Some Back-of-the-envelope Calculations

3. Donating for animal welfare vs. adopting a more humane diet?

A donation to corporate cage-free egg campaigns on average has a greater impact than switching your diet to cage-free. Economists Lusk and Norwood estimate that for every 1 chicken egg an American forgoes consuming, 0.91 fewer chicken egg will be produced in the long term (within 5 years).

Source: Compassion, by the Pound: The Economics of Farm Animal Welfare, by F. Bailey Norwood and Jayson L. Lusk, 2011.

Since the average American consumes around 281 eggs per year (source USDA https://www.usda.gov/oce/commodity/wasde/wasde0124.pdf), switching from less humane caged eggs to more humane cage-free eggs will, on average, affect 255 eggs in the long term. The net effect of this diet switch is therefore estimated to directly affect 1 to 2 chickens per year.

On the other hand, Salius estimates that corporate cage-free egg campaigns affected 9 to 120 chickens per year per dollar spent (source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/L5EZjjXKdNgcm253H/corporate-campaigns-affect-9-to-120-years-of-chicken-life).

Therefore, even the most conservative estimates of the effectiveness of corporate cage-free egg campaigns suggest that a moderate donation to a targeted animal welfare advocacy is far more impactful than an individual egg diet changes.