"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?

[Ezra]

All,

I jumped in on this discussion because someone suggested that it was REALLY REALLY important to do so. So I did. And in writing my responses,and in reading lots of opinions, I've concluded that people here have not really examined their vegetarian or vegan views very thoroughly. This is a big disappointment.

I've read many posts saying things like "I won't eat someone's babies, " or "eggs are gross, and why would you eat feces-covered chicken menstruation?" Look people, chickens don't menstruate. Chickens don't have a uterus. Only mammals are capable of menstruation, and humans are essentially the only mammals who do. This is not an argument against eating eggs. And for that matter, you all know that in eating vegetables from an organic farm, you are probably eating horse, cow, worm, and other animals' feces, unless you wash your veggies as thoroughly as the eggs (that you don't eat) are normally washed.

I'm sorry if this sounds crude, but by the same argument that it's wrong or gross or nasty or illogical or unethical or unhealthy to eat eggs because the eggs are potential little chicken lives for the mother chicken's use and the chicken's use only, it also stands to reason that it's wrong to discard your menstrual fluid, because, by golly, it contains eggs, potential little lives! And for that matter, it's wrong to discard human ejaculate, because all those sperm are potentially viable children, if given the chance to fertilize a human egg. And don't tell me you've never done this...

So let's get the story straight. The issue is whether "free-range" is any better than "not free-range," not whether eggs are life, whether they're gross, whether they make you fat, or give you cancer or hypertension, or whether there's something inherently wrong with eating eggs.

Like I wrote in my first post, the issue is one of splitting hairs, not one of right or wrong. I think we all feel that we would be a lot happier raising all our own food, right? Isn't that the only way to know whether it's truly cruelty-free? And cruelty-free, other health issues aside, is the reason why we're vegetarians and vegans, right?

So instead of using scare tactics and emotional false analogies like the Conservative Right has recently been known to do, maybe we can stick to the facts and have us a good ol' fashioned debate, and get back to the hair-splitting.

e

[grace2maine]

I say there is no difference. It's not better to eat "free range" because that moniker is pretty bogus and meaningless.

[Hunger Artist]

By saying chicken period, I meant it as more of a humorous analogy than literal fact :)

To that end, I do agree with what Ezra is saying, and I'm not big on scare tactics either. That just turns people off from listening to what you have to say.

Vegetables can be dirty and hormone laced, and even genetically engineered, so I don't really see those things as a strong argument specifically against meat (although it is a decent argument if you are properly prepared for rebuttals).

[FeebleScreams]

I just generally think that eggs were not created for us to eat. Nothing from an animal was...

[vegan gaz]

if chickens are free range then the chances are at some stage a hens will become fertilized by a cock and you'll end up with a fetus in your pan.(can be a bit of a surprise for first timers)
if however the 'owner' of the chickens ops for a cock free free range farm ,then you may depend if you see 10 chickens 9 cocks will have been killed at birth, or worse, sent to fight.(they often keep one to share all year round amongst local breeders which leads to inbreeding and often results in an extra leg or two on some chicks) (they dont normally live to long) bit unsitely when your trying to sell eggs.
does this mean its ok to steal eagle or ostrich eggs, how about the odd croc or turtle, since these truly are 'free range'.
my limited understanding of us eating eggs is that they contain to much concentrated protein, ask your man if he sees air bubbles floating in his pee, i am led to understand this is a sign of the body getting rid of excess protein.
caviar anyone?

[Ezra]

Vegan Gaz,

If this forum is going to be productive, peoples' comments need to avoid emotional appeals and anecdotal evidence for their positions.

While it may be true that some farms are responsible for the killing of cocks that the farm does not need, we can't say that every farm does this. If running a cock-free farm is the only way we can be sure that a hen's egg has not been inadvertently fertilized, and if the only way to run a cock-free farm is to kill each unwanted cock at birth, then we have a viable argument for vegetarians to avoid eggs. If, however, this is not the practice of every free-range farm, then we do not have a viable argument, but an incentive to inquire of each farm from which we might want to purchase eggs what their particular practices are.

Your rhetorical question about "stealing" eggs from turtles or eagles or whatever holds no water. These creatures are not "free-range," but wild. There are at least two reasons for the distinction. The chickens you might find on a farm would not survive in the wild, as they were not bred to live in the wild. One cannot breed an animal to live in the wild. Breeding by nature removes most of evolution from the equation. Secondly, the animals you mentioned are, by and large, wild animals, as in, not domesticated. Harvesting their eggs would be known as "gathering," not harvesting, and could quite possibly be illegal, depending on the species. Is it for the reason you insinuate, then, wrong to "gather" plants that you might find in the wild? Aren't those plants having their lives cut short and their genetic material removed from the gene pool by intrusive humans? Should we only stick to cultivated plants and domesticated animals? Can we even apply this same logic to plants and animals, and if so, why?

We really need to tread very carefully when we try to draw analogies between non-analogous situations regarding food. There are many emotions tied up with food and how we get it, especially on a site like this. It's always best to leave your emotions out of the argument, as they do not strengthen it, and usually turn people off, even people who are ostensibly of the same mindset as you (vegetarian).

[vegan gaz]

ezra,
i apologize, i am new to forums and am slowly learning how to behave :)
i certainly wouldn't want to put people off .
i would be interested to know your thoughts though on where the fertilized eggs or the adult cocks are?(i cant be the only person that has noticed a complete lack of cockerels on egg farms)?
is the dairy farmer inocent of killing male calf's because they are not killed 'in house'?
i did not mean to insinuate it is any more wrong to eat a turtle egg that of a domesticated bird,
a life is a life.
ill shut up now.

[Sara]

I'm vegetarian not vegan but I believe if at all possible you should grow/raise the food you eat, that way there is no confusion on how the animals are treated or whats in your food. I completely understand if you live somewhere that would keep you from doing so, but if you do live in the country raise your own chickens, ducks or geese if you eat eggs, then you know you are treating them in a loving humane manner. Same with milk, but chickens are easier to keep than cows :) Also, I know people who live in the city but have a part ownership in a cow or flock of chickens on a farm in the country. Thats how we do it in PA, so I dont know how you guys do it where you live but its a pretty neat idea, I think.

[Hunger Artist]

That's how I got my eggs when I was a kid. I had family who owned a bunch of chickens and ducks, so we would eat those eggs.

But I avoid eggs most of the time now, since I don't have that option anymore.

Thanks for that info! I think that there is nothing wrong ethically with eating eggs if they are procured in a compassionate way. I just wish they weren't so unhealthy, or I would eat them more often.

[Cassandra]

Most of the time I eat eggs from my pet chickens. I only buy free range from the store when my chickens are not laying any eggs. Also, my chickens have had baby chicks before but there's no way I will sell or give any of the roosters away without the people promising to keep them as pets, not food. I would even make somebody sign a paper promising not to harm any rooster that is sold or given to them by me before they get the rooster.

[peace person]

It's actually standary industry practice for all male chicks of laying hens to be killed on the day they are born. Most farms including free-range farms get their baby chicks from hatcheries, and they are the ones who do the killing. They are chucked into huge bins once their sex is determined, and killed in batches by gassing or maceration (according to codes of practice), or if they've been unlucky to be one of the first in the bin, by suffocation under their brothers.

The males aren't kept for meat, because the breed of laying hens is different from meat chickens. Meat chickens are bred to grow really really quickly to be slaughtered at about 6 weeks old. Because it's all about money money money, the laying hen males would grow too slowly and it wouldn't be economical to keep them till they were big enough to eat.

This isn't hearsay! The industries themselves will admit it is standard practice.

If you have purchased hens to keep in your back-yard from a breeder, then it is almost certain that for each hen you have bought, a male chick was killed.

There is one situation I can think of, where I can't see any ethical or animal suffering issues with keeping hens. If hens have been rescued from the cages, overcrowding and filth of commercial egg farms (break-ins for this purpose are fairly common), this is to be commended. They will need to be rehabilitated and find a new home to be adopted into. There's one picture I've seen of a hen who was filthy, skinny and half bald, with most of her remaining feathers bent and twisted, just rescued from a battery cage. Then there's an "after" shot of the same hen some time later, sitting in the grass, covered in beautiful white feathers, plump and healthy looking. From this it seems rescued hens can thrive once rehabilitated. If you have a large yard, with lots of trees and bushes (I've heard hens don't like to be open to the sky to much) with protection from predators, then you could adopt some rescued hens and leave them to live their life in peace. If they leave their eggs behind, very well, you'll have to pick them up and dispose of them somehow if you don't want them to rot and smell.

I wouldn't eat eggs, though, ever, not after 7 years of not having any. It just seems wrong to eat any bodily product from any animal. I can't explain why exactly. So if you had adopted some rescued hens, and still don't find eating bodity products wrong per se, then there would be no ethical issues as far as I can see with eating their abandoned eggs.

[Hilary]

I personally do not see a reason not to eat eggs IF and only if the farm you are eating them from is a BACKYARD farm, meaning that it is a farm with organically raised chickens that do not mate with roosters. Their eggs are not fertile in that case, and the chicken won't even nest when she lays her eggs. The eggs will be organic, with no hormones, and won't have had the chance to be fertilized. Plus, the chickens are pets! :-) Chickens make good backyard pets. Very sweet, smart animals.

I'd also like to say that, as I am very very VERY involved with the incubation of bird eggs (I hatch and raise babies that have been abandoned), even the fertile egg is not technically alive when it is first laid. It is exactly the same as an infertile egg with the exception of the germinal disc. However, if you did know about incubation, you'd know that a fertilized egg can be kept in cool, moist temperatures for up to 2 weeks with no decreased hatchability. Therefore, the baby has not begun to develop and therefore cannot die before the egg has been warmed to a certain temperature for a certain length of time!

However, I do agree that stealing fertile eggs from under a chicken is not nice. However, if we did not do some amount of "birth control" in birds, especially city birds with large populations (pigeons), it would risk MATURE BIRDS' LIVES!!! Pigeons, for example, are so populated that THEY ARE BRUTALLY SHOT AND KILLED EVERY DAY IN LARGE CITIES. When the birds are offered nesting boxes and this "birth control" is used, however, the population naturally goes down or stays at a good limit (they do let the birds raise some babies, just not all the time you see) and the birds are not killed.

While I agree that humans shouldn't be messing around with these birds just because they're intelligent and are able to adapt well to urban life, I think this ties into chicken keeping as well... If you didn't know as well, chickens lay their eggs, 1 every 2 or 3 days, and do not sit on their nest until they have a full clutch. A young chicken sometimes will lay her eggs in many different places and never nest at all. Therefore, unless the eggs have STARTED INCUBATION and are being set on by the hen, I see no problem with taking them away for birth control, and in some cases, the benefit of the bird.

http://www.minkhollow.ca/HatchingProgram/Candling/Resources/Illustr...

http://www.minkhollow.ca/HatchingProgram/Candling/Resources/Illustr...

'When the egg is laid, the development of the embryo (at the blastula stage) stops. Once the egg warms up past 21 C (70F) for long enough (more than an hour), development will resume.'

Source: http://www.minkhollow.ca
Candling section; day 1 of incubation.

Long live the birdies!