Returning lost domestic animals is in part about restoring another human's property, yes, and it also benefits the animals, which might be endangered or confused (Deuteronomy 22:1-3). Furthermore, helping an animal to its feet is certainly about the animal's benefit and not just it's owner's (Deuteronomy 22:4). Plowing with animals of different sizes and corresponding strength is also condemned, something, while it is listed among other prohibitions of mixing particular things within a category, also for the wellbeing of the animals involved (Deuteronomy 22:10). Although bestiality is sinful in part for other reasons (it is not heterosexual human intercourse), it is the rape of an animal, which Deuteronomy reiterates is evil (27:21; see also Exodus 22:19, Leviticus 18:23, and 20:15-16). Along with each of these commands pertinent to the treatment of animals in the book of Deuteronomy is the instruction to not take away a mother bird with her eggs or hatched children in 22:6-7.
Animal Life
It is not only humans that the Bible says possess the breath of life (Genesis 2:7); as if it is not clear from Genesis 2 that the breath of life is consciousness or gives rise to it, and thus that any conscious being in a physical body would on the Biblical worldview have the breath of life, Genesis 7:20-23 mentions animals perishing in the flood of Noah's day and that everything on land with the breath of life died except for Noah and his family. They are not people, yet they are presented as conscious beings God made. Among the early Torah prescriptions is that of Exodus 23:4-5, where even an animal belonging to one's enemy must be returned or helped if it struggles under its load. Expanding on Exodus 23:10-11, Leviticus 25:1-7 lists wild animals along with male and female servants, hired workers, and foreign travelers as those who are to be fed from what the land yields during its Sabbath years.
Verses in the prophetic writings such as Habakkuk 2:17 and Jonah 4:10-11 reinforce that the destruction of animals is a serious matter as it is with that of people--but many other passages clarify that the needless killing of animals, or any other mistreatment against them, is not as weighty as when the same sins are committed against humans. In Genesis 1:26-28, God creates human men and women to rule over lesser animals as the only beings specifically said to be made in the divine image (see also Genesis 5:1-2). Despite how animals are also living creatures that God created, and as such are a "very good" part of reality left of themselves (Genesis 1:31), they are metaphysically inferior to humans, and God goes as far as to say that he will Genesis 9:5 demand an accounting of our lifeblood from every animal as is the case between persons.
Lesser Than Humans
While animals are also divinely created things that have the breath of life and moral value on the Christian worldview, it is a distinctively lesser value than any human possesses. The laws Yahweh prescribes for human societies emphasize this over and over. Leviticus 24 says that killing an animal merits restitution, but killing a person unjustly deserves execution. Stealing an animal deserves repayment at specific ratios (Exodus 21:1, 4); kidnapping a person deserves death (Exodus 21:16). The domestic animal that kills a man, woman, or child, including a male or female slave because they too are human, must be itself killed without exception (Exodus 21:28-32). Though the exact wording of the laws on this scenario deal with an ox, the moral concept would be relevant to any situation where an animal kills a human, particularly a domestic farming animal or a pet.
It is not inherently evil to take the mother bird's children for consumption, as long as they are of a kosher species (Leviticus 11, Deuteronomy 14), but to go out and take a human mother's or father's child for any such purpose would be the capital sin of kidnapping (Exodus 21:16 and Deuteronomy 24:7). If even adult birds a person stumbles upon in the wild have the right to not be taken with their children, then people are all the more valuable as beings bearing God's image. Of course, humans having a higher moral and broader metaphysical status than animals does not mean that it is possible to know what the precise obligations towards other people do and do not entail from conscience or culture. The obligations that exist according to Christianity can only be known from the Bible itself, with reason being necessary to know the Bible to begin with [1], as well as to know what a particular moral concept logically necessitates even if the text does not mention every ramification.
The Promise of Long Life
Twice in Deuteronomy, therefore, is this potential for two-fold reward brought up regarding those who submit to particular moral obligations, one of which is a reaffirmation of something already taught in Exodus 20. As for the promise of long life, Paul points out in Ephesians 6:1-2 that the command to honor one's parents is the first commandment with any promise whatsoever, and the same general promise is made to those who do what is righteous by not taking the mother bird and her children. Ultimately, though, all sin makes the sinner deserve death (literal death, not eternal torment), and true righteousness deserves eternal life, which is not achieved in this present life (Daniel 12:2, Romans 6:23). This is in accordance with what God promises in the covenant curses of Leviticus and Deuteronomy for sin and righteousness (such as in Deuteronomy 30:11-20): he sets the choices of life and death before the Israelites starkly. How people treat animals like birds is not irrelevant to this even though the treatment of humans is more crucial.
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