Vegans and eggs

[Kelzie]

Actually, I thought rabbit foetuses could be reabsorbed by the mother before they were born, if the environmental conditions weren't OK for raising babies. I didn't think they actually ate their own babies?!?

Where did you read that?

My sister and I had two rabbits when we were much younger. The pet shop guy told us two females. Yeah not so much. After we caught one humping the other, we seperated them, but it was too late. So my sister rabbit had five babies, and they were gone the next day. So I didn't read it, more of personal experience.

[Peas'nHominy]

It was just a way of dealing with them...I could have composted them, I suppose, but rotten eggs are very smelly!

Well, then, I'd say it's good for environment and hen to take the eggs and bury them--- ha, ha ha!!!
But seriously, maybe it would be good for the human to bury the rotten eggs, afterall, it seems like maybe we owe it to them to help them out after what we've done to them, ie breeding them this way. (...still thinking out loud, here ... )

Anyway I was very glad to have had the chance to look after my friend's chickens, because it made me realise how much happier I was without them around. That was before I became vegan, and it was the last time I ate eggs.

Oooh, I love how you post - you make me laugh!

It feels SO MUCH BETTER not to have to depend on animals at all.

I agree!

[John]

OK, I'll sum it up.

A hen has to devote a great deal of metabolism and nutrients from her body to create an egg. Eggs are rather large in comparison to a hens total weight. Egg-laying takes a toll on a chicken's health.

A hen wants to have a nest full of eggs, so she lays eggs until her nest is full. By taking them away one at a time, you trick her into laying them indefinitely.

Chickens have been cruelly bred to lay eggs at an unnaturally fast rate. By stealing their eggs, you are profiting from this selfish breeding.

I'm sure that the hen is not happy to see her eggs stolen.

The eggs are not waste. The are full of nutrients from the chicken's body.

Some people here want to believe it when people who are in the egg business say that a hen egg eating her own unfertile eggs is something unnatural. Why don't you just belive everything that the flesh industry says now? Most mammal mothers eat the placenta even when they are eating a healthy diet. Chickens can and do eat their own eggs.

The eggs are not ours. They belong to the hens.

Keeping chickens for their eggs is not doing charity, or keeping pets, or whatever lie one chooses to believe, it is exploitation.

Since some people who are not vegans yet would rather create doubt than believe the truth, why don't you think about it for a moment. If there is doubt in your mind, why not choose the path where you know for sure that no one is being exploited. If you think that it is impossible or improbable that chickens are being expoited, then you are lying to yourself.

Forget your pride; forget about satisfying your taste for flesh; think about other sentient beings.

[John]

Stop trying to win an argument and start thinking about the other feeling beings with whom you share the earth. Do eggs taste so good to you? Open your heart. Listen.

[snivelingchild]

I really don't think eating the eggs would be unhealthy. Of course, someone who knows about chicken health would be best to anwser this, but the nutrients in the eggs are the exact ones they lack from laying them. In the other instances you mentioned, they would be unhealthy because only one vitamin would be taken, creating an imbalance. I also believe the vets at all the Farm Sanctuaries would say they should not feed the eggs to the hens if it were unhealthy.

You mentioned that composting and feeding to the chickens would be satisfying your own means. Well, I think that composting helps the earth and the soil, not the person who does it, unless there is some other effect I don't know about. And if I were to feed the eggs to the chickens, it would be for their health. I just mentioned that it would save on feed as an extra benefit because someone mentioned how selling the eggs helps pay for the hen feed.

I do not think that eating the eggs themselves and letting the hens eat them are the same. Yes, in both instances you are deciding for the birds, just as you decide for any creature you take care of, like what feed they eat, etc. In one instance, though, you are deciding for them that you should have their eggs instead of them, and in the other you are providing a wonderful way for them to easily use their own eggs.

I really don't see how one can argue that eating the eggs is better than giving them to the hens unless the eggs are unhealthy for them, which I find hard to believe based on the fact that they would be consuming the same exact nutrients as they lost in laying. Of course, a someone with a greater knowledge of hen health would be better suited to answer this, but I don't see any evidence that points to that. Even if it were unhealthy, I still see letting the earth benefit (whether you leave them there, bury them, or compost them) as being better than eating them.

Oh, and about the animals eating their own young, no animal eats it's own young after they are born unless they are sick or diseased and would not survive anyway. This is true for rabbits and hamsters as well as others. Almost all animals have a way of preventing a birth if the environment would not support it by reabsorbing fetuses and/or greatly reducing their fertility. I might be wrong; feel free to correct me if I am, but I am pretty sure that is it.

[Kelzie]

Well if the chicken likes eating their eggs, that's good enough for me. Seems it's just as natural for them as it is for us, and it is theirs in the first place.

Hey on a different note, how do vegans feel about guide dogs? Probably against it huh? Animal exploitation and all...

[gertvegan]

Hey on a different note, how do vegans feel about guide dogs? Probably against it huh? Animal exploitation and all...

Theres any existing guide dog thread, just HERE.

[John]

There's also a manure thread.

[kokopelli]

I understand other people would disagree- so please noone put us back to the starting point by quoting that and saying 'no it's always unvegan to eat eggs'- at the moment what I'm asking for is the production of some kind of ethical reason against the eating if these eggs. Until this is found my view will be that outlined above- it's a matter for the individual vegan to decide.

Shisha Fiend, I feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall, because you have AGREED that the male chicks issue, which applies to ALL hens, is a good ethical reason to avoid eating any eggs, and you have AGREED that rescue hen 'vegan' eggs bolster the chicken industry. If someone GAVE you an intensively produced egg, that would not be financially benefitting the chicken farmer, but presumably you wouldn't want to eat it. But when the hen is no longer profitable, and is given to a 'rescue' place, then suddenly eating her eggs becomes OK, as long as they're given away for free??? Would it also be OK to eat the hen when she had died?

[Shisha Fiend]

Shisha Fiend, I feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall

Me too. Haven't you read my last few posts?

[kokopelli]

Me too. Haven't you read my last few posts?

xxx

Sorry! I got kind of glazed over with all the hens-eating-their-own-eggs stuff.

And I totally agree with all your 'hippy' musings

Where would the 'vegan eggs' idea lead to next?
'Vegan steaks' from cows 'rescued' from the knackerman and left to die 'naturally' in a 'caring' environment after they'd been completely worn out through lifelong exploitation?

[kokopelli]

Shisha Fiend, I'm glad you replied. I wanted to recommend a few books to you, because of what you said about having a 'physicalist' view of the universe, and you were therefore hesitant to express your 'Gaia'-like opinions, as though they were in some way unscientific.

I know what you feel like, because I've felt that way myself. But reading books by Fritjof Capra (a theoretical physicist) in particular, his book 'The Tao of Physics', made me realise the connection between apparently 'religious' or 'spiritual' ideas, and modern physics, which has moved way beyond the mechanistic constraints of Newton and Descartes, the founders of 'classical' physics. It's as though the ancient Eastern spiritual traditions intuitively presaged the discoveries of Einstein, Heisenberg etc. But the insights gained by modern physicists are not really covered in the school curriculum, except at higher levels, which most people don't take up, so the mechanistic worldview prevails, socially and politically.

Another excellent and more recent book by Fritjof Capra is 'The Web of Life', which explains twentieth-century developments such as 'systems theory', 'chaos theory', 'self-organising systems', 'complexity theory' etc., all of which 'provide an extraordinary new foundation for ecological policies that will allow us to build and sustain communities without diminishing opportunities for future generations', to quote the sleevenotes.

I think you'd find his writing very interesting and enlightening and you'd feel less of a freak for having the opinions you do!

And of course 'Gaia' is actually written by the independent scientist, James Lovelock, who based his theory on computer models of a hypothetical world he called 'daisyworld', which showed the self-stabilising properties of systems. However, Lovelock himself has caused a furore in green politics recently by suggesting the only way to avoid devastating global warming at this point, is to switch to nuclear power.

Another excellent and challenging book is 'Wholeness and the Implicate Order', by physicist David Bohm. The ideas about interconnectedness and how language shapes our thinking and reinforces our limited worldview, are fascinating reading, but it does have tracts of impossible-to-follow formulae (for a layperson like me!). It's worth persevering with, though, you can skip those bits and still pick up on his ideas.

Sorry for going right off topic here, but all topics are ultimately interconnected

[Glen]

Just wondering, if a vegan keeps chickens in a safe, natural environment, and uses their eggs, is it considered ethical? We are moving into a new house and were wondering about keeping two chickens in the (huge) garden. Have been looking at this site. I can't see why it wouldn't be acceptable, and most things seem to be down to the individual.

I am vegan because of the way animals are treated so if I had chickens that wouldn't be a problem. However, you do have to clip their wings - for me this is the part I wouldn't find ethical as it is preventing natural functions. Opinions?

[John]

I'm not even going to reply to this one.

[Glen]

:-( Thats a little harsh. I know vegan means animal free lifestyle, but isnt the reason for the lifestyle the cruelty to animals in many cases? Also, I did acknowledge that people have differing opinions on the matter, theres no need to be so dispondant when I was merely trying to get opinions

[boomer]

I'll eat a vegan egg, as long as its made of chocolate and hasn't been squeezed out of a chickens bum then stolen from her.

[Geoff]

Don't forget that for each of the chickens you obtain, a male chick has gone, ALIVE, down a chute into a macerator.

[clawsy]

If i had hens that i had rescued from a battery farm then I would eat their eggs..if i could stomach it, or more likely i would give them to the dog to eat. If you just chucked them out, that would be a waste imo.

But buying the hens is paying those breeding places. Why dont you get hold of a group that knows people who do rescues and tell them you got a space for a couple of hens, they might be really happy to find another spot for some.

[ChartT]

One question to be answered is: do you believe that animals (including birds) are here to benefit us?

If they are here for us, go ahead and enjoy the eggs (although I do not see that as being vegan).

If animals are not here to supply us humans, then why would you want to incorporate eggs into your diet?

There are generally multiple choices to questions like this. I suppose there are conditions under which one might believe that animals are not here for us, but might use eggs provided the bird wasn't damaged or inconvenienced. That could be an ethical choice. But I don't see eating eggs as an action that a vegan would take.

[Glen]

No, I don't belive animals are here for us to use, that is why I am on this forum. However I was asking what the view was on this was, maybe if the hens were rescue hens? I'm sorry, I seem to have offended many people by even asking.

[eve]

:-( Thats a little harsh. I know vegan means animal free lifestyle, but isnt the reason for the lifestyle the cruelty to animals in many cases? Also, I did acknowledge that people have differing opinions on the matter, theres no need to be so dispondant when I was merely trying to get opinions

I like boomer's response Glen, people may have differing opinions on the matter, but vegans share the same view, that is, chickens eggs are for chickens, not for us.

[Stu]

but isnt the reason for the lifestyle the cruelty to animals in many cases?

Well don't you consider wing-clipping to be cruel?

[Kim[ba]]

Don't forget that for each of the chickens you obtain, a male chick has gone, ALIVE, down a chute into a macerator.

And that would be his fault how???

[Kim[ba]]

No, I don't belive animals are here for us to use, that is why I am on this forum. However I was asking what the view was on this was, maybe if the hens were rescue hens? I'm sorry, I seem to have offended many people by even asking.

Well, Glen I think what your discussing fits into cruelty-free, but not really 'vegan', because an egg is still an animal bi-product. If you, personally, are ok with cruelty-free living (and I don't see anything wrong with it) then go for it, and fuck everyone else on veganforum.com if they don't like it/think it's gross. As long as you are happy, and you personally don't judge yourself for it, then what is the problem?

[Geoff]

And that would be his fault how???

I was simply asking that the results of actions be taken into account.
If someone buys a hen, that creates a demand for another one to be bred to take its place, the consequence of which is that a male chick gets killed (in a horrible way)
Rescued hens are a different matter altogether. I've had them myself.

[celtic rose]

We kept hens (rescued from a farm) when I was child.

There's no need to clip their wings, besides being cruel the only flying they did was from the ground to their perches. They had the run of the back garden and loved making dust baths in the flower beds.

Being rescues, they didn't lay for long, only 6-12 months and then lived out the rest of their days scratching around the garden in the sunshine and chasing the cats. When they died of old age they were buried at the bottom of the garden.

If I had hens again there is no way I could eat their eggs now.

[Tigerlily]

Just because you might "own" the hens and treat them nice and fair, that still doesn't give you the right to take their products.

[Shisha Fiend]

[URL=http://veganforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1370&highlight=eggs]

Seriously, read that thread and add comments to it because all of this stuff has been said already.

xxx

[Astrocat]

Would it also be OK to eat the hen when she had died?

This is a good point, and one which i tried to make earlier with little effect - if people are going to accept that Rescue Eggs "can be vegan" then surely the flesh from the dead body of that hen (assuming that she had died of natural causes) would similarly be considered "maybe vegan" to their mind, and similarly with roadkill - since no direct exploitation takes place for either type of flesh to be consumed - other than viewing dead bodies of others as food and using them for one's own benefit.

Whatever anyone here might think personally, this would seem to be the case to me.

You hear of Freegans who claim to be vegan sometimes, because they don't directly pay for the flesh or fluids which they scavenge and otherwise it would be "wasted" by being thrown out, but for obvious reasons they aren;t really vegan at all if they continue to make excuses for why it is okay to treat others' bodies and bodily fluids as food, and continue to devour them accordingly.

I feel that it is a similar situation for "vegan" eggs.

Also worth noting, is that usually when hens are Rescued the owners will simply buy more to exploit in their place.... it makes the whole thing less profitable for the owners which in a way does decrease the exploitation they can cause (by stifling their business like grass choking out a sickly weed) however it is a thing worth considering, that this is what will usually happen.

[webster]

continue to make excuses for why it is okay to treat others' bodies and bodily fluids as food

Thank you for this point - it brought me back to the basics again, which is just where I needed to be. I have been struggling with a few questions/dilemmas lately, and this put it right back in to black and white for me and has helped me immensely. Thank you.

[kokopelli]

This is a good point, and one which i tried to make earlier with little effect - if people are going to accept that Rescue Eggs "can be vegan" then surely the flesh from the dead body of that hen (assuming that she had died of natural causes) would similarly be considered "maybe vegan" to their mind, and similarly with roadkill - since no direct exploitation takes place for either type of flesh to be consumed - other than viewing dead bodies of others as food and using them for one's own benefit.

Whatever anyone here might think personally, this would seem to be the case to me.

You hear of Freegans who claim to be vegan sometimes, because they don't directly pay for the flesh or fluids which they scavenge and otherwise it would be "wasted" by being thrown out, but for obvious reasons they aren;t really vegan at all if they continue to make excuses for why it is okay to treat others' bodies and bodily fluids as food, and continue to devour them accordingly.

I feel that it is a similar situation for "vegan" eggs.

Also worth noting, is that usually when hens are Rescued the owners will simply buy more to exploit in their place.... it makes the whole thing less profitable for the owners which in a way does decrease the exploitation they can cause (by stifling their business like grass choking out a sickly weed) however it is a thing worth considering, that this is what will usually happen.

Astrocat, I did repeat what you said earlier, sorry I don't always read all posts as carefully as I should...

Apart from the disgusting nature of 'Freegans' food choices, a big drawback to their lifestyle as far as I'm concerned, is that they're relying on the culture they ostensibly reject. I believe veganism should be about creating a new culture, free from exploitation. Scavenging through bins for corpses doesn't really help in this respect

[Astrocat]

hey there guys, Webster - I'm glad that what i said has been so helpful to you !
Kokopelli, aw it's okay - you don;t need to apologise, I was just saying how it seemed to be, to me - it wasn't a comment on how i felt that others should have been approaching what i said.
I thought i maybe hadn;t aired out what i was saying enough, and it had slipped by in the flurry of other posts at the time.

And yes, i quite agree.
Although Freeganism isn;t a sub-sector of veganism, they do have their own culture - it just isn;t a vegan one.

"Freeganism is the practice of minimising one's impact on the environment by means of consuming food that has been or is about to be thrown away by someone else (e.g., supermarkets). A freegan may obtain the food by asking a retailer for what is to be discarded or by taking it from waste bins, a practice known colloquially as "dumpster diving" (Wikipedia)

I had thought this was a Freegan was, and this is what the Wikipedia reckons - I'm no expert of Freegans or anything, but if this is indeed the case then their culture may be completely incompatible with veganism, and approached from a totally different angle.

I agree with you, that if people are foraging bins for thrown-away corpses or bodily fluids, this would seem to be counteractive to the fundamental aims of veganism - or at any rate it isn;t helping.

and that is what i reckon

[Billy]

Totally agree with Arti and PFC and Gertvegan (Kiera sayz 'hi!' btw ). Using the quality of an animal's life as a justification for their death, as in "it's alright to eat that animal coz it's had a good life" to me is sick! I don't think I've ever heard a murder inquiry go like: "oh well, the victim was humanely killed thru a shot in the head and she was living it up beforehand. Hell, she was even on a night out when it happened, enjoying herself! So let's leave it and look at some bugger who was less fortunate when they died."
I don't cut any meat eaters, who say they eat only "organic" or "free range" meat any slack. If they are this far aware of the living conditions of animals and still feel it's justified that they eat them, they're even worse than the complete ignorants who eat "meat fortified with antibiotics and growth hormones".
Using marginally better living conditions as an excuse to keep eating animals is totally lame. And as has been said, there are no real regulations for it anyway. That's how an RSPCA "Freedom Foods affiliated chicken farm turned out as being a battery farm without wire between the chickens! As far as I'm concerned, unless the animal involved is a cute, cuddly "pet", that cannot be gained from financially, who is on death's door because of abuse, they do not have to count on the RSPCA for any sympathy, let alone action. And Compassion in World Farming to me is a contradiction in terms.

[PeachyPunk]

I have recently turned vegan, after being a veggie since the age of 8 I was horrified to only recently find out what I was contributing to by consuming dairy products!! I felt so guilty

I live very close to allot of farms that sell fresh eggs though, I can see for myself that the animals are well cared for and live a happy little life on the farm and I have no problem with buying eggs from there.

How many vegans would do the same if they knew the welfare was fine and if not why? Im just interested.

Im not one of these people that wants to be a vagan and stick to it so that im a true vegan I just dont want to consume things that contribute to animal suffering.

[Astrocat]

I'm glad that you asked

Re" "

I live very close to allot of farms that sell fresh eggs though, I can see for myself that the animals are well cared for and live a happy little life on the farm and I have no problem with buying eggs from there."

When i started making my own buying choices i was still vegetarian, and would only buy local eggs from ducks or hens who i could see walking about in peoples' backyards and swimming in the loch and stuff.

I , too, live in a farming community - and I also lived next door to a guy who kept free range hens (who actually were free-range, unlike the pseudo-free-range hens raised in the egg industry) for a long time , so i know that plenty of atrocities are commited upon those chicks and hens and can back that up with direct experience.

- the boys who are born are usually still crushed and of course when the girls' "productivity" slows down their necks are snapped by their captor, or they are hit over the head roughly - then their bodies are sold as "meat". The farmers still breed them to be a fairly defenceless domesticated species, and still do various tricks to force them to lay extra eggs than they would be able to naturally. They are still exploiting animals for human benefit by keeping them in captivity and stealing their waste products to use as food then killing them and selling their flesh, and their customers are still paying them to do that, and making this a profitable way of life for the farmers.

It is not uncommon for farmers who keep hens to kick their hens roughly when they get in their way, rather than simply stepping over them - if they think that nobody is looking.

How many vegans would do the same if they knew the welfare was fine and if not why? Im just interested.

But the welfare of these hens isn;t usually fine at all - that's the issue, so your question is based on a moot point.

More relevant is the discussion of whether hens from "Rescued Hens" kept by vegans would be considered acceptable, there is a rather lengthy topic about that already on the topic of why vegans would not consume these, which you can read here -
http://veganforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1370

Im not one of these people that wants to be a vegan and stick to it so that im a true vegan I just dont want to consume things that contribute to animal suffering.

If you wish to be an ethical vegetarian rather than a vegan then so be it, that is your decision to make.
However, ethical vegetarianism is by definition inconsistent.

[PeachyPunk]

I didnt realise half of what you just told me
Forgive me cause ive only just found out how animals are treated in the mass dairy trade. I think im quite innocent to it all as I just didnt think people could be that crawl but you live and learn.
I must say I wouldnt have a problem keeping my own chickens though, as I would know that they are 100% well cared for and I wouldnt go killing them if they wouldnt lay but seens I dont have the room for that I might have to have a rethink about egg consumption

[Astrocat]

Oh it's okay - you aren't guilty of anything other than asking about the truth, from what i can see, so there's nothing to forgive you for at all.

Really - I'm glad that you asked.

But yeah people really suck sometimes.

I wouldn;t feel comfortable keeping a domesticated breed of a wild animal in captivity and breeding creatures to continue to be domesticated in order to use ie hen's eggs for my own benefit, because this in itself is a form of exploitation.

In a similar way, during the days of widespread human slavery many white men kept dark-skinned slaves for their own benefit... some of the captors treated the slaves humanely, not beating them, letting them get enough rest, feeding them nice food and so forth - but even when their living conditions were reasonable, when asked what the slaves wanted the most usually every one of them would say "I want to be free" ...

I don;t think that anybody, hen or human, would wish to be kept in captivity rather than being free if given a fair choice.
It is true that domestication has forced most hens to be unable to survive in the wild, but i feel that perpetuating this enforced domesticisation is a form of exploitation.

that's just how i feel.
I'm not criticising you, just saying why i disagree with what you had said and trying to explain my way of thinking.

[kokopelli]

I didnt realise half of what you just told me
Forgive me cause ive only just found out how animals are treated in the mass dairy trade. I think im quite innocent to it all as I just didnt think people could be that crawl but you live and learn.
I must say I wouldnt have a problem keeping my own chickens though, as I would know that they are 100% well cared for and I wouldnt go killing them if they wouldnt lay but seens I dont have the room for that I might have to have a rethink about egg consumption

Hi PeachyPunk

like Astrocat said, there's a thread about eggs already...

but I just wanted to say, you might think twice about wanting to keep hens for eggs yourself, because you'd have to think what to do with the male chicks if you didn't kill them, like the commercial egg producers. I have a friend who keeps hens 'humanely' and she ended up with lots of cockerels, which is a pain when they keep crowing, and you have to keep feeding them.

Eggs really aren't all that hard to do without, and then you don't have to worry about all the welfare issues at all!

[dreama]

Sigh...

Well I have a lot of respect for RSPCA and CFWF anyway. They are much better then organizations like PETA that run 'meat is murder' campains which offend more people then they convert. Plus it's not ethnical to keep a cat vegan and indoors which is what PETA recomend.

I've lived with meat eaters (infact I'm still living with meat eatering critters but I make sure they only ever eat free range/organic meat). People like my dad will never go vegan even if he does know the conditions animals are kept in because he thinks people NEED meat. The best I could ever hope really is that he will switch to free range/organic more.

Being vegan is great. The more vegans the better. Unfortunately though we will never convince everybody to be vegan. The best we can hope for really is for a majority of vegans but a few genuinely organic/free range farms for the few people left that THINK they NEED meat to survive plus our carvivorous pets of course. If it was ever illigal to eat meat, people who think they NEED meat would just go black market and its easier to hide a factory farm then a free range farm. I believe in being realistic.

[Billy]

I believe in not being defeatist. While there might be a chance that I won't see the entire planet go vegan within my life time, that doesn't mean I have to condone anyone who thinks they somehow have the right to kill non-humans for their own sake.
It was a PETA campaign that made me go vegan and interested in animal rights. However, I do not agree with their tactics and some of their campaigns any more. But that's a different topic alltogether, which has already been discussed in another thread. Same for the "is it ethical for a cat to be kept indoors and on a vegan diet" argument. All I want to say about that is that - in my experience - it depends on the cat whether or not they'd be happy to live a life indoors and he meat that most cats get is as far removed from their once natural diet as a vegan diet would be. All animals, whether human or non human, need nutrients, and it really doesn't matter in what shape or form it comes, as long as the body can access and process it.

[Korn]

Hi, I split the thread and created a new one based on some of the last posts... here.

[dreama]

I don't think you are doing anything wrong but you shouldn't clip their wings. Not something I would do though. I've given eggs up ages ago. If you like the egg taste I suggest finely sliced tufo tastes really similar. Particularly in a sandwhich with vegan rashers, fried onion and tomato relish.

[Mozbee]

Vegans don't ever eat Animal Products. If Nuclear War Happened and all that was left to eat was tinned Tuna and I ate it I would not be a Vegan in practice. It really *is* black and white. Vegans don't ever, under any circumstances, eat animal products. If people who call themselves "Vegan" eat animal products, they are not "Vegan", they are "people who are lying to themselves"....

Spot on ConsciousCuisine afterall I see eggs as 'fluid flesh'. Left to their own devices hens happily eat unfertized eggs.
Nomatter how 'ideal' the animals enviroment may appear, there is no getting away from the effects of humans non-vegan diets on innocent sentient lives - they are robbed, abused and murdered.

[Nivvie]

I have an aunt that has ducks and chickens (yes, way too many males, at least she lives in the middle of nowhere with all that noise), and while I see them as happy chickens who have a hell of a lot of room and, as far as a captive chicken can have, a happy life, I feel weird about them. They are sweet and friendly, and one of the ducks reglulary goes in the house and sleeps in the dog basket with the dog, but technically, the chickens are an abomination.

They might not have been very swift at flying, but they should be able to fly, and they originate in Asia, so should we have them here at all?
When you see this thing that can just walk and peck, with virtually no chance of evading a cunning predator, it's a million miles away from it's ancestor, the Red Jungle Fowl.
And I don't even want to compare it to chickens that don't even get to walk and peck, and those that live for a brief 38 days.

[Mozbee]

Oh for a time machine, "what era would you like?", I'll opt for the era when woman were seen as goddesses for their life giving powers and humans foraged for food mainly!

[Mozbee]

Let's just be glad we don't live on the chickens side off the cage in one of those grey miserable, sickening factory farms run by humans who fill me with

[Realfood Mary]

I answered why I don't eat eggs on the following thread.
http://www.veganforum.com/forums/sho...p?t=426&page=4

[Mozbee]

And very well answered too

[medus]

But why hen lays an egg if she knows it is not fertilized. Do other wild birds behave the same?

[Realfood Mary]

Humans behave the same. I am having my period right now. An unfertilised egg is a chickens period.