To ask if eggs can ever be vegan

[GloryforGloves]

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?

No.

At the point the chickens are acquired, they are going to be either (a) killed or (b) rescued. The chicken farmers really do not care which - they are getting “fresh” chickens at that point regardless.

It is a flawed analogy. Unlike the fur, the chickens are still alive.

That response was to speakout not the PP.

I assume that question is directed towards the purely urban. I want to direct the question to people in general.

I'm vegetarian and have been for about 30 odd years
I occasionally follow a vegan diet
Also I am trying to have less and less dairy
.I actually enjoy 'other"milks more now

Anyway,
I few years ago I rescued some ex battery hens who would have been slaughtered. They led happy ,totally free range lives until they dies. They all laid an egg every day which we had.

Not exactly vegan I agree. But we weren't taking something that the hens "wanted"
They didnt eat the eggs.

I considered that the most ethical and moral way to ever eat eggs.
I wouldn't go out and buy chickens for eggs specifically
But this was different

A totally committed strict vegan wouldn't agree I know ,but as a life long veggie I cannot change the world but I'm doing more than my fair share for animal causes
I'm.happy enough my choices and that I'm.doing a lot more than most.

@derxa
My point is, having a semi-rural family means there are plenty of home grown veges (we do grow our own in suburbia, but not enough on our own).

There is enough manure produced by well loved rescue chickens and horses, none of whom are ever killed (unless some dimwit left an egg in the coop, attracting a snake, which might kill a chicken while they’re at it).

Qwerty Your way of life sounds great.

You could ague that if you want to be "truly" vegan you should not be using phones, laptops or devices.
Most of these contain stearates- used as adhsives- derived from animal carcasses.
If you are using a device to post here you are supporting the meat industry and using a piece of dead animal.

Or indeed take a bus, as tyres contain materials from animal carcasses too.

Eat eggs = chickens die

Don't eat eggs = chickens don't die.

You can make the choice,and that is your choice. If you are bothered by it the best way to stop it is to just stop buying it.

I don't know about vegans and manure, but I would expect that it would depend which vegans you asked as there seem to be different opinions within the vegan community on other animal products such as wool.

@LunaLunitaLunera have you actually read anything at all that's been written above? Yes of course, when you buy eggs from anywhere that is absolutely correct, but eating the eggs that someone's rescue hens have laid makes absolutely no difference whatsoever to hen welfare and does not cause any extra harm.

I don't understand if it's your comprehension that's lacking or you are just not reading. If you have a valid argument to make as to why eating the eggs of someone's rescue hens does cause harm then please share it with us, but do us a favour and actually read what's been written first so that we're not going over the same ground.

My friend has chickens becuase she finds them adorable and sweet. They lay eggs and if you don't move them they either get eaten by them or just make a big mess.
Shes the only vegan I know who eats eggs but I think its completely fair and okay to do so in regards to the situation x

I had an exchange with a woman on FB about "vegan wool." She shared a scarf she'd knitted, which was very beautiful, and I asked her what the yarn was. She said it was her own vegan wool yarn. I asked what the yarn was made from, and she said wool. 😒 I asked how it was vegan, and she said it was from her own sheep, which are treated humanely, and therefore the wool was vegan. 🙄

I let it go, but, that's not how that works...

@Mushroomsarehorrible Ah it's interesting that the Vegan Society say that. It sounds a lot like bollocks to me. People can make their own ethical decisions which should of course be based on as much knowledge and understanding of the subject as they can get, and can choose to disregard certain opinions such as those you quote, or that vegans shouldn't keep pet etc if they think they are misguided or spurious. No one needs to be bestowed a label from an outside body, it's up to the individual to live by their principles. A label is handy shorthand.

Imagine I go to a restaurant or to someones dinner party and I'm asked about dietary requirements. I reply I'm vegetarian. So I'm then offered dishes with milk/cheese/eggs, but I then say I can't eat any of that as the only non plant based food I will eat are eggs from Tracy Munroe of 12 Winchester Road's 4 rescue hens, that really won't help them to cater for me will it? So much easier to say I'm a vegan as practically, and by my own ethics, that's what I am.

Eat eggs = chickens die

This is also not how this works.

thecatneuterer as I said, cherry picking

@Peacocking my pets kept by my choice for my pleasure.

You would have a point if that were the case. However anyone who rescues animals has a choice. Either they take the animal on, or the animal dies. This is particularly true in my case - I'm with a rescue and I take on unhomeable cats. So either I take them and feed them with cat food (which is generally a by product of the human meat industry) or the cats have to be put down.

In an ideal world I would like there to be no cats at all. The tiny minority that have happy homes are far outweighed by the huge numbers of those that suffer as strays and ferals. But we're not in an ideal world, so I work hard to make sure that as many as possible are not reproducing and that those that are already here are cared for as well as possible. I do not see that this conflicts with my vegan ethical principles of 'cause no animals harm'. If you're talking about the environmental aspect of veganism then I suppose yes, all unwanted cats should be killed, but it's hard to argue that unwanted cats should be killed as buying cat food causes more harm.

Luna I have to agree with thecat, I’m not sure you read my post... These eggs would not be laid unless someone gave these rescue chickens a home (because the chickens would be killed).

Once the eggs are laid, they are laid. In 25 years, I’ve never known a well-nourished chicken to want to eat it’s own eggs

If you leave the egg there, you are practically asking for a snake to go in. A harmless snake which cannot hurt a person can kill a chicken.

I’m more than happy for the term “vegetarian” to be used for a person who consumes this egg but no other animal byproducts, I’ve already explained that.

@derxa thanks, when my arms ache from mucking out (shovelling horse poo) I might disagree we’re lucky though - not everyone has enough space to do it

Even the Vegan Society have to have boundaries to their ethics, unless they advocate that vegans shouldn't reproduce (actually they may well do that, I shall go and check!)

Food production, of ANY sort, impacts on animals. Even if it doesn't involve direct killing (which most food production systems do, for pest control purposes etc) then the impact of human lifestyles on the global environment is devastating. So there is some level of hypocrisy built in to all of our choices.
My view is that eggs are not strictly vegan, but they can be consumed ethically if you're not bothered about a label for your lifestyle. I however also believe that meat and dairy consumption can be ethical.

QwertyLou our rescue chickens would go crazy for an eggshell, and on a very rare occasion a hen would develop the habit of starting in on her own eggs. But it wasn't frequent.

Let's be honest, an egg is an easily available, highly nutritious easily consumable food source, no wonder lots of animals seek them out in the wild. Eggs are an important food source throughout the food chain, for birds and mammals and reptiles etc etc. Huimans are no different, it's just we have found an efficient (and cruel) way of mass producing them.

Eggs are the only reason I don't become vegan.

I have been vegetarian for over 30 years. Have switched to oat milk because I don't like cow's milk. Have Alpro soya yoghurt. I don't eat cheese because I don't like it.

I love eggs though. Me and DH eat about 12 eggs a week between us. I tried not eating them and just missed them so much. They make such lovely meals

We do get our eggs from a neighbour though whose chickens have free run of her large garden. That makes me feel slightly less guilty

freefromharm.org/farm-animal-welfare/backyard-chickens-expanding-understanding-harm/

Organic
Inside space: 10 birds per square metre (sqm)
Outside space: one bird per 4sqm
Birds are given good natural light and the most space to roam around indoors, and are encouraged from an early age to roam free-range. Slower growing breeds are used, which means birds develop at a natural rate. They eat organic food and individual birds are only given antibiotics if absolutely necessary.
Soil Association is generally considered the highest welfare organic certification.

Free-range
Inside space: 10 birds per sqm
Outside space: one bird per sqm
Birds are given natural light and more space to roam around, and are also encouraged to roam free-range.

RSPCA assured
Inside space: 15 birds per sqm
Outside space: not always required
Chickens can be free-range (as above) or indoor-bred, and this will be clearly labelled. The indoor-bred chickens have significantly better lives than intensively reared chickens – with natural light and natural enrichment (perches, objects to peck at such as straw bales and vegetables).

Red tractor
Inside space: 19 birds per sqm
Outside space: not required
This is the most common food safety standard required by most retailers. Their animal welfare standards are inline with the minimum required by law, which are widely considered to be insufficient. This means chickens are too tightly packed into barns, don’t have to be given natural light, and can be bred to grow unnaturally fast.

Kosher and halal
When it comes to chicken welfare, these are mainly concerned with the slaughter method. Kosher forbids the use of stunning. Halal requires the animal to be alive at point of death, but it is often stunned first.

British/ corn fed/ fresh
Meaningless terms when it comes to animal welfare.

If you are not vegan, it makes sense to eat the eggs from the hens that you care for in your garden. That would be the kindest option. It's better than nothing imo.

The hens are killed in their billions once spent. I don't think that new information to be honest. Ie eat eggs = chickens die. That's a fact I'm afraid. The males have already been killed.

Luna, you are still not understanding or answering the question. You are 100 per cent right about the egg industry. But rescue hens were going to be killed anyway, so how does eating their eggs cause any extra harm?

Just address that question and then we can probably agree to disagree and call it a day, but you're talking about the egg industry, and we aren't and so your arguments are pointless.

It’s still speciesism (spelling?! Sorry not English first language), whereby we feel in the right to take things from animals for our own use or benefit. We still take the egg and in that way the chicken is exploited.

But many non-human species make use of other species for their own benefit. Isn't it speciesist to say we are the only species who can make moral choices?

Veganism is very much the thing among my veggie DD's friendship circle. She told me about some vegan friends who chow down on kangaroo because a) it's a nuisance b) not farmed. Both are true, but the same applies to to rabbit, which doesn't provide such nice steaks.Nor is it so very widely available.

@echt Well that really is taking the argument too far!! A meat eating vegan - I really have heard it all now (although the jury is still out on road kill ...)