Crickets are increasingly farmed as a sustainable protein source. Their welfare status is uncertain but their scale of production makes even small improvements potentially significant.
Cricket farming welfare sits at the most uncertain frontier of animal welfare ethics. The precautionary principle is less compelling than for vertebrates given the extremely simple nervous system, but the scale of cricket farming - potentially billions of individuals globally - gives even small probabilities of suffering significant aggregate moral weight. Freezing as a slaughter method may produce lower arousal states before death than boiling, representing a marginal welfare improvement under precautionary assumptions. Appropriate stocking densities that prevent cannibalism and disease serve both welfare and production goals simultaneously.