Why don't Vegans Eat Eggs?

Question

I'm a strict vegetarian I don't eat meat, fish or anything with gelatine or product from the animal in. I do however eat eggs and drink milk, i don't particularly want to drink milk because of the ways cows have to give birth and their babies taken away from them at a young age i have no choice though as my parents say it would be to dificult for me to be a vegan at 14 as they're the ones cooking and buying for me, they fully support me in being a vegetarian though, what i don't understand is why vegans don't eat free range eggs? I've always eaten free range eggs so i don't understand what's wrong with them?? Is it just because you think it's un-natuaral or becaue it's cruel?

thanks :)

Answer 1

because the egg laying hens even in a 'free range' farm are often dirty, get shat on and pecked apart by other chickens, and they are usually sick or disabled most of their lives.

im a vegetarian too and sometimes i do buy egg foods but i try to limit it as often as i can because of the way that egg chickens are treated.

Answer 2

I'm sure that there are other answers saying this but what do you think happens to the chickens when the stop producing eggs?  Do you think that the people who own these chickens will treat them in the kindest way possible, or the cheapest way?  Oh and by the way, free range eggs are a myth.

Answer 3

Because they have a chemical imbalance in their head that prevents proper decision making.

Answer 4

its because eggs, when fertilised, become chicks and therefore are the babies of chickens. Basically the vegans think its wrong to eat ANYTHING that comes from an animal...

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Answer 5

the chickens that lay them are crammed into tiny litle cages. they cant even spread their wings. the bottom of the cages are made out of wire and are uncomforatible for them to stand on. a lot of them starve to death because they cant get their way to the food because of the over crowded cages. after living there for a while, the chickens are sent to slaughter. : (

Answer 6

It's an animal product.

Eggs are the result of a chicken ovulating.

Answer 7

Vegans won't eat anything that has anything to do with an animal, that's why.

Answer 8

Check out this site for a detailed explanation of why vegans don't eat free range eggs:

"How Free is "Free Range"?

http://www.cok.net/lit/freerange.php

I know a former free range egg farmer. She said:

-Each hen's productivity declines dramatically at about 15 months. Farmers don't "retire" the unproductive hens; it would cost too much to feed and care for them until their natural deaths. So egg-laying hens are commonly slaughtered when they are only one or two years old.

-Male chicks are useless to the egg industry because they don't produce eggs. Even on free range hatcheries, the males are commonly killed by being thrown into high-speed grinders while still alive. (Another killing method is suffocation in plastic garbage bags.)

-"Free range" is very misleading. Usually the chickens are kept in huge warehouses. If there's a little door on the warehouse, the eggs can be labeled "free range". Most of the hens never even get to go outside.

Free range eggs still involve less cruelty than eggs from hens confined to battery cages.

"Barn eggs" means that the chickens aren't kept in cages, but they're not able to go outside. (They're confined to sheds.)

Here is a video about the egg industry:

http://www.goveg.com/factoryFarming_chic...

I would only eat eggs if I had chickens myself or if someone I trusted had chickens kind of like pets and didn't kill the unproductive hens.

Answer 9

Because they are full of cholesterol, leach the calcium from your bones, and millions of toxic microorganisms.

Answer 10

Because the conditions laying hens are kept in are cruel, unsanitary and inhumane.  "Free range" has no legal definition, so you're not getting any guarantee that the hens ever got access to the outdoors.  They live the vast majority of their lives crammed into a warehouse and are debeaked just like battery caged hens because the conditions they live in are still stressful enough that they turn on each other.  Mass killing of male chicks is another reason.  The eggs sold for consumption are unfertilized, but some eggs have to be allowed to be fertilized in order to produce the next generation of layers.  Half the chicks born are males and they are tossed into grinders or suffocated in garbage bags, millions of them each year.  There is no retirement home for chicken that can no longer lay; they are slaughtered for nuggets and dog food when they no longer earn their keep.

I think Compassion Over Killing's website has some good egg info.

Answer 11

That's fairly simple. They don't eat anything thathas a face and they won't eat anything that was a baby. An egg if left to incubate will of course grow into a cute little yellow chick then it'll grow to become a chicken. An egg is essentially an embryo just like a human egg. So they see that as wrong.

Answer 12

as the others say, vegans eat no animal products whatsoever at least not intentionally. It's entirely possible to be ethical and eat and use animal products but you won't be a vegan. It's just a stupid label or a badge you can show to your other vegan friends so you can get their approval. I know a guy that calls himself a vegan yet he smoke, litters everywhere and hardly ever does anything productive.

Answer 13

The first thing you should know, is that free range is just an expression. It's an expression that means the exact opposite of what the words suggest. It's like when somebody is being paranoid in the dark and another person says "your just seeing things" which of course means that they aren't.

This is true, you just see what responses you get when you ask us what free range means. Better yet look it up on your PC.

Basically the reason we don't eat eggs goes by the logic that you have taken in, making you against milk. I know it's not a competition, but a "laying hen" goes through a far worse time that a "milking cow" in my opinion, whether they are free range" or otherwise. If they were to be treated respectfully, I still would not eat eggs as it still violates the basic interests of the chicken. Eggs are a chickens property and taking them, stops them from being fertilizes by the already dead males, which is why they are there.

EDIT: I noticed that you have already responded to somebody and you correctly stated that an egg you would eat, never becomes a chicken.

I'm gonna steal an answer that  saw somebody else give a similar question some time ago.

When asked why he doesn't eat eggs, he said, "...the same reason I don't eat my girlfriends menstrual cycle."

Answer 14

They don't eat honey either.  I think it has to do with animal servitude.

Answer 15

because it's a chickens period.

Answer 16

I am a vegetarian but not a vegan so I do eat eggs. Vegans don't eat eggs because an egg could've been an animal. I like to compare it to abortion it is an unborn thing that was basically killed. I am thinking about going vegan when I move out. (I'm 15) so I only have about 3 1/2 more years till college.

Answer 17

Birds exploited for their eggs, called “laying hens” by the industry, are crammed together in wire cages where they don’t even have enough room to spread a single wing. The cages are stacked on top of each other, and the excrement from chickens in the higher cages constantly falls on those below. The birds have part of their sensitive beaks cut off so that they won’t peck each other as a result of the frustration created by the unnatural confinement. After their bodies are exhausted and their production drops, they are shipped to slaughter, generally to be turned into chicken soup or cat or dog food because their flesh is too bruised and battered to be used for much else.

Because the male chicks of egg-laying breeder hens are unable to lay eggs and are not bred to produce excessive flesh for the meat industry, they are killed. Every year, more than 100 million of these young birds are ground up alive or tossed into bags to suffocate.

Chickens are slammed into small crates and trucked to the slaughterhouse through all weather extremes. Hundreds of millions suffer from broken wings and legs from rough handling, and millions die from the stress of the journey.5

At the slaughterhouse, their legs are snapped into shackles, their throats are cut, and they are immersed in scalding hot water to remove their feathers. Because they have no federal legal protection (birds are exempt from the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act), most are still conscious when their throats are cut open, and many are literally scalded to death in the feather-removal tanks after missing the throat cutter.

Answer 18

It is an animal product whether it is fertilized or not.  

Would you be morally okay with someone eating unfertilized human eggs?

Answer 19

because unless you're buying them from a family farm or the box says Free-Range, those chicken have been treated horribely and lived in small, dirty, rusty cages under stressful lights and been fed hormones

Answer 20

like eating a child.. vegans don't believe in using the animals for any purpose what so ever, especially since we have so much technology we don't really need them..

Answer 21

I believe its because eggs are an animal (at least the embryonic form) & vegans don't eat any animal products.

Answer 22

because of the cruelty that goes along in getting the eggs, the abuse of the chickens, some ppl get eggs from organic farms, some ppl raise thier own eggs, but in egg factory farms chickens are nothing but machines, and they get tumors and other diseases from being cramped inside small cages until they can produce eggs anymore,

Answer 23

maybe they disagree with battery chickens and also because they dont want chickens (like cows are fr milk) to be exploited for their eggs.

Answer 24

I could give the obvious answer of "it's an animal product" like others did, but I'll actually give you the answer you were looking for.

Chickens, if allowed to live the way they would if humans didn't interfere, would obviously be outside. They would not live in cages, and as far as "cage free" goes, they wouldn't live in big warehouses where they are still squashed against one another with no room to actually be free. They have horrible lives. And just because they lay eggs for an industry does not mean that they die of natural causes after long years of egg-laying: after the industry feels that they are "spent," or, not producing fast enough, they will sell them off to slaughterhouses and they will be killed and sold for cheap prices, often to fast food chains and other poorer quality food companies.

Besides, you have to ask yourself: would you like to live your life like that, even if you DID die from natural causes in the end?

Answer 25

Many vegans don't eat anything with 'a face' and becasue an egg comes from a chick 'which has a face' vegans wont eat eggs

Answer 26

Vegans don't eat or use any animal-products  as a strict rule.

Would you consider wearing a woolen pullover? Is that cruel to the sheep? Same with eggs and milk stolen from the mother.