What would happen to farm animals if everyone went vegan?

A vegan world would gradually reduce farm animal populations, ending mass breeding while creating more space for wildlife.

“If everyone went vegan, what would happen to the animals?” Sometimes it’s a sincere concern. Often, however, it’s a conversational smoke bomb; an attempt to make veganism sound impractical and even cruel.

Either way, it’s a question worth welcoming, because beneath it sits a surprisingly simple truth: the animals people are worrying about have been brought into existence for us, by design, in numbers that would never exist without constant human intervention. The modern population of farmed animals isn’t a natural phenomenon, it’s a gargantuan industrialised production system.

That’s the first thing to make clear, especially if you’re speaking with someone who imagines a world suddenly flooded with cows and chickens needing somewhere to go. The reality is far less dramatic and far more manageable.

Would we be overrun by farm animals if everyone went vegan?

Farmed animals are bred because there is demand, and when demand falls, breeding falls with it. This is already how agriculture works; it expands and contracts like any other industry.

If the world moved steadily towards veganism, there wouldn’t be a single apocalyptic moment when billions of animals were ‘left over’. There would be a wind-down. Fewer pregnancies, fewer hatchings, fewer animals born into a life that, for the vast majority, has been engineered around confinement and early death.

The numbers would decline quickly, simply because so many farmed animals have short lives and are continually replaced.

And then there’s the detail people rarely mention when they ask the question. The awkward truth is that many of these animals have been selectively bred so that they struggle to function. Humans have not merely domesticated them, we have remodelled them.

Farmed animals bred to suffer

The turkey is a particularly stark example. Certain commercial strains have been bred so large, so unnaturally heavy in the breast, that natural mating can be difficult or impossible, so reproduction is managed and mechanised by humans.

Broiler chickens, bred for rapid growth, acutely suffer under the strain of their own accelerated bodies. Dairy cows have been pushed towards extraordinary milk yields, a biological demand that takes a deep toll.

When someone asks what happens to all the animals, it can be helpful to point out that the more compassionate question might be, “why keep breeding animals into bodies built for profit rather than wellbeing?”

This is where the idea of extinction sometimes enters the conversation, usually as a final flourish (“So you’re saying they should just… disappear?”). But it’s worth noticing what that claim implies. If a population exists only because humans keep manufacturing it, and if that population is structured around exploitation (pregnancy, separation, confinement, slaughter), then arguing for its preservation is not, in any meaningful sense, an argument for animals. It’s an argument for keeping the system going.

A managed end to mass breeding does not mean we abandon those animals. Instead, we refuse to bring more animals into the world to live lives that are abused, controlled and cut short.

What would a vegan world look like?

In practice, any real transition would be gradual. The billions of farmed animals estimated to exist globally today would not suddenly be left with nowhere to go. The change would be paced by humans, with waning demand for meat and dairy causing fewer animals to be bred.

Any ex-farm animals who do remain after the last animal product is sold would be cared for in animal sanctuaries, rehoming projects, smallholdings and genuinely protective settings.

Some breeds that have been pushed to extremes would be phased out precisely because their bodies have been shaped into suffering. As for the rest, while their numbers would dwindle, they are unlikely to disappear entirely. Instead of billions being bred purely to be harmed, a small number would be bred for conservation purposes.

This drastic reduction in the population of farmed animals would not be a tragedy; it’s the aim.

Yet the most hopeful aspect of a vegan world is the one people least expect: the world wouldn’t become emptier of animals. It would become less crowded with suffering and more spacious for wild lives.

Many domesticated animals have wild ancestors or close relatives still living. Pigs are descended from wild boar, chickens from red junglefowl, sheep from wild mouflon. When animal agriculture shrinks, so does the land required to feed it as there is less pressure to clear forests and drain wetlands, less demand for vast monocultures of feed crops, and less water pulled from stressed ecosystems.

We often talk about veganism as a moral choice for farmed animals, and it is. But it is also, plainly, a land-use decision and an ecological decision.

Can you love animals and eat them too?

This leads us to the slightly slippery subtext of the original question: the suggestion that eating animals is somehow what keeps them safe, that meat-eaters are the true caretakers because they ensure these animals ‘exist’.

You don’t need to respond with anger to undo that logic. You can simply hold it up and let it be seen. Creating beings in order to kill them is not care; it is use. You cannot love someone into a slaughterhouse!

Most people do feel tenderness towards animals, and it’s good to acknowledge that. But tenderness is not the same as entitlement. If the animals exist only because we breed them for profit, their lives aren’t precious gifts, they are business assets.

How to respond to the question, “What would happen to the animals if everyone went vegan?”

If you’re vegan and you want a way through this conversation without causing too much tension, it’s best to keep calm and speak with clarity and warmth. You can say that this isn’t about flinging barn doors open and hoping for the best. It’s about allowing the numbers to fall because we stop demanding that more animals are made.

Importantly, it’s about recognising that the so-called problem people fear most – what to do with all the animals – only exists because we have normalised creating living beings as if they were products.

If the question is being asked in good faith, you can clarify that it’s unlikely that the whole world would go vegan overnight. And even if it did, the truth is that a vegan world would not be a world where animals lose out.

Instead, it would be one where far fewer are bred into exploitation, where those who remain can be cared for rather than consumed, and where land once swallowed by animal agriculture can return, piece by piece, to woods, wetlands and wildlife.

So the answer to “What would happen to all the animals?” is actually quite simple: fewer animals would be engineered for suffering, leaving far more room for wildlife to flourish freely.

Quick-fire farming facts:

It’s a narrow system
UK farming relies heavily on a small number of high-yield animal breeds, especially in dairy, poultry, and pigs.
We are losing breeds
The UK has over 150 native livestock breeds, but many are now rare or at risk due to industrial farming.
Low diversity is a problem
Farming genetically similar animals increases vulnerability to disease outbreaks, reliance on antibiotics and suffering linked to breeding for fast growth or high yield.
Intensive farming dominates
Most UK farmed animals are raised in intensive indoor systems, where uniformity is prioritised over health, welfare and resilience.
Rewilding is needed
The scale of animal farming places pressure on animals, land and wildlife. Reducing and replacing animal farming frees up land for rewilding, cuts emissions and removes the need to breed animals at the expense of welfare.

Original source: https://www.veganfoodandliving.com