I’m a vegetarian, so this is not a trolling question.
I keep chickens. Two in fact.
- They’re pets, and will never be killed.
- As pets, they get cuddles, and love, and have generally become very tame.
- They get treats.
- They’re pure breeds, who tend to have a longer lifespan than the hybrids used in commercial egg production.
- When necessary, they receive medical care
- They’re kept in good conditions, with constant access to the outside, and far more space than is required for organic, free range birds, although they cannot free range totally because the neighbours dog would tear them to pieces.
- Their feed is vegetarian society approved, so no fishmeal
- There is no cockerel with them, so the eggs cannot be fertile
They lay an egg each most days, and I eat these. Can any vegans find any form of cruelty in my methods of production? If you have an objection to me keeping them, or eating their eggs, what is it, and can you justify it?
How is it stealing? They go into the nestbox, lay their egg and then go off again and leave it. If they wanted to raise chicks then they would go broody. Anyway, chickens lay far more eggs than they could ever hatch out – up to 320 a year.
Last time one went broody, I gave her some eggs to hatch out for the neighbours, but she gave up part way through the incubation period.
There is no cockerel, and therefore no sperm, and therefore no way that any of their eggs could ever develop into chicks.
Sister M – all of the feathers in feather pillows come from chickens that have been slaughtered and then plucked. I would never do this to my chickens.
Then again, if I had enough clean feathers that they had dropped naturally I might consider it.
Texaspice9 – does that apply to the manure as well? I shouldn’t clean them out because they didn’t poo so that I could take it away and put it on my compost heap for future use on the vegetable garden. Riiiiight.
If I didn’t remove the eggs, then they would pile up, go bad, and explode, which wouldn’t be nice for them to live around. If they pecked at the exploded egg, then they could get botulism and die because it would have gone rotten.
Not to mention that they wouldn’t be able to get in the nestbox anymore, and that is their favourite place to lay . . . . is it cruelty to remove eggs? I think not.
