Vegans and eggs

[snivelingchild]

What do you do with the eggs?
We boil up the eggs and feed them to the chickens. This is healthful, since chickens naturally eat any egg that isn't going to be hatched. Remember, the purpose of the egg is to nourish the growing chick. So, eggs contain all kinds of nutrients that are good for chickens. By hard boiling them and tearing them up, we can make sure that everybody gets some.

from a Fam Sanctuary site FAQ

[snivelingchild]

This way, they can gain back all the nourishment they lose in laying the egg, thus requiring less resources. I think it makes alot of since, though I don't know why they take them, hrad boil them, then take them back. Maybe it's better for the hens?

Either way, I say giving them back to the hens, or not taking them at all, is a much better choice to taking them for yourself.

[snivelingchild]

Oh, most of the hens probably don't have their full beaks and cannot peck through the shell, so they hard boil them to make them soft. That makes sense.

[Kelzie]

I'm a little sceptical about it being natural. First of all, as previously posted, chickens usually only eat eggs if they have a nutrition problem. If it were natural, they would eat them all the time. Second, I think as you previously poster, wild chickens do not lay unfertilized eggs. So where would they develop the instinct to eat them? Seems to be that any bird that "naturally" eats their eggs wouldn't last for long. And to me, taking a chicken's eggs, hardboiling it, and feeding it back to them seems a lot more intrusive than just taking it.

[Kelzie]

I'm looking on some chicken breeder/egg layer forum right now for info. I feel like I'm going undercover or something. :D *cues in the james bond music*

[snivelingchild]

And to me, taking a chicken's eggs, hardboiling it, and feeding it back to them seems a lot more intrusive than just taking it.

They are allowing the animals a great source of nutrition, and just preparing them for the hens to make it easier on them. I don't see how that is worse than taking the eggs for yourself.

I do understand about the natural, though. How are we to know what is natural in an unnatural animal? I hope you can find some good info. I seem to be getting all these different sources saying all different things about hens eating their eggs.

[Peas'nHominy]

So you think they should be taken from the chickens and thrown away?
I think that would at least be better than eating them.


IF I ate eggs, I wouldn't call myself a vegan. Vegans don't eat eggs. What I'm trying to figure out is why all vegans think it's always wrong?
I'm not sure what all vegans think, but I do agree with what Astrocat was saying. I just don't believe that animals are meant to be our food nor meant to "produce" food for us, with their waste or by-products and such. I just don't think it should even be regarded or looked at as food at all.
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I also think it is nasty, and I think animal proteins are harmful. It does tie into my ethics - to knowingly put nasty and harmful crap into my system is unethical, as I would not be being "compassionate" to my self, as I am an animal deserving compassion, just like those poor hens too. :)

And yes, that means if I eat a lot of refined sugar, knowing it is harmful to my system, then I am not respecting my body or being considerate to my health, also. <<note to self...bummer :( :D >>

(IMO my dear friends :D )

[Kelzie]

No...no good info. My stealth operation wasn't a huge success ;) The Crazies were more interested in what to do with a hen once it started eating eggs (about half believed the only solution was culling...god I hate that word).

PeasnHominy:
Why would taking the egg and throwing it away be any less intrusive to the chicken than taking it and eating it. And this is a highly hypothetical question in which the chickens in question are rescue birds (bear with me :)). So in that instance, they wouldn't be meant to produce your food. The purpose would be to provide them with a comfortable environment to live out their lives. If it was a mutually beneficial situation, and you ate the eggs that the chicken had no use for (provided the evidence that eating eggs is unatural in chickens holds of course), well than what harm would it do?

I'm not sure that the argument that eating eggs causes harm to humans is an argument that it is unethical. Driving is dangerous, but it is hardly unethical. Likewise, humans can choose if they want to cause pain or potential pains to themselves. For instance, I pluck my eyebrows. Hurts like an SOB. But I like how it looks. That's not unethical. At least, I hope not.:)

[kokopelli]

I have a future dream of a permaculture self-sufficiency property that I would love to create later in life and I was asked this morning about the eggs; if I have chicken on the property, what would I do with the eggs?

Maybe I will be content with the wild bird population; but chickens are so smart and have so much character when in a peaceful environment. The make great garden companions.

Veganblue, why would you want chickens?
They've been bred to be all unnatural, and lay too many eggs. They henpeck the weakest one, even when they're in a peaceful environment, in my experience anyway. And where would you get the hens from? They're a product of animal exploitation themselves.

Wild birds are 'smarter', because they have to be to survive, and much more interesting, and when they trust you not to harm them, they freely become garden companions themselves. And you'll be able to watch them rearing their young ones, which you won't be able to if you have hens without a cock. I'm sure your peaceful permaculture project would soon be colonised by a wide variety of native birds, because you'd be providing them with an ideal environment, with different niches for different species. :)

[kokopelli]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Kelzie
" you think they should be taken from the chickens and thrown away?"

I think that would at least be better than eating them.


I'm not sure what all vegans think, but I do agree with what Astrocat was saying. I just don't believe that animals are meant to be our food nor meant to "produce" food for us, with their waste or by-products and such. I just don't think it should even be regarded or looked at as food at all.
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I also think it is nasty, and I think animal proteins are harmful.

I agree. And when my friend finally took her chickens back, I found clutches of eggs hidden all around the garden, weeks or months old.

I did think that maybe they might be useful for throwing at unpopular politicians...but of course I didn't actually do that! I buried them.

[feline01]

Me too. I know this sounds stupid but sometimes it just makes me so fucking mad this, all this stuff. The way animals are just, you know, ours to use as we wish. It's not right. Back when I was doing all the major research into the meat, eggs, and dairy stuff, that convinced me to become a vegan, I remember I often used to lie awake at night seething about it, and I used to just end up crying, because I'd be thinking about all the animals in the factory farms and stuff, all there while I was lying in my bed. It just made me feel so mad, and so helpless, and so angry, and so pained.

I don't understand how you can be so angry (rightly so) about exploitation of animals yet think it is morally/ethically sound to participate albeit at a minimal level (the consumption of rescued "happy" hens' eggs). Consuming these eggs is just the beginning of that long, slippery road to justifying consumption of animal waste, animal by-products and ultimately, animals themselves.

[Astrocat]

Astrocat, you rock. :D

:D thanks !


Just because the situation is not common does not mean there is something ethically wrong with it.

I never said that this was the case - did you read what i said ?
Why are you refuting a point which i haven't made as if i have ?



I love me some vegan cookies Not much fiber in em... :Dkind of a lot of sugar.

Yes, unsurprisingly enough it is possible to get unhealthy vegan food ;) - this is because there are also many vegans who don;t have health as an especially pressing part of their veganism, who enjoy eating unhealthy snacks.

However, your enjoyment of eating vegan sugar-cookies makes no difference to all of the people who do have health as their primary concern in veganism.

Obviously, the health issues involved in eating eggs are rather different from the ones involved in eating vegan sugar-cookies.



There are many things that Sisha and I can be accused of here. I don't think that accepting ethical eggs without questioning it is one of them.

Perhaps there is more to this discussion than just you, eh ?
There are other people to talk about in the world, you know ?



So you think they should be taken from the chickens and thrown away?

Why do any "taking" and grabbing in the first place ?
Hens also produce plenty of shit - would it seem scandalous or wasteful to you, if people throw that out instead of eating it ?


IF I ate eggs, I wouldn't call myself a vegan. Vegans don't eat eggs. What I'm trying to figure out is why all vegans think it's always wrong?

Obviously this is where the discrepancy lies.
You will never be able to prove that all vegans always think such-and-such.... vegans are not a generic group of people, I would consider eating eggs from Rescued hens to be unnatural, parasitical, unhealthful, filthy and an ingestion of a form of flesh, but just because someone eats those that doesn;t make it "wrong" for those reasons... "wrong" is a very vague term anyway, I use "unethical" instead.

Vegans have all kinds of approaches to this issue I'm sure - as I've said those not conditioned to think of non-foods as being food will not automatically make this leap of assumption - this includes lifelong vegans and those who have broken out of the pattern of thought taught to them by their conditioning.

If something is a non-food then why would people need to consider it "wrong" before not eating it ?

People who don;t eat concrete breeze-blocks aren;t asked why they consider it "wrong", after all....
And in my entire life i have yet to encounter somebody question me on why i throw out my own menstrual waste instead of eating it (since what i do is assumedly wasteful by some definition)



I can't speak for everyone here, but I have a feeling that ethics have played a central role in people's decision to become vegans

and what i said (quote) is "Ethics are not the be-all and end-all."
You can understand that, right ?
Ethics are integral to many peoples' veganism, however there are other aspects to it too in many cases.

[Astrocat]

oh! I didn;t notice this last page here, so i missed out on reading the end replies before i posted, by mistake - sorry about that folks, i wasn;t meaning to ignore you there :)

[Astrocat]

PeasnHominy:
Why would taking the egg and throwing it away be any less intrusive to the chicken than taking it and eating it.

Peas n Hominy never said that it necessarily would be. They said that it would be "better".

I restate - who needs to go taking anything off anyone ?



I'm not sure that the argument that eating eggs causes harm to humans is an argument that it is unethical.

No, it is not unethical to do something which only harms yourself - that is self-destructive (or self-harming anyway) , but not unethical.


[VeganBlue], where would you get the hens from? They're a product of animal exploitation themselves.

He said a little while ago that he expected that all of his hens would end up being rescued hens from battery-farms (or something to that effect)



I don't understand how you can be so angry (rightly so) about exploitation of animals yet think it is morally/ethically sound to participate albeit at a minimal level (the consumption of rescued "happy" hens' eggs). Consuming these eggs is just the beginning of that long, slippery road to justifying consumption of animal waste, animal by-products and ultimately, animals themselves.

I'm not sure if it's always a slippery slope situation - but certainly i agree that they are all in the same boat, these ways of thinking about others.

[Astrocat]

in case i didn;t make it clear in all of that replying, i do feel that it is "wrong" in an unethical sense to take eggs off rescued hens and eat them for the reason mentioned before by myself and others, that this advocates and condones the consumption of others' bodily fluids and panders to the conditioned belief that others' bodily fluids can be considered "food" if society thinks this is acceptable - ie hen eggs are acceptable, but people would usually never dream of asking their neighbour (for example) for used tampons to suck on.

Think of how many people you have heard announcing that "eating meat is okay since meat is "food" " ?

I agree with feline when she says that even if it might have little to do with the specific ethics of rescued hen eggs then affirming to others that eggs should be considered as food is basically a form of acceptance of animal exploitation - even if it is comparatively at a very low level.

[gertvegan]

Karen Davis the founder of the United Poultry Concern (http://www.upc-online.org) will not eat the eggs even when they come from the chickens on her own sanctuary and even though they have the best life you could imagine for a chicken. She wants people to move away from the idea that their taste has a "right" to be satisfied and that animals in general, and chickens in particular, may be used to satisfy that taste.

This is from "The pig who sang to the moon" by Jeffrey Masson.

[Kelzie]

So what about people using manure instead of fertilizers in their garden? Surely that is using an animal for your own ends as much as taking an egg. But the animal has as much use for its manure as a chicken seems to for its unfertilized eggs.

[snivelingchild]

Driving is dangerous, but it is hardly unethical.

I'd have to disagree with that. ;) Many people view driving a car as unethical. I'd get around all by bike if I could (I don't have a bike). It uses up fuel and pollutes or uses up tons of energy, kills bugs, etc. But that's another topic all together! :)

[snivelingchild]

So what about people using manure instead of fertilizers in their garden? Surely that is using an animal for your own ends as much as taking an egg. But the animal has as much use for its manure as a chicken seems to for its unfertilized eggs.

Well, 1) I don't like manure being used for fertilizer anyway; there are much better ways to grow and it can fertilize whereever it happens to drop, and 2) while a cow CANNOT benefit from it's manure AT ALL, a hen VERY MUCH CAN, by eating it herself, or having it fed back to her as a sort of recycling of nutrients and resources; they are HERS, she looses much nutrition, especially in her older laying years since she has been bred to produce to much, she can have what's HERS and regain much of those nutrients without being as resource intensive.

[Kelzie]

I'd have to disagree with that. ;) Many people view driving a car as unethical. I'd get around all by bike if I could (I don't have a bike). It uses up fuel and pollutes or uses up tons of energy, kills bugs, etc. But that's another topic all together! :)

:p I agree that a car is unethical in the sense of harm to the environment. I was just using it as an example of something dangerous or harmful to humans, that might not be considered unethical. Not in the environmental sense, but the actual risk of an accident when you drive the car. Biking could be used too...after all, there's always a risk some crazy car could hit you. Anyway, the point is that humans can willing do potentially harmful things (*ahem*, eat a cookie) without it being unethical.

[Kelzie]

Well, 1) I don't like manure being used for fertilizer anyway; there are much better ways to grow and it can fertilize whereever it happens to drop, and 2) while a cow CANNOT benefit from it's manure AT ALL, a hen VERY MUCH CAN, by eating it herself, or having it fed back to her as a sort of recycling of nutrients and resources; they are HERS, she looses much nutrition, especially in her older laying years since she has been bred to produce to much, she can have what's HERS and regain much of those nutrients without being as resource intensive.

But then there's the question of if it's ethical to feed something to an animal that's not natural for it.

[snivelingchild]

But then there's the question of if it's ethical to feed something to an animal that's not natural for it.

How can we really say what is natural for such an unnatural animal. That arguement can be said for not feeding a dog entrails, intestines, and bones.

[gertvegan]

So what about people using manure instead of fertilizers in their garden? Surely that is using an animal for your own ends as much as taking an egg. But the animal has as much use for its manure as a chicken seems to for its unfertilized eggs.It is very difficult to eliminate all animal products from ones consumption, just as it is impossible to eliminate all accidental killing etc from our activities. But this cannot justify for using animals for eggs and animals for manure, if one or the other (or both) could be avoided.

[snivelingchild]

Wow, notice how fast this thread has grown? And with out cow fertilizer even! :D

[Peas'nHominy]

What I'm trying to figure out is why all vegans think it's always wrong?

I was just sharing why I think it's wrong. I think it is unethical, but that is in part due to my particular faith/religious beliefs. I believe my body was created by God and is the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, which is also referred to as the temple of God. For my faith, I believe it is wrong and unethical to knowingly harm this temple (ie, my body), which God created, gave life to, and dwells within. I am not preaching that anyone here has to agree with me; it's just that you asked this question and I was/am happy to share with you my two cents. *lots of luv :D * I believe in compassionate living all the way 'round, i.e. including for my self. :)


Why would taking the egg and throwing it away be any less intrusive to the chicken than taking it and eating it.

Yes I think this is about the chicken, but I don't think it's only about the chicken (see above, like I said, my faith), and I don't think it's food! :p *lots of luv with smiles* (and I'm not too sure that we should be taking the eggs at all anyway, even to just throw 'em away...I'm still thinking about it...is there some environmental or health benefit for the hen if we bury the rotting eggs?)

(side note: I know I might be alone in my view here, but that's okay - also I'm enjoying getting to know y'all better. This is a cool thread! :) )