bacteria, fungus, plants, protozoa, and (arguably) viruses are all alive, too. bed bugs. rattlesnakes. being alive isn't actually that special, nor a reason, in itself, to refrain from eating or killing that thing.
people should be treated differently than animals. doing so is necessary for right action. how we treat animals should have no bearing on how we treat each other.
Declaring that humans and chickens are distinct is not sufficient to say to they deserve radically different ethical consideration.
it is. ethics are a social construct developed by humans to help them understand correct action in human society. chickens are only relevant to the extent that it impacts how people relate to one another
You could for instance, use that to say any group of humans are distinct in some way and thus deserve different moral consideration. Be it by gender, skin tone, etc.
comparing women to animals is what misogynists do. comparing other races to animals is what racists do. lets be better than them.
well after the revolution, we (anarchists) need to understand the counterrevolutionary mindset of statists as much as statists need to understand (what they call) counterrevolutionaries
you don't need to read every line if you trust your package maintainers