Vegans, I need your help to win this argument!?

Question

Every summer I live with my aunt who has a small homestead farm. I am a vegan, she is not, although she considers herself a vegetarian as she does not eat animal flesh, but does eat eggs and dairy products. Here it is: We have been arguing about the chickens and the eggs. I say NO NO NO NO, IT IS WRONG!!! But, she wants to know what she is supposed to do with the eggs if she can't eat them or sell them. I said let them be chickens but she says she cannot afford the chickens if they do not pay for themselves. And, if she gets rid of the roosters, the hens will still lay eggs, but they won't hatch and is she supposed to throw eggs out or let the raccoons &opossums get them? She says if I am so offended by eating/selling eggs she will get rid of the chickens unless I can afford their feed, but I should know that since they are several years old if she sells them they will be slaughtered and if she lets them go in the woods the coyotes will eat them. Help! What do I say; do?

Answer 1

im vegan, that is tough, its sad that the choice for the chickens isnt good either way, they should be able to grow up live a good long life then die of natural causes, but with factory farming that doesnt happen,

i would look for a free range farm where they can grow up,

Answer 2

I can't help you win this argument, because I think you are wrong.  If your aunt has chickens that she cares for and treats well, then by all means she should eat their eggs and sell them!  

I would even say if she wants to kill and eat the chickens, she should.  This is not factory farming and therefore I have no qualm with it.

Answer 3

Your Aunt is correct.  You have no basis for your argument other than you are against her eating eggs.  If she indeed does get rid of the rooster, the hens will continue laying eggs & since they are not fertilized they will not form a chicken.  If she were to sell them, they would be slaughtered & if she turned them loose, they would be killed by other animals.  I also agree that why go to the expense of feeding them if they are not good for anything.

Answer 4

Welllllllll... this is a toughy. I'd tell her to sell them, i know i don't really eat eggs unless they're in food, but my family does and i know they don't get them from the stores, we get them from the Huderites , and they raise the chickens. So i mean your best bet is to sell them, at least you know there was no cruelty!

-Britt

Answer 5

Why do you think its wrong for people to eat eggs?  I can understand your agenda on animal rights issues.  However, someone's dietary choices are very personal, kind of like religious choices.  I think you should live and let live.  No one likes a religious zealot trying to convert you over to their way of thinking.  Put yourself in her shoes.  Wouldn't you be annoyed by someone constantly trying to browbeat you into eating meat?

Answer 6

Why are you arguing with her?  Unless you're willing to afford their keep, this decision (unfortunately) isn't up to you.

If your aunt is willing to give them up, she can give them to a farm sanctuary.

(And why not just let the raccoons and opossums eat the eggs?  It's natural food for them.)

Answer 7

I think that there are degrees of veganism and a diehard vegan would tell you that no animal is here for human beings - not to feed us, not to entertain us, not to be our pet, etc.

My personal feeling is that if she is taking good care of the chickens, leave well enough alone because the other options seem to be a worse fate for the chickens. Not to be a total pessimist but it's not a perfect world so sometimes you have to settle for good enough.

Answer 8

It doesn't sound like your aunt is contributing to factory style cruelty to animals that can be used to produce eggs.  She should eat those eggs and she doesn't sound that bad to me.

Answer 9

Don't let the eggs go to waste! I mean.. If you are a Vegan than eating eggs is wrong, and if your aunt does not want to eat them either, than just sell them. Giving them to the neighbors or raccoons is good also.

Answer 10

My mom raises chickens. She puts eggs in EVERYTHING. But, they're happy chickens. They wander around her five acre farm and eat bugs, as well as potato skins, etc from her kitchen. They live in the middle of an organic-farming community, are fed no growth hormones or other chemicals. And when I am at her house, I eat eggs, although I try not to eat more than a few a week, because they are after all animal proteins and fats. I don't feel like I am breaking the rules because I am vegan for three reasons- the cruelty of factory farming and the hormones and chemicals used in factory farming, and the latest cancer research about the link between animal proteins and human illness. I believe that eating meat promotes disease, and that humans were never meant to drink the milk of any lactating mother, human or otherwise, and the same argument can be used for eggs, but the evidence of health risks are not the same as with meat and milk.

I am passionate about sustainable living and farming practices so I almost have to side with our aunt on this one- she is supporting local trade and taking a bite out of factory farming by supplying the community (who would be buying eggs from a farm where the laying hens are caged and lie around all day in their own f***s and can not even walk) with eggs with dark yellow yolks, full of nutrients that are lacking from factory eggs.(because even animal proteins are a better diet health-wise than Twinkies and donuts) And besides, the hens really don't care what happens to their eggs after they lay them, unless they are sitting, but even then, as long as you leave them with several eggs in their nest they have no idea they are missing a few.

Now, if your aunt was raising them to slaughter... or keeping a milk cow in a tiny stall, taking her calf away so that she could sell all the milk... or keeping one hen in a pen with three roosters... that's another story.

Answer 11

Okay, I lived on an organic chicken farm.

First of all, chickens are wild forest animals by nature.  Not supposed to be kept in a coop or in a fenced-in area etc.  

Second of all, chicken feed is designed to make chickens produce an unnatural amount of eggs.  Chickens would normally produce far fewer eggs and like other animals, would do so for the purpose of giving birth to babies, in the springtime.

Producing eggs is a tremendous strain on the resources of the body.  Thus, very quickly the chicken will become weaker and weaker.  The eggs will become more and more malformed.  Not only that, the eggs are larger than would naturally occur.  The chickens get old fast and soon they are unable to produce eggs as plentiful as before.  Often these malformed eggs have trouble coming out, and often cannot come out at all.  Whether they die 'naturally' or by being sold and slaughtered when they are no longer productive, they are not living anywhere near as long as they would in a their natural setting.  One or two years maximum on the typical organic chicken farm.  Less on a factory farm.

See, sure, in the past humans would consume eggs and dairy, but not all year round.  In the spring time, when there are eggs to be found and milk can be stolen from mother cows who have just given birth.  But these days we use hormones and other tools to fool or force the animal's bodies into doing what we want them to do at a more regular and convenient and profitable interval.

Yes, so, if you let them go free and live in nature, then the wild animals will eat them...  because they are too domesticate and far removed from their ancestral land.  So, what to do?

Answer 12

Vegetarians do eat eggs and dairy.  If the only eggs she eats are those her chickens produce, I really don't see a problem with it.  If the only dairy she eats is what she gets from people whose farms she can visit, it's less of a problem than if she uses dairy of unknown provenance.  It's still a problem, of course, because she's a human adult and shouldn't be consuming something meant for a baby cow.

The objections many vegans, myself included, raise with eggs have much to do the way the hens are treated. If your aunt's chickens are treated more like pets than egg-producing machines, and if all the chickens hatched on her farm get to live out their lives, what is your problem?  Most farmers eat animals' flesh; your aunt does not.  She'll be able to feed you vegan meals.  And be glad the money she earns from selling her hens' eggs are 1) truly free range and 2) not going to buy the flesh of abused animals.

I'm sorry, you're not going to win this argument.

Answer 13

I don't think this is an argument you (or your aunt) need to win.  If she's treating her chicken humanely and eating their unfertilized eggs, at least that's lowering the demand for factory farmed, battery caged eggs.  She's vegetarian, which is a HUGE step in the right direction.  And eating home raised eggs is also a step in the right direction.  I choose to be vegan as well and I wouldn't eat your aunt's eggs, but I can still recognize the lesser of evils.