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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask if eggs can ever be vegan

261 replies

GloryforGloves · 10/01/2019 19:09

Before I discuss, let me share the definition of veganism from the Vegan Society website:

Veganism is a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose.

So, I understand fully that the egg industry is rubbish. Hens are confined, even if the box says free range; male chicks born as potential breeders are culled; old chickens are slaughtered. As a meat eater who buys into this, I get it’s shit. So I was wondering about alternatives.

Based on the definition above, I think it could be considered vegan to eat eggs from a rescue chicken who was keep in a happy, free range environment - a large back garden with a suitable setup. You are not breeding the animal for a specific purpose and I wouldn’t consider that exploitation as the chicken would lay regardless - in fact you are saving an animal that would have otherwise be slaughtered.
Instead you provide the chicken a comfortable, safe place to live and you enjoy it’s waste product.

I know some (most?) vegans say no animal product at all - but I think there has to be a reason for that stance - if it’s for ethics, then is this unethical?

What are your thoughts? Could rescued, well loved chicken eggs be considered vegan?

OP posts:
MarcieBluebell · 10/01/2019 19:58

I think it's not vegan however your thoughts show how veganism is very black and white.

People seem to want this label as a vegan even if their own moral code would accept, for example, free range eggs from a garden.

Does the person need the credit of being a vegan more than saying, you know what, I won't be a vegan and just eat no animal products except eggs? It's like a badge of honour to lose which takes president of their own logic.

rabbitfoodadvocate · 10/01/2019 19:59

No.

Nacreous · 10/01/2019 19:59

SirGawain I imagine because the hens existed whether someone rescued them or not and the alternative was their slaughter. No one is running a battery farm just to get rescue hens from it...

Tessliketrees · 10/01/2019 19:59

Maybe by a strict definition that makes me no longer vegan, but by my own morals I still am, and that's what is important to me

You are still a vegan by the most legitimate definition.

Enb76 · 10/01/2019 20:00

Actually, that’s an interesting point about manure. Would vegans use animal manure on their vegetables or check whether animal manure has been used in production. It’s the byproduct of an ‘exploitative’ industry so I’m assuming not.

Original poster
GloryforGloves · 10/01/2019 20:00

bellinisurge I thought the reason honey wasn’t vegan is because bees use the honey for their own energy - so in theory we are depriving them. Why does that mean that eggs are certainly not (in my given scenario)?

OP posts:
MarcieBluebell · 10/01/2019 20:01

Btw I think that daily mail journalist (can't remember her name), calls herself a vegan and eats eggs.

blueskiesandforests · 10/01/2019 20:01

ApatheticPathetic that just in't true, its made up.

If you leave chickens to their own devices genuinely free range in a large garden and with unclipped wings and a propensity to fly over the not especially high wall but only as far as next door's garden to eat the poor lady's vegetables they attract rats and foxes lay every day when in the prime of their lives or at a minimum every two days for the part of the year they are getting sufficient natural light, but not at all in winter.

They lay mostly in their house where the eggs can be collected, but when one "goes broody" she makes a nest in which she hides her own - and sometimes other hen's - eggs in a flowerbed or somewhere and collects one a day until she has whatever she thinks is enough and then sits on them and hatches them if she can/ they're fertilized.

They live years and years and lay until they're fairly elderly, but lay daily in spring and summer for their most fertile couple of years.

donquixotedelamancha · 10/01/2019 20:02

Maybe by a strict definition that makes me no longer vegan

It's 2019, we are past all this 'literal definition' and 'material reality' nonsense. A vegan is someone who self-identifies as a vegan. Anything else is vegaphobic.

Aprilshowerswontbelong · 10/01/2019 20:03

I eat eggs from a work customer's chickens. I always thank the ladies as I collect the eggs and appreciate the meals they provide. I don't feel I abuse them at all.
*Vegi otherwise but doubt could go vegan, every little helps imo.

Ginkythefangedhellpigofdoom · 10/01/2019 20:03

I think not although there are probably vegans who do. I'm not vegan (although I don't eat meat) and don't really have an opinion on others food choices to be honest.

The reason it wouldn't be classed as vegan is probably due to what Iv written below.

Chickens in their natural behaviour don't lay all year they like other birds lay their eggs to breed and do not lay again until they have reared their brood but when we humans take away their clutch so they can't sit on them it interrupts their natural cycle so they continue to lay.

Similarly cows are not meant to produce milk continuously (like dairy cows) just as we and other mammals don't but again we interrupt their natural cycles and behaviours so the milk never dries up. So again it goes against vegan ethics.

StripyDeckchair · 10/01/2019 20:03

I wish people would read the OP. Thanks @GloryforGloves and thanks to those who have read beyond the title - as someone who has recently gone veggie, though not vega, I'm finding this really interesting. This is a carefully thought through, genuine question and deserves an answer that is likewise.

PippilottaLongstocking · 10/01/2019 20:04

Not ‘vegan’ by definition, but they can certainly be ethical enough for people who live a vegan lifestyle to eat them

thecatneuterer · 10/01/2019 20:05

Rescue hens will have been battery hens prior to being “rescued”; how does that promote animal welfare?

Eh? That argument makes no sense. The hens will still have been battery hens whether anyone eventually 'rescues' them or not. The rescuers take on hens which were destined for the slaughter house. It promotes the welfare of each particular hen and doesn't do anything to encourage more battery hens to be kept.

By the same logic if someone were to take on a box of sick puppies that had been abandoned in a ditch by some back street breeder they also wouldn't be doing anything for animal welfare? Of course it wouldn't stop the breeders continuing to breed, but it would certainly help those individual puppies.

springtimeyet · 10/01/2019 20:05

I had thought that a vegan was someone who didn't eat animal products, does the actual definition mean they could eat roadkill they discover?

greenpop21 · 10/01/2019 20:07

I agree with you OP. Eggs laid in this circumstances are ethical.

Tessliketrees · 10/01/2019 20:08

I had thought that a vegan was someone who didn't eat animal products, does the actual definition mean they could eat roadkill they discover?

I would say not because of scavenger animals, that's my initial reaction anyway.

Being vegan can only ever be about drawing your own line and sticking to it.

cjpark · 10/01/2019 20:09

We have a small flock of chickens that we keep as pets on one of our fields. They are completely free-ranging, spoilt rotten and funny little characters. The eggs are collected daily for our own consumption yet it is usually vegan friends who request a weekly box to eat.

Boulty · 10/01/2019 20:10

No

Original poster
GloryforGloves · 10/01/2019 20:11

I had thought that a vegan was someone who didn't eat animal products, does the actual definition mean they could eat roadkill they discover?

That was one of the questions I was asking (in a sense) - if you use the not eating animal product then I think you need to decide why that is. If for ethical reasons they perhaps roadkill would be alright. I think it purely hinges on personal reasons for becoming a vegan.

OP posts:
nicoala1 · 10/01/2019 20:12

Be vegan. But keep it to yourself. Crusading will not work.

I could not care less about eggs and vegans, that's their issue.

But however. I am sure those who wish to be, or are vegan just get on with it really. Thankfully.

greenpop21 · 10/01/2019 20:13

cjpark what do you do about foxes?

FixedIdeal · 10/01/2019 20:13

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster
GloryforGloves · 10/01/2019 20:13

Be vegan. But keep it to yourself. Crusading will not work.

I’m a meat eater. It’s just a question.

OP posts:
Juells · 10/01/2019 20:15

My daughter is vegan but eats eggs from her rescue chickens. She doesn't feed them stuff to make them lay, they just do now and again - I tell her they're just paying for their board and lodging, vet and protection from foxes. A nephew had rescue hens as well, they never seemed to lay any eggs, and then one day he found they'd sneaked way off into the long grass and woven nests and had laid all their eggs there. We're so brainwashed that it's easy to forget that hens are birds just like any other and have all the same nesting instincts :(