"Free Range" ????

[Tresa (MEAT: No Rx Needed)]

I'm Vegan but what are your thoughts about eating eggs that are from a local, cruelty-free, free range farm?

[Lacy]

I've heard that they're still brutally slaughtered even if they're free range. So I'm pretty much against it either way. But I guess some farms don't do that but I don't know..

[Kamaniya * DO YOUR PART! visit stoppuppymills.org]

PEOPLE, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS "FREE RANGE" !!

"Free Range" vs. Battery Eggs? Good news! It's not an either/or: It's Neither!"

VEGETARIANS, PLEASE TAKE NOTE:
"The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men."
~ Alice Walker, The Color Purple

... this includes all animal products. Please take the next logical step & GO VEGAN! You can do it! And you'll find so much loving support in this very community.

Just 2 days ago I posted a concise blog about this very subject. >> PLEASE CLICK HERE to educate yourselves on THE MYTH OF "FREE RANGE" FARMING!

I spent a lot of time carefully compiling this post as so many of my online friends have asked about this subject. Please take a little time to read it & share the info with your friends & families, for the sake of their health & for the sake of the untold numbers of sentient beings that are suffering horrific cruelty due to so-called "free-range" egg consumption! In the video that's included you'll see 100 hens that have been rescued from a "free-range" egg-production farm on the day that they were scheduled for slaughter, as they were no longer deemed profitable. These are termed 'spent' hens. Please watch it through to the end, it is so enlightening & so well done. In addition, the environmental & health arguments against eggs still apply.

Quotes from >> Peaceful Prairie Sanctuary for Rescued Farm Animals

"As long as nonhuman animals are considered "things", property, &/or economic resources, instead of sentient beings with their own interests, there will be no meaningful changes in the cruelty that billions of them endure from birth to death."

"When animals are kept and used for their eggs, milk, flesh, feathers, and skin, they are deprived of their natural lives. There is simply no way for animals to live free lives in any form of agricultural use."

[Debbie]

I toally agree with the "free range" issues.....and I personally do not eat eggs...I am vegan.....but living with a carni, he still wants eggs and although I educate him all the time I can;t force anything....so we compromise.....I make him buy from a small local farm that treats their chickens like pets....it's the best I can do for the moment.

[The Peruvian-Vegan-Hippie-Freak!!!!!]

This subject really makes me mad. Im Vegan and to me it is no ok to eat an egg period. To me it makes absolutely no different at all if the hen was 100% free of cruel treatment. Why?
Because the hen did not lay an egg thinking " awww my human is soo nice im going to sacrifice myself and lay an egg just for him/her to eat it". It lay an egg because its a natural way of reproduction.
So why would I eat an egg if its role is not meant to be eaten but to be another beautiful creature; if the hen did not lay the egg for me to eat it but to be a mother. And who am I to deny them such????? Especially me, who i'm a woman and I some day wish to have a baby and get in the amazing road of motherhood, and there's nobody I'd let take that away from me...

"When the egg is laid, some embryonic development has occurred and usually stops until proper cell environmental conditions are established for incubation to resume. At first, all the cells are alike, but as the embryo develops, cell differences are observed. Some cells may become vital organs; others become a wing or leg."

~http://msucares.com/poultry/reproductions/poultry_chicks_embryo.html

[Dawn]

Have you ever owned a chicken??? They could care less what happens to their eggs, they will lay one everyday 365 days a year, they lay them while sitting in trees, they lay them while crossing a road....This is why people do not listen to anything vegetarians are vegans say, you have a valid arguement, chickens are treated like hell in battery houses and growing farms...but please, get your facts straight before you state your arguement, eggs have nothing in common with you having children, eggs are eaten by many predators here on the farm, snakes, weasels, ahhhh the chickens themselves(you wouldn't eat your baby would you??) dogs, cats, coyotes, coons, possoms....the chickens do not care, they lay eggs even if they are not fertile, even if there is not a rooster within miles!!!!

[Charles]

Your indication that a chicken does not care for its eggs is not entirely grounded. What you appear to be discussing is the chickens passing of an "non-fertile" egg, which will not develop into a chicken. The passing of that egg is no different than a woman passing her egg non-fertilized - and not to be gross, but some guys can ingest this egg when in the process of pleasing a woman. I am a Vegan and choose not to eat eggs for several reasons: 1. I don't find them appealing. 2. I don't know how to communicate with the chicken to ask its permission. 3. There are health related issues to consuming animal products.

Now, if the egg is fertilized you will find that the chicken cares a great deal about that egg - it is a mother at that point. If you have ever grown up around chickens that hatch from eggs (not this factory farm crap) in a natural (as natural as captive birth can be) setting you would see this with your own eyes.

So let's now get to the real question: If the egg is a waste product, what is the problem with eating it?

As a Vegan I have no problem with people using waste products, that is a very natural and sustainable way of life. However, how you obtain the waste product or other things is the question. To eat a waste egg, you need to first know it is a waste egg (non-fertile) which means you would have to keep the chicken in captivity (slavery) or follow it around every second of the day (stalking, boring). So if you figured out it was waste egg by following it around all day, then you need to get some kind of buy off (telepathy, learn to speak chicken, wait for it on chicken ebay, etc) from the chicken that it doesn't mind you eating the egg - you need to communicate with the chicken to ask for its permission, which I have hard enough time trying to learn a little french much less learning to speak chicken. Okay so let's assume you followed it around all day, you can communicate with the chicken and it has given you permission, now can you eat it - sure why not, but would you really want to?

[pradtf]

hi michaela!

from the perspective of vegan philosophy of not imprisoning, exploiting, abusing or murdering sentient beings, keeping chickens as 'pets' or 'animal companions' is fine (particularly if they are rescued). i even think it is ok to sell their eggs (that they will produce anyway - some people don't realize that) in order to help pay for their expenses. (eating the stuff of course is really and totally grossoutness!)

however, one traverses rather dicey vegan grounds if one keeps them for one's own agricultural benefits because that could be construed as exploitation. i'm sure that's not what needs to happen of course, because i do not necessarily see anything wrong with co-existence where both parties mutually benefit (within reason and honesty). what you call the 'divine order' is termed by some as symbiosis which runs rampant throughout nature though some people don't want to believe it.

btw, my associations with a very experienced bio-dynamic farmer revealed a very interesting observation on his part. when i asked him how he dealt with bugs, he said he likes to let bugs organize things for him. specifically, he lets them take out the weaker plants leaving the better ones. nice to know we have friends in so many places!

in friendship,
prad

[Moonlite]

Eggs gross me out, but if i were to buy them from a place like that, i'd be wondering where they buy the chickens from, and what happens when they no longer lay eggs. If they breed them, i'd wonder what happens to male chicks :-/

[Miranda [TerraFire]]

Very good point.

[Dawn]

Male chicks??? They are thrown into the trash. Stuffed into garbage bags to die. Only the pullets are worth money to commercial hatcheries, UNLESS you are speaking of Broilers, which is worse for the bird, they are males bred to reach slaughter age at 6 weeks. They become so sick and weak, that they usually die from heart failure before they can be slaughtered. I rescued a "Broiler" once, he was a sweet bird, but his size was such a problem for him, he could no longer walk, had constant battles with colds, and was so miserable that he could not make it. King Kong as we named him, would sit in your lap and "purr" like a cat, his loss hurt even my hb.

[Debbie]

My husband still eats eggs...I won't buy them but I make him go to a local farm to buy his eggs..I won't allow any other kind in my house. I have visited the farm and these chickens are truely free range.

[Miranda [TerraFire]]

The short version? "No." Because I just don't believe that if you're not raising them yourself you can be absolutely sure that what goes on in regular "free range" farms isn't happening at a local one.

The longer version:

http://students.washington.edu/careuw/freerangemyth.pdf
http://www.veganoutreach.org/freerange/
http://www.peta.org/mc/factsheet_display.asp?ID=96
http://www.cok.net/lit/freerange.php
http://www.tryveg.com/cfi/toc/?v=04myth
http://www.peacefulprairie.org/freerange1.html
http://candi2400.blogspot.com/2007/01/free-range-eggs.html
http://members.aol.com/wraithen/freerange.html
http://www.consumerfreedom.com/news_detail.cfm/headline/3411
http://www.vegsource.com/jo/qa/qaeggs.htm
http://www.vegansociety.com/html/animals/exploitation/hens.php
http://www.veginfo.org/answer.php
http://veganfreaks.org/index.php?id=93
http://www.animalperson.net/animal_person/2007/06/a_rare_glimpse_.html