Animal Writings

Thanks for posting :)
I am already vegan, but I am glad to see people getting the word out!
 

Nothing tastes better then free range eggs. These people could make more for their money selling free range eggs then these eggs. Happy chickens lay good eggs as we say her at Megs Eggs! As for the male chick issue we dont hatch our own eggs we order.
 

The huge number of eggs laid by modern laying hens has to do with intensive breeding, not happiness. Even hens in concentration camp-like battery-cage operations lay tons of eggs. In the wild, a hen lays about 20 eggs per year, not 200. The artificially large number of eggs coaxed out of today's laying hens robs their bodies of calcium. If, due to genetic tinkering - that you didn't ask for - you had 120 periods a year instead of 12, would you be "happy?"

Happy hens also live in small flocks led by roosters, and dust-bathe and sun-bathe each day. They aren't shipped off to be slaughtered when they're the equivalent of teenagers, as happens in nearly every free-range egg business.

You "deal" with the male chick issue by letting someone else do the killing.

I have no doubt that your operation is a thousand times better than industrial-style battery cage operations. But it still involves multiple unnecessary cruelties.

As for taste, I make muffins, cookies, and pancakes without eggs and no one can tell the diffrence. Nothing tastes better than a meal that's as cruelty-free as possible.

You're on the right track. But the destination is not free-range eggs.
 

They do probly lay 200 eggs a year, and they do get to sun bath, and they get to role in the dust. They are not deprived of calcum, chickens deprived of calcium lay eggs with week shells or even with now shells at all. Most egg farmers are smart enough to up their calcum input when they are laying eggs. And from what I hear the hatchry that I get them from sells the male chicks to a dog food plant, think of that next time you feed your dog. I only diny I them a roster as a selling point, people pay more for eggs out of chickens that have not been exposed to a roster. I have never once "sloughtered" one of my chickens, I once had them break out of their spacious out door run and get murdered by the dog. I also have a small flock may be about 30, not mass numbers.
 

I don't have any dogs, but did you know dogs can be very healthy on a vegetarian diet? I know several. Healthiest dogs you've ever seen.

Even if the male chicks were ground up into dog food, or soup, the process of killing one-day old chicks, often by suffocation or crushing, is brazenly cruel. It is done, above all, for economic reasons.

Below a certain level of calcium depletion, yes, the eggshells will suffer. However, a hen can have chronic but moderate levels of calcium depletion of which the main effect is osteoporosis, because the calcium is leached out of her bones to produce the artificially high number of eggshells. Wild hens lay an amount of eggs that is compatible with their bodies' ability to keep up. Through decades of breeding, we have artificially inflated hens' egg output, which works to their detriment - and is again done purely for economic reasons. (A similar effect occurs with dairy cows; because of the enormous quantities of milk we have coaxed out of them through breeding and boosters, half are lame by the time they are slaughtered at four or five years old.)

That your hens get to sun-bathe and dust-bathe is good. Around 98 percent of commercial laying hens in this country do not.

By the same token, that they're in a flock of 30 is a far better environment than a factory farm operation. If one was determined to buy eggs I would rather they buy from you then from a store. Realize that one of the reasons I recommend people reduce and eliminate egg consumption from their diet is because I know good and well that the vast majority of eggs bought in this country come from tortured hens in horrid facilities. By far, most eggs come from battery cage facilities.

If by some stretch, every egg came from a small, 30-hen backyard flock, egg consumption would probably drop dramatically, due to the space required to produce them, which is fine with me. There are still cruelties involved with all commercial agriculture, including the selling of eggs, that are almost unavoidable - unless you become vegan. Which actually is not hard. Theoretically it is possible to have a humane source of eggs. One could have companion hens who grew up with a mother instead of from an incubator, and who are well taken-care of, along with the non-laying males, until they are euthanized at the end of their lives.

Which reminds me, If you don't send your hens to slaughter when their egg production drops, I presume you take care of them for their entire lifespan, which could be ten years or many more, depending on breed.
 

I havent been in the chicken bussness for ten years yet but I have been in for five, and most chickens quit laying after 3 years. Good luck getting my dog to eat a vegtible, even if its cooked, for her it is dog food and meat. If you read on many dog food bags it says CHICKEN BY-PRODETS. Does this make vegans who feed their dogs dog food cruel because they are killing chickens, or baby chicks on behalf of their dog? Dogs and cats are carnivors, they are ment to eat meat. And if you up the calcum intake you dont have to even worry about the bone density issue, trust me on this one, I have high calcum feed and not once have I had a problem with calcum.
 

People have had their dogs on vegetarian diets for years. This is old news. You can by ready-made veg dog food in cans or bags, and you can make you own; there are recipes in books and on the net. Cats are obligate carnivores; dogs are not.

When I feed my cat, I endeavor to find the least cruel sources of meat possible. I would do everything I could do avoid buying the carcasses of baby animals who were killed on their first day of life simply because they weren't economically viable. If I couldn't avoid it, it still would not justify the cruelty: non-essential side benefits do not justify cruelty. More broadly, in this country we grind up, suffocate, and gas several hundered million baby chicks each year, for profit. Compassion gives way entirely to greed - greed because we do not need eggs; we eat eggs strictly for pleasure. So we kill for pleasure.

(BTW, part of my cat's diet is vegan. Just a fraction right now, but eventually I'm confident that we'll be able to develop tasty and nutritious vegan formulas for cats. They're working on it.)

Hens quit laying eggs after three years, but they don't stop living unless you kill them or pay someone else to do it. At three, they're still young and enjoy life. On nearly all commercial operations, laying hens are killed before they're two - the equivalent of a teenager.

That's good that you replace the hens' calcium lost to their artificially inflated number of eggs they lay. This is not the case in larger operations; they don't want to spend the money. But even though replace minerals, or at least some of the minerals that may be lost through excessively high, and coerced egg output, that does not erease the fact that that increasing a hen's egg output to such an extent is tough on her body in the first place. Again, use the analogy of a genetic tinkerer increasing your number of periods ten-fold (against your will, or unbeknownst to you). It would take a toll on your body, even if you replaced nutrients lost. A larger number of eggs laid also increases the chances of prolapses and other complications. It's exceedingly difficult to get around the fact that today, in the West, practically any form of animal agriculture involves cruelties to animals, and all are preventable since the industry itself is non-essential. The most compassionate diet we can choose is the one that does the least amount of harm - especiallly intentional harm, and that is a vegan diet. Your operation is a hundred, maybe a thousand times less cruel than say, the hideous Wegmans egg factory. I give you credit for that. You're in the top one percent. But baby male chicks are still killeed for those eggs, and other avoidable harm may accrue to the hens themselves, and that's not compassionate. It's not the Golden Rule. Follow that and it's only a matter of time before you're vegan.
 

I can't believe this woman is absolving herself from blame in the deaths of the male chicks which are slaughtered because she buys their sister so she can make money.

Don't get me wrong, Megs, I am glad if your hens actually get to have lives before you send them off to be killed or kill them yourself or whatever, but the business you are in is still a cruel one. It exploits animals so some people make a little money and others can consume the reproductive secretions of chickens. Pretty gross in my book.

~gargirl
 

I agree with gargirl
 

Megs, I agree with Gargirl. It's wonderful that you're giving the chickens a good life, but stop kidding yourself: they aren't yours to do with as you will. Slavery is taking away someone's purpose and giving them your own purpose for them, and that's exactly what you're doing. Black slaves were allowed to socialise with their families, remember? But in both cases, they aren't allowed to live their lives as they wish -- they live at the beck and call of somebody else. That's how it is. If you can't accept that what you're doing is slavery, then you should get out of the egg business.
 

As long as there are "free-range" eggs, there will be factory farms. Just because someone is willing to pay more to feel better about the cruelty that they are still complicit in, doesn't mean there won't be a market for the cheapest, easiest way to produce eggs, which is battery cages.

Free-range eggs are like beating your wife with an open-handed slap instead of a closed fist. It may make you feel better about yourself, but it still reinforces the notion that chickens simply exist to be enslaved by humans, and as long as that idea is perpetuated, there will ALWAYS be battery cages.

Megs!: I'm not trying to be too much of a jerk, but you're kidding yourself. Every egg you eat supports battery cages and factory farms, whether directly or indirectly. And by simply ordering eggs, you allow others to do the killing. Morally, I see little difference. But whatever helps you sleep at night....
-livinginphotographs
 

My chickens arn't really and income at all so if you people think that I am in it for money you are way wrong. I actualy lose money with these chickens. I have also never once intentionaly killed one of my chickens. These chickens are my pets, I don't force them to do any thing. You phisicly can't force them to lay eggs. If they dont want to lay eggs they don't have to. I'm not going to walk into the barn with a gun and tell them to lay or else they get popped off. NOTE:~When I said free range eggs I ment the chickens that get to rome out side (with in their pertective fence of course, outside the dog will get them)
 

Megs, no one accused you of directly killing your hens, so you need not defend yourself against that charge. However, when you purchase laying hens from a breeder, it is a near-certainty that the breeder killed a baby male chick for each hen you purchased. The chicks were most likely killed by suffocation or by being ground up - gruesome killing methods. You are directly responsible for those chicks' deaths. They were killed because you supported the operation, and the killing will stop when you stop purchasing hens from suppliers who engage in that practice - which is virtually all suppliers. The responsiblity for stopping the killing rests on you, and on every consumer who buys eggs.

In addition, if you truly respect the hens - and I'm not saying you don't - you will continue to take care of them long after their egg-laying volume drops. Their average lifespan, if well-treated and given proper veterinary care, is around ten years.

Hens don't lay eggs because of a conscious decision. They lay eggs because glands and hormones tell their bodies to form eggs on a regular cycle. The reason they lay so many eggs is not because they're happy (even the most wretched battery-caged hens lay a ton of eggs), not because they want to please you, not because they decided to, but because they have been bred that way. They can't help it. Laying a huge volume of eggs is of use to humans, not to the hens. Creating and expelling eggs takes a toll on the body, even if we try to ameliorate the effects by fortifying the hens' diett with extra calcium and other minerals. It's as if, through genetic engineering of your body without your consent, you had a period every three days. You could take mega-iron supplements, and function in society, and from the outside you would look the same, but it would be no picnic - and you certainly wouldn't have all those periods because you wanted to. You seem like a nice person - I mean that - and I'm hoping you'll expand your sympathy for the hens, and for the baby chicks that are killed because you buy laying hens.

It's apparent that you don't have the greed of the larger egg farms, which treat their hens horribly, and which are the source of the vast majority of eggs in the U.S. and Canada. However, since you are selling the eggs - from what I can gather - the hens are still a business asset, even if you don't fully re-coup your costs. If you're totally not in it for the money, and have the hens around for company, or to give them a good home, why taint the relationshihp with money? Why sell the eggs at all? Give them away like I give tomatoes away in the summer, give them to local wildlife, or even make a food mixture incorporating the eggs and give them back to the hens - it's actually healthy for them; I know people who do that. As soon as money enters the eqauation, it changes things, amost always to the detriment of the animals.
 

hey who ever this gary charactor is, well he talks bull. has he ever been to a battery or free range farm?? no i dont think so. the comment about hens being pooed on from hens above in nonsence. the poo falls onto a belt just below the cage floor and there is a belt for each layer of cages. then it gets carried away safely into an orger and is desposed of. oh and sumthing they dont tell you about free range.... they are allowed to eat there own excrement and i have seen this before!!! battery hans cannot do this. which eggs are better now? ones from hens which have eaten there own poo or ones from a hen which has drank water from seven trent and eaten only the best food. think about it
 

The filth and suffrering in both battery cage and so-called free-range egg operations has been documented so many times in the last few decades that to argue otherwise is to be in deep denial or deep ignorance.

Start with www.wegmans.com. Then go to www.noeggs.org. If you're still in doubt, contact me offline (info@animalwritings.com) and I'll put you in touch directly with the investigators. Several of them, in fact.

In many operations, battery cages are stacked one top of the other. The excrement from the top cages falls onto the hens in the bottom cages. It is not all caught by a belt or any other device. This has been witnessed, photographed, and videoed many times. It is a horrible thing for a hen, who prides herself on keeping her feathers immaculate, to have her feathers repeatedly dripped on with excrement. She tries her best to clean off her feathers but eventually gives up.

Hens in battery cages have a living space that is so small, they cannot even fully spread their wings. They cannot sun-bathe, they cannot dust-bathe, they cannot fly, they cannot roost, they are prevented from engaging in nearly any of their natural behaviors. It is sheer hell. It is one of the most abusive forms of animal agriculture, which is why colleges, companies, and now municipalities are passing resolutions not to purchase any eggs that come from battery cage facilities. It is only a matter of time before it is outlawed.

Most so-called "free-range" commercial operations are not much better. Typically the hens are still crammed beak-to-beak, thousands at a time, in dark, featureless sheds. They breathe in thick, stinking ammonia fumes. Most laying hens have respiratory infections by the time they slaughtered, at only 18 months of age, when their production dips below profitable levels. Their "range" may be a slab of concrete.

Poultry is not covered by the Animal Welfare Act or the Humane Slaughter Act, and they are killed by being suffocated, ground up, or knifed and drowned in scalding water while paralyzed (due to partial stunning).

On both battery and "free range" operations, the hens come from hatcheries in which the roosters are kept in perpetual hunger and frustration, with a bar through their septum that prevents them from reaching feed. The male chicks who are born on these hatcheries are killed in their first day of life - they are suffocated, thrown into a woodchipper, or thrown in a dumpster to die of exposure and dehydration.

Hens in a true free-range situation, such as the animal sanctuary where I volunteer, have plenty of space in which to roam, sun-bathe, and dust-bathe. They peck at the ground, they eat vegetation and bugs. They also have high-quality feed. Their barns have lots of hay and roosting spots and are cleaned and scrubbed daily. No one eats excrement. I have voluntered there for years. Here the hens are about as happy as they possibly can be, given the fact that, like virtually all modern hens, they have been intensively bred to lay up to 300 eggs a year, instead of 10 to 20 as they would in the wild. The grotesquely high egg output takes a toll on their bodies and robs their bodies of calcium and other nutrients.