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Loading...How to Be an Ethical Egg Eater
It’s hard to argue with vegans’ reasons for excluding eggs from their diet. To start, laying hens are crammed into wire cages that allow each hen a living space less than the size of an 8 ½” x 11″ sheet of paper. Virtually every natural behavior is thereby thwarted, including nesting, scratching, foraging, preening, dust-bathing and simply flapping their wings. Disease runs rampant, the stench of ammonia from feces saturates the air inside the shed and carcasses are left lying among the surviving hens. At only two years of age, after being forced to produce more eggs in that time than their bodies are designed to handle, these hens are “spent” and so sent to the slaughterhouse for processing.
There’s also the horrifying fact that for every laying hen subjected to this systematic abuse, there is a male chick — more than 200 million of them every year – that’s killed the day it’s born, tossed into a trash bag to suffocate or ground up by a macerator while it’s still alive. Why? Because it can’t lay eggs (being male) and won’t grow fast enough to be profitably raised for meat (having been born as a layer versus a broiler chick). These are the widespread practices of an egg industry focused on maximizing profits at any cost to animal welfare and ethical responsibility.
Nonetheless, ethical egg eating can be done under the following circumstances:
1. The Egg Comes from a Free and Happy Hen
A happy hen has a comfortable place to live and is free to engage in every natural behavior that occurs to her, including broodiness (see #4 below). As she would in the wild, she lives among several other hens and a rooster. She’s well cared for and raised by a local farmer you trust or by yourself in your own backyard, in which case she can be considered part of your family, a beloved pet like any other.
2. The Egg Is Unfertilized
This addresses the fundamental moral issue of taking a life to satisfy one’s appetite. As explained by Umbra on Grist, “It is not my opinion but rather a fact that if a hen’s egg has not been fertilized by a rooster, no embryo or chick will form.” So no life will be taken by eating an unfertilized egg. A hen will lay eggs regardless, and “in the wild,” according to Library Index, “the hen would leave infertile eggs to rot or be eaten by predators.”
You can “candle” eggs, or hold them up to a light, to figure out which are fertilized and which are not, according to LocalHarvest.org. The ones that appear opaque are fertilized.
You can ensure that hens will lay only infertile eggs by keeping roosters off the premises, away from the hens, but would that be ethical? I spoke with one farmer, Nigel Waters of Eatwell Farm in the Sacramento Valley, who produces pasture-raised, free range, organic eggs, and he believes that his hens could easily do without any roosters around. But another farmer, Stephanie Alexandre of Alexandre EcoDairy Farms in Crescent City, California, argued that her roosters are integral to the social order on the farm, helping to protect the hens and keep them in line, and of course sounding the wake-up call for all. “In natural conditions,” as explained on Library Index, “chickens tend to live in small groups composed of one male chicken… and a dozen or more female chickens.”
At any rate, while well-meaning eaters may choose to eat only infertile eggs, they are nonetheless also implicated in whatever becomes of the eggs with actual prospects for life. So let’s consider that next.
Next: Chicks (Male and Female) Are Nurtured, Free and Happy
Read more: animal welfare, battery cage, chicks, egg industry, eggs, ethical eating, factory farms, hens, laying hens, vegan
Photos Courtesy of Thinkstock
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may
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Wendy, how does one "rape" a hen to get their eggs? Have you any knowledge of raising hens or gathering eggs at all? Hens will lay no matter what. They do not eat their own eggs unless starving. If the eggs are not fertile, and not "gathered", they will either become food for other predators or rot. Yes, hens need calcium to be replaced in their feed, which is why those who raise them will add ground up egg shells to their chicken scratch. I add it to wild bird feed.
Hope, this issue goes beyond eating someone's eggs. It speaks to taking advantage of someone who, if they did not give consent, you would not listen to. It speaks to the fact that other sentient beings have no agency in their lives; that even on organic farms most, if not all, chickens are murdered when "spent." That their lives essentially belong to someone else, based on that someone's interests. that's slavery, and that's exploitation. And -- the worst part is, or maybe the best part, because that means it doesn't have to be that way -- it's all so unnecessary these days.
if you wouldn't treat a human this way, don't treat another animal this way. that's the best way to look at it.
How to be an ethical rapist.
Animals do not exist for human beings. How difficult is that to understand? We have proven that, as a species, we cannot coexist with other animals without torment and exploiting them.
(Chickens also will eat back their own eggs to replenish their calcium, so no, you cannot eat eggs ethically.)
Any hope for humane cheese?
We were over the fertilization-issue, the main point with Hope F. was sexing.
Of course you are far from ranting, and not unlikely you will find some more grammatical or orthographical mistakes in my comments.
Christian, I'm sure some admire your dedication to your "crusade" to lay a big guilt trip on everyone who eats eggs and you seem to think that the consumption of unfertilized eggs is a rarity. Actually, it's the pposite. I'll be the first to agree that if you don't do your homework and understand how to read labels, it's easy to purchase (and consume) eggs from farm where hens are not treated humanely. However, the point here is that we DO need to become educated in how to read labels and cartons containing eggs. There is no justification for your latest "rant" and your comparison to shooting one in the head is ludicrous.
As I said in my first comment this is not about eating an unfertilized egg "on occasion", whoever would want to do this for whatever reason. It's about systematic "raising" and NOT caring for the chicken's concerns.
The (wasted) lives that are furthermore connected to eating eggs (appart from raising/exploiting other beings) are due to "chick sexing". Claiming that there are eggs out there that come without sexing is correct - but deducing that many of us could be "ethical egg eaters" is like claiming there are people that survived a shot to the head and then pulling the trigger.
OK... If the eggs are not fertilised (and it is only the American spelling which uses a "z" - I'm Australian, I use English spelling) they are the equivalent to a human ova without sperm, so to suggest that these unfertilised eggs are "lives" is the same as telling women that failing to fall pregnant every month is murder.
As someone who has worked on various organic smallholdings in various parts of the world and owned chickens at home, I can safely say that most chickens couldn't care less about what you do with their eggs. They're only interested in running off to chase the next juicy frog or grasshopper and argueing over the who gets the mulberries which have fallen to the ground. Unless a chicken has gone broody, she will leave her eggs wherever they've been laid until they are taken, eaten by another animal or broken and smooshed into the ground.
If chickens are raised and cared for in a manner that caters to their natural behaviours and biological needs, I can't see a justification of demonising the eaters of their eggs (which would otherwise go to waste).
Wow... the comments... I never realised that some people on this site were so bad at being respectful of each other. Or reading. Seriously, if you can TYPE, you can READ. Try reading your peers' words and gaining some level of understanding of what the letters mean before you reply kids. It might speed things along a little.
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