A "pondering" ; about vegans and eggs

I must admit none of my vegan friends keep hens. I do have several friends who keep them but they are not vegans. One of my friends takes in rescue birds and these don’t lay many eggs but those that are laid are given to friends and family in return for a small donation to the upkeep of the flock

Not a vegan myself, but I know a young man who is. He does not eat eggs at all HOWEVER, a group of his friends have a small ‘sanctuary’ for rescued hens, and some of them do eat the eggs that’s those hens lay.

I can totally 7nderstsnd vegans not agreeing with the way hens are kept to lay eggs but in a happy natural environment I personally would think eating them would be the right thing to do but I doubt they would as they are usually very strict and it would be the situation as a whole

In a natural environment hens would only lay about 12 eggs per year, if people take them away they go on laying and this destroys their bones. This is why vegans prefer not to eat eggs.

veganuary.com/blog/hot-topic-what-about-eggs-from-rescuedbackyard-hens/
Interesting short item here.

What a waste of such a good food if eggs are not eaten. We have kept hens for many years and in my experience a hen that has come into lay will lay an egg about every 27 hours unless it gets broody. It also needs 14 hours of daylight which is why they lay less in the winter. An egg was laid most days by our hens and of course it would be laid whether fertilised or not. Eggs are not viable/live unless the hens are kept with a cockerel so why would you not eat it?

Would it count as a by product?
I suppose it depends on each individual whether they would choose to eat a happily produced egg, and maybe it could depend on their reasons for being vegan?

We had a 'veggan' staying the Christmas before last, a sister's dp.

He was actually a very easy guest. But having been told he was vegan, I was very surprised one morning to hear him say he was going to make himself a couple of poached eggs - would anyone else like one?
Of course the eggs are strictly free range only, usually Waitrose's best, or so I am told.

If a vegan ate eggs they wouldn’t be a vegan. But it’s an interesting question and one I have discussed with many a vegan/vegetarian/ meat eater. Personally I find eggs (from known hens) far more acceptable than dairy, although I respect the fact that others reject the idea of exploiting animals in any way at all.

I suppose the important thing is that people consider their food choices and the reasons behind them. The rest is just a label.

Many vegans do keep rescue battery hens, if they don’t wish to eat the eggs themselves they could feed the eggs back to the chickens to replace their calcium, or give the eggs to non vegans, who would have bought eggs from exploited chickens otherwise. The egg industry does exploit chickens, male chicks are gassed at birth or chucked in a bin, which is one reason why vegans prefer not to eat eggs. It’s a personal choice.

We kept hens for 15 years, in real freerange conditions.
On average they had 2 periods a year of about 4 months each when they would lay an egg a day.
It never occurred to me that this was undermining their health. Most of them lived at least 10 years.
In fact the cockerels were more likely to die young. They seemed to be more vulnerable to infection, sometimes caused by wounds from fighting.

There’s more to being a vegan that what you eat. Many animals suffer horribly when cosmetics or household products are tested in them.

I do eat meat, not a lot and always free range, which is my way of encouraging better farming practice. But I’d never use cosmetics, shampoo, cleaning liquids, washing products, etc which had been tested on animals.

Those of us who worry about animal welfare do what we can.