Quantifying animal suffering
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One approach is to define different intensities of suffering (excruciating, disabling, hurtful, and annoying), and then to look at the number of hours that animals spend in each one of these different states
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Ultimately, the two critical components of suffering are its duration and intensity
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The Welfare Footprint Project](https://welfarefootprint.org/) created a useful framework for trying to solve this difficult issue. They use four categories of pain, from the least to the most intense:¹
- Annoying pain,
- Hurtful pain,
- Disabling pain,
- Excruciating pain.
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For instance, they conclude that throughout her life, and due to the terrible conditions described above, a battery-caged hen will endure on average at least 3 minutes of excruciating pain, 431 hours of disabling pain, 4,054 hours of hurtful pain, and 6,721 hours of annoying pain.
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To arrive at the total time spent in farms by all animals of a species in a year, we multiply the number of animals killed each year by their average slaughter age.
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It is better, if possible, to directly make an estimate of their respective total time spent in farms and average suffering intensity.