests that the dead-on-arrival rate for spent hens is as high as 1.22%. According to another USDA report on poultry production and value, 178,313,000 hens were sold for slaughter in 2012 and so, about 2,175,000 layer hens suffered to death on their way to slaughter. Now, that’s a total of about 31,780,000 chickens who suffer to death annually during transport before they even reach the moment of slaughter!

Broiler chickens with leg deformities: An all-consuming focus on weight gain and feed conversion efficiencies have led to increasing percentages of chickens in the broiler industry with legs that cannot adequately support their weight. Severely lame birds cannot walk or even stand. They can starve to death if they are unable to reach food and water. They die a painful death from a variety of consequences of leg deformities including limb torsion, ruptured tendons, swollen foot pads, and severe lesions, ulcers or hemorrhages. In the scientific literature on poultry health (such as in this article in Poultry Science published by the Poultry Science Association), among the most frequently quoted studies on leg deformities in broiler chickens is a national survey which found that broiler flocks experience 1.1% mortality due to leg abnormalities. According to the National Chicken Council, the mortality rate of broilers these days is 3.8%, but I will consider only the 1.1% who die of leg problems as having suffered to death. Since 8,428,814,000 chickens in 2012 survived the 3.8% mortality rate to get processed into meat for human consumption, we can estimate that the 1.1% who suffered to death number about 96,379,000.

So, is Vegan Outreach right?

Now, let’s total these numbers and visualize their magnitudes in the circle representations below to see where we stand.

Estimated number of animals killed for fur, in shelters, and in laboratories combined.
Estimated number of chickens who suffer to death
without even making it to slaughter.

These are the numbers (with conservative estimates culled from industry reports and scientific journals) and we have not even covered all the other ways by which millions of chickens can slowly suffer to death (such as from respiratory diseases caused by exposure to elevated levels of noxious ammonia). And yes, we did not even start counting the turkeys, pigs, cows and, yes, the billions of fish! But we don’t have to. The answer to the question posed in the title of this post is already evident.

Vegan Outreach, sadly for the suffering animals, is spectacularly right!

Note: This post was last updated on December 29, 2013.

Comments

holy henderson

i dont get it. why compare this? why not say how many were slaughtered and how many suffered to death? why only chickens and not all food animals? not easy to explain. although numbers are anyhow overwhelming this comparison is a bit confusing.

Harish

Holy Henderson, to see why this comparison is being made, you may want to read the context around the original claim in "A Meaningful Life" by Matt Ball. The number of chickens who suffer to death is enough to verify the Vegan Outreach claim.

breathe

i also don't get this. yes the animals suffer to death. no matter what they are sadistically and brutally slaughtered. yes they are brutally treated as mere commodities and then sadistically slaughtered. yes this is cruel and uncompassionate. yes this is obscenely wrong. yes this is why i am a vegan.

Spike

The numbers are simply staggering. The suffering is unimaginable. I can't stop thinking about the fact that these large numbers are made up of individuals each enduring their own pain.

Betty O'Quinn-Truhler

It saddens me because I want it stopped before another has to lose to the greed. I became a vegan because of the eyes of animals; they taught me, not man. Once again, a reminder why we need them on OUR planet.

Fred Fishman

It's of course, an astounding revelation, but it sort of falls short on the impact it would have on anyone. Can anyone really comprehend the difference between 19 and a half million deaths of totally innocent, feeling beings,and 137.8 million deaths of totally innocent, feeling beings. Besides making a point about an incomprehensible distinction between the number of animals who die before they become food, fur or fodder for scientists, and those who live long enough to be murdered, the article also somehow manages to cheapen the deaths of the animals. Is 19 and a half millions deaths of harmless, innocent, defenseless animals not enough of an outrage that the author needed to point out, in excruciating detail, that the 9 million are just a drop in the bucket of the total carnage? I'm not criticizing an old friend (Matt Ball) for writing HIS article, and informing people that the numbers of deaths, and the treatment of the animals, is even worse than we could have imagined, I'm just questioning the value of a prolonged statistical analysis of these gruesome facts.. I did, however, learn a few things about the abject horror these animals face even before slaughter, so all is not lost..except for the innocent lives.

Harish

Fred, thank you for your comment. The question of whether there is a distinction between death and suffering-to-death is outside the scope of this blog. This blog focuses on numbers and the Vegan Outreach statement is about numbers. The point of this post is not to show that the 19 million animals are a drop in the bucket. The point is to highlight the fact that there is a bucket and that it is a big bucket and that the drop is not all there is. Also, it is hard to see why this article with an analysis of their numbers cheapens the death of any animal. Ascertaining objective facts about the scale of these numbers can only be helpful.

Fred Fishman

Hi Harish- I didn't actual read the name of your blog, and your mission statement, until after I wrote my comment. I also love numbers and animals, so your article certainly made sense in terms of what you're trying to accomplish. We're on the same team.

saboo bot

Thanks for proving Matt Balls's assertion, Mr. Harish. Those are some mind-numbing numbers. The sheer insanity and magnitude of all this unnecessary suffering is truly unimaginable. Why should innocent lives and peaceful animals be subjected to such horrors and incomprehensible, sadistic brutal torture is beyond me.

Joseph Espinosa

Thanks for crunching the numbers, Harish. I think the point of the statement is to move thoughtful advocates away from the rather over-served areas of companion animals, lab animals and fur animals and onto the area where we can have the most impact as advocates, animals used for food. Nearly each person we see will sentence dozens of animals to horrible suffering and death each year with their food choices. Almost no one we see has the power to spare dogs, cats lab rats or minks in such numbers.

Andy D

Harish, I love what you're doing on this blog!

If I were making this case, I would choose to define "suffer to death" or to use a slightly less loaded term. For example, "animals who die miserably before slaughter" is still pushing a moral claim (and is not totally objective), but it does not suggest that suffering itself is necessarily the cause of death.

I know your focus is on the numbers, but the numbers will be most effective if all readers can understand and accept the categories of deaths you're counting.

Harish

Thanks for the comment, Andy. I did wrestle with whether "suffer to death" should be defined as I was writing the post and so, I welcome your comment and the opportunity to explain. However, frankly, I found no objective way of defining it. Whenever people say "suffered to death", they usually mean that death occurred while suffering miserably, but they don't actually mean that there was no other cause of death but suffering itself. Further, since it is never really the case that we can isolate suffering itself as the only cause of a death, redefining the term to exclude this case seemed unnecessary to me. Your suggested definition is pretty much the only reasonable interpretation of what "suffer to death" might mean in this context, and that is what I use in this post.

Brandon Becker

Regarding animals in laboratories, I think your numbers are far too low.

Stop Animal Exploitation Now estimates "The real number of animals experimented on in the U.S. each year is well over 20 million."
Source: http://www.all-creatures.org/saen/fact-anex-jun09.html

In Defense of Animals says "Estimates for total numbers are between 20-70 million." Source: http://www.vivisectioninfo.org/faq.html

And there is no way to know how many of these animals suffer to death as well.

Harish

Brandon, I know about those estimates by the organizations you mention. I have seen many such estimates but have not seen any that are accompanied by any factual reasoning behind those estimates. That is indeed also the case with the two pages to which you link. Instead, if someone can provide objective reasoning behind why the estimate should be higher, I would be happy to change my numbers. Until then, my estimate of a little under 12 million stands (for the number used in research in the US).

And yes, there is no doubt that a large number of the animals used in research suffer to death as well.

AnneJones

I take exception to Joe Esponisa's cavalier attitude towards animals suffering anywhere but on "factory" farms. As long as they are still being killed for their skin, their use as lab tools, or their entertainment, they are not "over-served."

saboo bot

@ AnneJones

I agree totally with your statement. Case in point, there is no nice way to brutally torture/abuse and then sadistically and brutally slaughter an innocent, peaceful and sentient animal. I tell you no lies.

saboo bot

@ Andy D

Do please correct me if I'm wrong but pushing a moral claim is "at best" poorly defined, definitely prone to bias and after all is said and done, is just a collection of words, as are all complete sentences written in English. Taken to the extreme, every philosophy, mathematics and elementary logic textbook is pushing a moral claim.=(

Kim

Brilliant post, Harish. I am so glad that someone out there is crunching the numbers and making utterly clear where animal advocates must focus in order to do the most good.

Jacob

Thank you so much for providing these numbers, disturbing as they are. For a long time we have had to deal with vague numbers with no real backing from groups that would have reason to skew those numbers. It's hard to debate using those numbers since they are so quickly dismissed as exaggerations by meat eaters (with good reason imo). Your blog has become a daily stop for me.

Guy Grayson

Please hand out Vegan Outreach pamphlets at those yoga studios who will accept them, and to the all yoga students. Yes the info and comparison made on this site was very enlightening and saved me from having to read a whole book on the subject.

Ashley Capps

Where is the number that goes in the big circle at the end? It's missing right now. Great article though, thank you.

John Perkins

Excellent article that breaks down the specifics and doesn't lessen the overall message that the slaughter and mistreatment of animals is wrong. The author treats these animals with the same regard we discuss people. How many people suffer and die from xyz? This gives more emphasis on the individual horrors different groups of animals face, in this case chickens. This is actually better than just summing it all up in just 1 flat number.
Vegan: All the flavor, no victims. Peace!

Aryenish Birdie

I think the number of animals in labs is higher than you estimated here. Using the DOD's numbers isn't a good baseline for a number of reasons doesn't take into account regulatory testing, DOD uses more protected animals than NIH, etc.

Harish, next time we meet we can chat more about this. I see the point you are making but I might refute your stat for that one :)

Harish

Aryenish: It is quite likely, as you say, that the DoD uses more protected animals than NIH and that it may not be the best baseline to use. I always try to use primary sources as far as possible, and, in 2011, when I first wrote this post, the DoD reports were the only primary sources available with numbers on all species of animals. Since then, in February of 2015, through the use of the Freedom of Information Act, Alka Chandna and her colleagues at PETA have shown that as many as 98.8% of the animals used at some universities are from non-protected species. But, those universities may not be the right baseline either — while the DoD numbers may underestimate the total, the top university numbers may overestimate.

The real percentage of non-protected animals in laboratories likely lies somewhere between 90% and 98.8% — the exact number is hard to determine without reliable primary sources. But, the pattern of use in other countries such as Canada indicate that the number is likely closer to 90% (the estimate I used in this post) than to 98.8%. In any case, my post is due an update with the latest data.

Liz

I just stumbled across your blog and I just wanted to say kudos. Your posts are extremely well-researched and and referenced, which is truly refreshing after seeing so many statistics thrown around by animal welfare groups without citations (or citing newspaper articles, which cite other articles, and so on without every reaching primary data). I'm an animal advocate so I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, but I also want to make sure I quote factually accurate numbers. Thank you for being a legitimate source for verifying the stats!

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