If the world becomes vegetarian?

Well, that will never happen, so I'm not sure it's a particularly fruitful intellectual exercise, but as far as I can tell, we'd have two options.

1. Keep them around and use them for other things. Cows were used for millennia as plow animals and beast of burden. they still are in some countries. Sheep produce wool. Poultry make great pest control. Pigs can be used to compost waste. (Check out Joel Saltin's "pigerators".) And so forth. The population would decline over time to more sustainable levels as we stopped breeding them especially to be killed and eaten, but there'd still be a healthy population of the mst multipurpose breeds around for centuries to come.

2. Let them go. A mistake. Either they starve to death and die horribly, or they become walking environmental disasters, like the pigs of Hawaii.

Okay, to all the people saying they would overpopulate - what do you think they are now??? Factory farming is the intentional overpopulation of animals, bred for slaughter. There is NO WAY there would be that many cows naturally reproduced if we weren't mating them for food.

In layman's terms (because I don't wanna get science geek on you) the cattle, pigs, chickens, etc. would be freed into the wild. Then natural fluctuation would occur, in which every few years, an overpopulation spike would happen, and the animals would naturally die out.

THIS is not cruel or being avoided in any way by factory farms. This rise and fall in population is NATURAL, and it happens to every single species. Sometimes the species reproduces too much (I'll use a human example, the Baby Boomers) and then there is a NATURAL stress on the species. Then, that select populace dies off, and things go back to normal. In much more severe cases, action may be necessary, but that's quite rare.

My science teacher gave a perfect example. He said that 2 rabbits were dropped off on an uninhabited island. Over the years, there grew to be MILLIONS of rabbits, and then they caught a disease, and only the "best" of the species survived.

And no, this isn't "mean" or "selfish" of humans, because this has happened since Adam and Eve, and it still happens today. The effect would not be "increased" by freeing these animals, except for maybe right off, but then the animals would die from malnourishment or otherwise bad treatment they received at the farms, and we'd have a natural order again.

Therefore, the world will not overpopulate with farm animals and starve us all.

The truth of the matter is this. Factory farming causes MUCH more pollution and overpopulation than just letting animals be free.

I wish this would happen, alas some people are too deadset in their beliefs to realize the suffering these animals go through. Just think, if cows were the dominant race and ate humans, wouldn't you totally vouch for veg*anism?

If the world just sudenly became vegetarian then of course that would be a problem, but what is the chance of everyone becoming vegetarian over night?

What would most likley happen is the world would just eventually become vegetarian, more and more people would become vegetarian. Sinse each year less people would be eating meat, less meat will be made because there would be a smaller demand. You may say 'but what about all the people who stop being vegetairan and new borns?' well there would still be less meat being made because think of it, if all the vegetarians started to eat meat then there would be a larger demand for meat.

Also if somehow all the animals in the wild did over populate, the vegetarian world would have to do a cull of the over populated animals and compost it or something lol or feed it to other animals.

Then we set up farm sanctuaries, where the animals can peacefully live out their existence. In a generation, the population of farm animals will have decreased dramatically, since we will no longer be force-breeding them.

Let them food inside but always with the door open, I guess the animals run free but it come back when they're hungry

Millions of animals are killed every day. They are bred as food. If we all went vegetarian, we would stop breeding them. I assume that if the whole world turned vegetarian one day, the day before that the non-vegetarians would eat the remaining farm animals. Also, many people and organizations would be willing to take in animals and neuter/spay them. If farm animals were not bred and not eaten they would not overpopulate the world and they would not eat us. Please don't be willfully ignorant.

most would probably stay on farms until they died. if the whole world became vegetarians on the same day though maybe a lot people would want to rescue these animals because of their new ideals.

Let them live until they die of natural causes?

True, I used to be a vegatarien untill i realized how malnurished i was,

only because i was too lazy to take vitamins,

but yah if the whole world did it then all the animsl would over populate and starve

i dont think people should become vegatarien because its 'wrong' to kill animals for our food because it simply isnt.

But become one because 99% of where everyones meat comes from is slaughter houses that DO kill animals INHUMANELY

ignorant people can say otherwise saying theyre killed fast and blah blah blah.

Not true, it saves them money because then they dont havet to buy throw away the cow brains because there was a bullet in them

plus.. all those bullets or electronical mecanical devices to kill millions of animals every year would cost millions.

why pay that when you can just let them die in horrible pain?

You care for them till they die a natural death. That is your punishment