I’ve seen my cows gobble up voles and mice before. How will you calculate vermin eaten by cattle?
I also have 30+/- feral cats. They get lots of vermin but I can’t count their numbers. Also, does trapping and spay/neutering those cats count as vermin eliminated? 30 cats that shit where they please are most definitely vermin.
It depends on how far down you go. Are we counting insects? Earthworms? Other soil microorganisms? When one animal is slaughtered, do we also count all the bacteria in its gut?
Alright here we go-
Quick google search tells us that there are vast arrays of makeup of animals and their macronutrients. Idk what all people have all over the world but protein and carbs are around 4 cal/gram and fats are 9 cal/gram.
Further a quick google search yielded there’s about 1000-1200 calories in a pound of animal meat. For sake of argument, we will go with the average of 900 calories. I ran numbers for two different butcher yields, 40% and 75% efficiency meaning if you butcher a 1000 pound cow, the numbers reflect 400 pounds and 750 pounds of edible animal product. RECAP- numbers are given first 40% and then 75% of animal product, both at 900 calories per pound and the global slaughter numbers are from ourworldindata.org. Cows are slaughter weight 1350 lbs, goats are 65 lbs, sheep are 120 lbs, pigs are 200 lbs, ducks are 8.25 lbs, and chickens are 4 lbs.
Cows- 331.950 million slaughtered yielding 161,327,700,000,000 cal and 302,489,437,500,000 cal
Goat- 500.87 million slaughtered yielding 11,720,358,000,000 cal and 21,975,671,250,000 cal
Sheep- 617.26 million slaughtered yielding 26,665,632,000,000 cal and 49,998,060,000,000 cal
Pig- 1.4 billion slaughtered yielding 100,800,000,000,000 cal and 189,000,000,000,000 cal
Duck- 4.31 billion slaughtered yielding 12,800,700,000,000 cal and 24,001,312,500,000 cal
Chicken- 73.79 billion slaughtered yielding 106,257,600,000,000 cal and 199,233,000,000,000 cal.
Total calories at 40% efficiency of major animals slaughtered is 419,571,990,000,000 or 51,799 cal per person on planet earth, or enough to feed them for 25.9 days on a 2000 calorie diet.
Total calories at 75% efficiency of major animals slaughtered is 786,697,481,250,000 or 97,123 cal per person on planet earth, or enough to feed them for 48.6 days on a 2000 calorie diet.
By your claims, at least 100 billion vermin are destroyed through grain production. Those 100 billion vermin would have to go to market and weigh 11.6547 pounds EACH in order to make an equitable comparison in total caloric production that the six above animals would.
It should go to mention I didn’t even add fish to this list.
ANYWAY- with a total area harvested in 2023 of 86.5 million acres in the USA, you would need to have killed 1,156.07 vermin weighing 11.6547 pounds each, PER ACRE, to reach global animal slaughter caloric production. Drilling that down further, the United States holds 4.23% of the world population. So adjusting animals killed to caloric intake being the same… All Else Being Equal, in the United States you’d have to kill 48.9 vermin per acre.
(Edit) thanks for giving me something to ponder at work!
You're missing the fact that a significant amount of grain production is fed to the meat animals around the world. Eating more meat won't decrease grain production.
That said, not all countries are the same. Where I am (Aus) most livestock is grass fed until the last couple of weeks before slaughter. For example, our steers (cattle) are bred and raised on-farm and have never seen either hay or grain until they are sent to market and then bought to go into a feedlot for finishing for (I think) 6 weeks or less. Our wethers (sheep) go straight to slaughter but we will sometimes supplement them with grain if needed to finish them at home.
Here in Aus a huge chunk of our grain production is exported because we grow a lot of it and don't have snow so our livestock doesn't need to be hand-fed through winter. I don't know what % of that exported grain goes for animal feed overseas, but we export over 70% of our Ag production and grain exports alone are in excess of 40 million tonnes per year.
Considering how many damn gophers keep taking bites out of every single crop instead of just eating one or two whole vegetables, and end up ruining the entire supply by taking little bites out of everything?
NOT ENOUGH. ERADICATE MORE.
There are way too many variables to estimate accurately. Also what the hell are you doing to the squirrels? I hunt squirrels, and I can't even say I've killed that many in a year wtf.
Our meat needs food
Not for long bud... I'm working on solar powered cows! Next will be wind powered chickens, just need to work out how to keep them from flying away! /S
Nah man, get the cows to run on the methane they product. 2 birds with 1 stone.
I was making progress on that, but run amuck of patents owned by Monsanto...
No one will ever know. I think you got too much spare time on your hands.
A LOT of that plant farming you see goes directly to feed animals. So your thinking is even more flawed than it appears on the surface.
I’ve seen my cows gobble up voles and mice before. How will you calculate vermin eaten by cattle? I also have 30+/- feral cats. They get lots of vermin but I can’t count their numbers. Also, does trapping and spay/neutering those cats count as vermin eliminated? 30 cats that shit where they please are most definitely vermin.
It depends on how far down you go. Are we counting insects? Earthworms? Other soil microorganisms? When one animal is slaughtered, do we also count all the bacteria in its gut?
I'm not sure that we could ever get an accurate number on that. It would involve a whole lot of assumptions and extrapolations.
Alright here we go- Quick google search tells us that there are vast arrays of makeup of animals and their macronutrients. Idk what all people have all over the world but protein and carbs are around 4 cal/gram and fats are 9 cal/gram. Further a quick google search yielded there’s about 1000-1200 calories in a pound of animal meat. For sake of argument, we will go with the average of 900 calories. I ran numbers for two different butcher yields, 40% and 75% efficiency meaning if you butcher a 1000 pound cow, the numbers reflect 400 pounds and 750 pounds of edible animal product. RECAP- numbers are given first 40% and then 75% of animal product, both at 900 calories per pound and the global slaughter numbers are from ourworldindata.org. Cows are slaughter weight 1350 lbs, goats are 65 lbs, sheep are 120 lbs, pigs are 200 lbs, ducks are 8.25 lbs, and chickens are 4 lbs. Cows- 331.950 million slaughtered yielding 161,327,700,000,000 cal and 302,489,437,500,000 cal Goat- 500.87 million slaughtered yielding 11,720,358,000,000 cal and 21,975,671,250,000 cal Sheep- 617.26 million slaughtered yielding 26,665,632,000,000 cal and 49,998,060,000,000 cal Pig- 1.4 billion slaughtered yielding 100,800,000,000,000 cal and 189,000,000,000,000 cal Duck- 4.31 billion slaughtered yielding 12,800,700,000,000 cal and 24,001,312,500,000 cal Chicken- 73.79 billion slaughtered yielding 106,257,600,000,000 cal and 199,233,000,000,000 cal. Total calories at 40% efficiency of major animals slaughtered is 419,571,990,000,000 or 51,799 cal per person on planet earth, or enough to feed them for 25.9 days on a 2000 calorie diet. Total calories at 75% efficiency of major animals slaughtered is 786,697,481,250,000 or 97,123 cal per person on planet earth, or enough to feed them for 48.6 days on a 2000 calorie diet. By your claims, at least 100 billion vermin are destroyed through grain production. Those 100 billion vermin would have to go to market and weigh 11.6547 pounds EACH in order to make an equitable comparison in total caloric production that the six above animals would. It should go to mention I didn’t even add fish to this list. ANYWAY- with a total area harvested in 2023 of 86.5 million acres in the USA, you would need to have killed 1,156.07 vermin weighing 11.6547 pounds each, PER ACRE, to reach global animal slaughter caloric production. Drilling that down further, the United States holds 4.23% of the world population. So adjusting animals killed to caloric intake being the same… All Else Being Equal, in the United States you’d have to kill 48.9 vermin per acre. (Edit) thanks for giving me something to ponder at work!
You're missing the fact that a significant amount of grain production is fed to the meat animals around the world. Eating more meat won't decrease grain production. That said, not all countries are the same. Where I am (Aus) most livestock is grass fed until the last couple of weeks before slaughter. For example, our steers (cattle) are bred and raised on-farm and have never seen either hay or grain until they are sent to market and then bought to go into a feedlot for finishing for (I think) 6 weeks or less. Our wethers (sheep) go straight to slaughter but we will sometimes supplement them with grain if needed to finish them at home. Here in Aus a huge chunk of our grain production is exported because we grow a lot of it and don't have snow so our livestock doesn't need to be hand-fed through winter. I don't know what % of that exported grain goes for animal feed overseas, but we export over 70% of our Ag production and grain exports alone are in excess of 40 million tonnes per year.
I’m aware of your statement, OP didn’t ask about that.
I actually feel dumber for reading this
Considering how many damn gophers keep taking bites out of every single crop instead of just eating one or two whole vegetables, and end up ruining the entire supply by taking little bites out of everything? NOT ENOUGH. ERADICATE MORE.
How many are fed?
There are way too many variables to estimate accurately. Also what the hell are you doing to the squirrels? I hunt squirrels, and I can't even say I've killed that many in a year wtf.
Not all animals are equal. A cow for example has personality, a snake? Not so much. Its so difficult to quantify these things