Hi Nanie!

I get it. You've made your point very clearly and strongly here -- it's not necessarily the subjective experience of the animals that informs the ethics, it's the idea that an animal could live longer but its life is cut short to save on costs / help with profit.

It remains true, however, that the animal doesn't know whether it was "two years old" or "ten years old" when life ended. The animal doesn't have an internal "story" that includes how long it has lived, not like most human beings do. It only matters to human beings who have projected that value of longevity onto the animal. Because of this, I don't include the sheer number of years an animal has lived as falling somewhere on the suffering--well being scale. How much suffering an animal has experienced is determined by a variety of other factors, ones we sadly understand an animal can experience as things like physical pain, social deprivation, and more.

It may be that we just have to let our points coexist, or agree to disagree! The more important thing is that you write excellent articles and show outstanding compassion, and I wish you all the best! Happy holidays!