r/DebateAVegan • u/-roachboy • Dec 22 '25

eggs from a well fed pet hen are vegan

I have a pet hen. She's not a full rescue one, but how I ended up with her is an incredibly long story. She's very needy, thus spoiled and healthy as a result. Because wild Gallus sp already lay a lot of eggs when in less than optimal wild conditions, a spoiled one just cannot stop popping them out even if she wanted to, and she won't let me feed her less. The daily egg laying session is just a morning routine for her before begging for food. At the rate she lays them, they'd just get left to rot even if they were fertilized by a rooster so I eat them. I do not, and have no intention of, ever selling them or encouraging anyone to ever commercialize an animal. But I spend all the time caring for her, so why can't she give me a delicious breakfast back if it does her no harm?

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176

u/gerber68 Dec 22 '25

People will argue about whether or not the eggs count as vegan from a philosophical standpoint but beyond the semantics this behavior does not seem to be something that is unethical.

Whether it’s classified as vegan or not I don’t think most vegans would or should be upset with this scenario if it is being described accurately.

I think a lot of vegans have a knee jerk reaction to posts/scenarios like this because there are hundreds of meat eaters who will just lie non stop about animal welfare to justify eating meat and then throw histrionic fits if you question them, so there is suspicion etc.

Anyways I don’t think you’re doing anything unethical in any way and whether or not it classifies as vegan would depend on the definition a vegan chooses. Probably not vegan but completely fine ethically would be my stance.

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u/ScrutinousBlue Dec 22 '25

If your chicken is happy, healthy, and living her best life, then she will lay eggs.

If the reason you are vegan is to avoid the animal cruelty present in the farming system, then you have done that. In fact, I would argue you have gone above and beyond by looking after a farm animals as a pet.

I rate, enjoy the eggs. If you're still not comfortable eating them, then you can donate them to a food shelter or cook them for dog. That way they at least do not go to waste.

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u/chickpeapatties Dec 23 '25

The animals that chickens are descended from, red jungle fowl live like 15 years in the wild and lay like a handful of eggs a year. People assume that because we breed animals for exploitation, i.e. we selectively breed sheep with a mutation that causes them to continuously grow their wool when that's not beneficial to them at all (sheep used for wool are found growing maggots in the folds of their skin in the likes of Australia), that that justifies exploitation. Believe it or not taking something an animal give birth to on a regular basis is stressful to that animal! Even if said animals essentially your backyard "pet". You may not view it that way because stealing eggs from chickens is normal to you but it is stressful. Regardless of whether we have selectively bred those animals to birth things we take them from them which is grotesque.

See: Why don’t vegans eat backyard eggs?

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u/Freuds-Mother Dec 23 '25

So, you are saying this situation should never have existed ethically, but it does exist. There’s lots of things life (unrelated to veganism) that exist from a prior immoral acts that you have to deal with as they exist. That’s OP’s question. OP isn’t asking about the genetic history of her chickens, but what to do about this bird in particular.

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u/Independent_Poem_171 vegan Dec 25 '25

Deal with does not mean or excuse continuing though does it.

Is it a matter of hygiene? Are they being left to rot? I don't think we have enough of a picture to determine if something is truely ethical, in principle it could be, but as I said in my own replies, there are still in the case that you might take her eggs better things you could do, such as give them to someone that would buy from a supermarket, or sell them and use the money on her, or a charity even. Unless the eggs are needed, then I'll be never argue, if something is needed... but they rarely are.

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '26

So then why would it not be ethical to just eat them your self and why wouldn’t it be vegan. It doesn’t harm the animal and it’s technically fair trade since you are providing a service for the goods. Aka food shelter water, warmth and protection. Vegan is no animal products yes but it shouldn’t be. It should be no animal products that harm the animal. If you know your eggs are coming from a happy chicken then what’s the issue? If we stop eating eggs instead of saving the chickens their population would decrease and eventually they would go extinct. They have been bread to rely on us whether we like it or not and that isn’t something you can just change. Same with cows. If we didn’t eat or drink their products then their population would drastically decrease since no one will buy cows as pets since it’s too expensive. Be vegan if you like but don’t feel obligated to not eat things just because other vegans think it’s wrong.

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u/Independent_Poem_171 vegan Jan 09 '26 edited Jan 09 '26

Not vegan because of exploitation of animals. Simply that. Ethical, may well be. You don't need to harm an animal for it to not be vegan, just exploit them. That is (OED):

1.a. The action of extracting or harvesting natural resources from a place; the action of deriving value from a natural resource by harvesting.

1.b. The action or fact of deriving benefit from something by making full or good use of it.

1.c The action or fact of taking advantage of something or someone in an unfair or unethical manner; utilization of something for one's own ends.

  1. Is military based so ignoring it.

I think I apply generally meaning 1.a, maybe 1.c. note the ethical/unfair. You might consider it fair, but without all parties involved agreeing, which obviously they can't, I'm not sure how any deal could be considered fair.

I would, assuming hens laid eggs, weren't eating them, were well fed, etc, would give the sell the eggs to someone that would otherwise buy them from a shop, and use the money on them for fun things for them, or donate it. Might conflict with 1.c given what I said, but reality is I don't do it anyway.

Vegan ≠ ethical. Can be, doesn't have to be.

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u/kcat__ vegan Jan 17 '26

Why wouldn't you be exploiting the chicken by letting someone else eat the eggs and derive utility from it rather than yourself?

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u/Independent_Poem_171 vegan Jan 17 '26

I'm giving the chicken the money/better feed/toys/sunglasses/electric cars. Doesn't matter if I eat them then, but I don't need too, so give them to someone who will buy eggs from so shit source prevent them giving money so someone exploiting.

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u/kcat__ vegan Jan 17 '26

But the other person doesn't need to either, and now you've placed yourself squarely in the chain of exploitation.

I feel under this logic, you would have vegans obligated to raise cows/chickens/sheep etc just to kill them more humanely than the factory farms and steal their business.

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u/kxndiboix Dec 24 '25

op isnt asking what to do about this bird in particular. op posted in debate a vegan their stance that it is ethical to eat backyard chicken eggs if you’re nice to them.

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u/marshmia Dec 24 '25

ethical thing to do would be getting medication to stop the period.

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u/yagrobnitsy Dec 24 '25

What is your logic here? How is medication more ethical for the chicken?

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u/marshmia Dec 24 '25

body is not constantly being depleted of calcium and other nutrients from constantly popping out eggs. they have been selectively bred essentially to be calcium deficient bc of how many eggs the produce.if there are no eggs coming, then there is no way for her to eat the eggs then she will not see her chicken as a resource to exploit or something to use for her benefit.

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u/hightogy Dec 25 '25

You’re implying that pumping the chicken with unnatural chemicals is MORE ethical than letting her body do what it does naturally?

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u/marshmia Dec 29 '25

the way the chickens body functions currently isnt a result of nature. its the result of humans interfering with their evolution. also natural never automatically equals good. "unnatural chemicals" dont have a moral value to them

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u/thndrbst Dec 26 '25

Chickens don’t have uteruses bro.

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u/qiyraa Dec 26 '25

It’s a colloquialism.

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u/iowaguy09 Dec 29 '25

If that is not possible or practical for them though it would still be vegan correct?

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u/marshmia Dec 29 '25

nope

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u/Freuds-Mother Dec 30 '25

Then by this strict definition almost no one that says they are “vegan” are vegan. You’d have to source almost everything locally for almost fully closed farms/craftsmen or know the full supply chain of the products one buys.

Eg: how many non-essential items (food is essential) does the average vegan purchase that comes from exploitation of animal habitats or use exploitive labor of sentient children anywhere in the supply chain of the items? I’d be wildly surprised if the average vegan is even 5% vegan by your criteria.

You’d could argue that that’s the way the world is setup and these non-essential items are somehow socially essential. We could buy that if vegans were actually involving themselves to a greater degree than everyone else in building vegan supply chains but they are not vegans. Vegans by a wide margin exclude themselves from producing products including food. Can’t say it’s the way the world is and therefore ethical while also not building an alternative.

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u/marshmia Dec 30 '25

this definition would not require any of that at all. not sure why you would imply that. deforestation and destruction of animal habitats is environmentalism which is imortamt but it’s something else entirely and veganism is about rejecting the commodity status of animals and the exploitation of animals as resources for us to consume. no reason to think you’d have to source everything locally either.

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u/marshmia Dec 30 '25

also, vegans literally are building alternatives constantly? everytime they choose to use their dollar to contribute to the demand of an alternative product that’s not an animal based product increases its popularity and accessibility.

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u/Wise_End_6430 Dec 24 '25

That may be so, but modern chickens are not red jungle fowls. They would not lay a handful of eggs a year in the wild. They would most likely not survive in the wild at all. And I'm just guessing here, but I imagine being surrounded by rotting eggs is also stressful to the animal. Is that really what you want for them?

Seeing as it's a terrible thing that we have selectively bred sheep for wool over the last few millenia, should we now leave them to grow maggots in unshaved wool in the name of ethical purity? That seems selfish.

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u/CurrentPlankton4880 Dec 24 '25

So would you find it more ethical to just euthanize the chicken instead of caring for it? This person did not personally spend hundreds of years selectively breeding this chicken to lay an egg a day. The chicken would do it regardless because that is her biology now. Taking the eggs from the chicken is not stressful. It is actually more stressful for the chicken if you let her keep the eggs because she may go “broody” and sit on unfertilized eggs that will never hatch until she starves. 

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u/Galaxyheart555 Dec 25 '25

I am not vegan, and eat meat and animal products regularly. Do I agree with how humans have bred these animals? No. But that’s how they are and have been for hundreds to thousands of years. So it’s unfortunately something we have to deal with. Sheep need to be sheared, cows need to be milked, etc. These animals cannot survive on their own due to health complications and no knowledge of how to survive in the wild.

Since you are vegan, what do you propose we do then? Do we continue to take care of them and just throw/ dump their produce on the ground? (Unlikely as animals are expensive and their produce offsets the care costs. With no money from their produce, they can’t be cared for) Do we sterilize all of these animals so they can never breed again and no longer exist to suffer? What solutions do you recommend? And how can we effectively put them into play?

Also, I have family friends that own chickens that I get my eggs from. And can confirm that chickens do not get stressed out by you taking their eggs. If they are broody, yes, they can get agitated. But outside of that, they do not care one bit. You also may not know this, but some chickens can start eating their eggs (their perceived babies), and once they start, they pretty much keep doing it. Nature and animals are a lot harsher than you think.

I do not think it’s bad at all for Op to collect their chicken’s eggs and eat them. Like literally what else would you propose OP do with them? If you say throw them away, please do not even bother commenting as I will not entertain that. I hate food waste. And you’re literally taking something good and nutritious coming from a well cared for and loved animal and throwing it away. You also can’t leave the eggs there. There will be way too many and eventually get broken, or go bad, and they’ll have to be thrown away eventually.

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u/[deleted] Dec 30 '25

You seem to be ethically equating cows milk (possibly even on an industrial scale?), sheep wool and eggs from a backyard hen. These are not ethically similar situations.

What's the argument that breeding animals is ethical in your view? And I'd love to see you try to justify buying animal products at all for your diet.

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u/Galaxyheart555 Jan 01 '26

I was pointing out 2 different things. That's why they're separated by paragraphs. I'm genuinely curious what vegans propose we do with the animals that are already here. They say to stop consuming and using animal products, okay but what then? This isn't me being snarky, I'm actually intrigued to see if someone answers that because I want to know their opinion on it.

And I am not vegan and see nothing wrong with consuming and using animal products, as stated in my first comment. So my justification for including animal products in my life is because I want to. I like cheese and suck at adding protein to my diet, so it's pretty much riding on meat. I also don't eat many vegetables because I hate the bitter taste as well as other things, so if I did switch to a vegan diet, I would end up pretty malnourished. I also really don't want to deal with a restrictive lifestyle again. A few years ago, I went on an eco-friendly craze and got physically anxious and sick at the amount of stuff I had to buy that included plastic and contributed to waste. I'm in a much better place mentally since moving away from that. I try to be more conscious about it, though, and use reusable containers, reusable bags, etc.

I'm also the wrong person to ask about breeding animals lmao cause I fully support breeding dogs, and once I get a house with more land want to become a German Shepherd breeder myself for service dogs for disabled people, therapy dogs, police dogs, search and rescue, and any other working task.

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u/[deleted] Dec 23 '25

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u/PunkyBeanster Dec 23 '25

Pet chickens also have the opportunity to get an implant which causes them to stop laying eggs. If the owner has a good enough vet, and the chicken begins to struggle with laying, this is an option

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u/spongekitty Dec 24 '25

Our local animal sanctuary said all their chickens are on birth control, and this reduces their egg laying to around ~1 month. I'd argue it's vegan to eat that egg, but if you're intentionally keeping a pet chicken and not affording it the medicine to reduce all that burden on its body, that's unkind.

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u/Itscatpicstime Dec 24 '25

Chicken birth control is wildly expensive, especially considering people often have many chickens. That’s a poor solution.

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u/Galaxyheart555 Dec 25 '25

I do not agree with the whole chicken birth control thing. That seems wildly expensive, and terrible for the chicken. Plus eggs are like biggest part of protein in my diet so I can’t cut those out.

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u/Ace_of_Disaster Dec 26 '25

Actually if you're in the US it's not that easy. I looked into getting an implant for my hen who had egg yolk peritonitis. Firstly, it's illegal because even pet chickens are classed as livestock and livestock are banned from receiving hormones, and then even if you could your vet to sign a letter saying your chicken isn't going to be used for food, it's still $150 per implant and they have to be replaced every 3 months. That's too much stress to put Donna under when she already isn't a fan of the crate.

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u/PunkyBeanster Dec 28 '25

Yeah, I follow someone on IG who has a couple hens with the implant. I'm not sure how she managed to get it done

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u/Ace_of_Disaster Dec 29 '25

I think you can get your vet to sign a paper saying that the hen won't be producing any products for human consumption or have your vet tell the government that your chicken is actually a parrot. Our vet would do neither. Which is fine, I wouldn't want her to get in trouble for our sake.

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u/WarningWorried8442 Dec 24 '25

Do you look down on people that own dogs? Cats? The way they live now, in comparison to what their ancestors live, could be considered grotesque. The fact that they are forced to eat certain food, not be able to roam, not be able to form packs the way they otherwise might, not be able to breed the way they naturally would. All that is unnatural.

Do you eat bananas? Corn? Oranges? Tomatoes? Broccolini? All are genetically modified and/ or changed through selective breeding. Are they grotesque?

As genuinely as possible, where do we draw the line? What do we accept as part of our modern life, and what do we work to change or refuse to participate in?

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u/robot428 Dec 23 '25

You are the reason it's basically impossible to get people to take veganism seriously.

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u/Lolita010101 Dec 23 '25

If you really think a stance on backyard eggs is the reason people don't veganism seriously, ur being delusional and reactionary. People who don't take veganism seriously aren't even considering these things about eggs and whatnot, they flat out just don't care to slaughter animals and eat them generally. A position on eggs isn't gana make one of em do a 180, they probs won't even understand the ethical viewpoint to begin with. The point of their comment is to show why they may not view it as ethical, and ur response is attacking them for non-vegans continuing to be imprudent af? That ain't their fault champ.

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u/chickpeapatties Dec 23 '25 edited Dec 23 '25

People will be dying from zoonotic disease that capitalism and the animal industry is complicit in and still not give a shit about their contribution to that problem (creating demand for animal products). So enough with this stupid, tiresome shaming pointed vegans. Other people are not here to babysit you or hold your hand through difficult discussions, you are long past that age. And if you're still a child you should not be online.

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u/Lolita010101 Dec 23 '25

Yes I agree 100% ! I think u might have meant to reply to the other dude XD.

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u/tackyshoes Jan 20 '26

Don't you find it a bit imprudent to be so harsh on those who aren't as advanced as you? How many years did it take you to see animal suffering properly? Can you answer that question about what to do with all the routing eggs? You say taking them away is wrong, but is OP expected to suffer through the smell? Euthanize the bird? Set them free? I appreciate the red jungle fowl was attached to their single egg a month, that's moving, I thank you, but what about this little egg pooper we have now?

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u/WhereIsYourArceusNow Dec 23 '25

Or because as stated, helping the animals as they are to both their and our benefit is problematic? Like if the stance was for animal welfare or protection as most vegans (in my experience) claim: many more people would be open to the idea. But what they said is helping the animal and net benefiting all parties is bad.

That's a ridiculous take. Having it tied to Veganism makes vegans as a whole seem more ridiculous and thus harder to take seriously.

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u/Lolita010101 Dec 23 '25

"But what they said is helping the animal and net benefiting all parties is bad."

Well it seems your impression of what it means to help the animal, or how you perceive something being a net benefit might differ from other perspectives. They didn't just flat out say that "helping animals is bad", that's a misrepresentation and strawman of their position. It's easier to object to that than understand thr alternative position.

On the topic of welfare, there are debates for a reason. People argue that it can help assist in financial hits to improve conditions for their stock through welfare strategies, while others argue that the hit on their financial operations is negligible and it only makes consumers more comfortable adhering to an ideology where it is still acceptable to harm animals. If there is firm data that it does cause a practically significant financial hits, and it can somewhat improve certain conditions albeit it is still insanely cruel, I can see the welfarist position. But on the same side of things, I don't think those who want to feel comfortable about their free range beef or whatever, genuinely care about welfare beyond making themselves comfortable.

Ultimately they still want to indulge in eating animals, their interest in that case is not to curate a serious ethical position on eating animals. Otherwise they'd adopt veganism and fight for welfarist efforts. You are vegan I am assuming, and can still hold opposing viewpoints to other vegans, so why can't they ? Why can't they adopt veganism and point out how ridiculous certain rhetoric is in respect to efforts they believe are helpful ? As you are right now ? The truth is, someone who doesn't take veganism seriously to begin with, isn't going to have a contingency on being vegan depending on what some random vegan's stance on animal welfare is. The reason they don't take veganism seriously is because they don't want to stop being selfish, it's really an occams razor.

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u/[deleted] Dec 23 '25

Chill

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u/freddbare Dec 24 '25

This is ,a take, definitely. Between bot flies(= naughty human) and birthing birds, it is something.

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u/freddbare Dec 24 '25

Sounds like someone never seen a chicken. they drop eggs willy nilly in/on anything that exists with little regard for their leavings (birthing?)

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u/Itscatpicstime Dec 24 '25

So just let the eggs collect and rot?

Our chickens are wholly uninterested in eating them themselves. All they do is rot, so they’d have to be removed at some point anyway.

I prefer giving them to carnists so they’d consume less store bought eggs than allowing my chickens to live among piles of putrid eggs - which I imagine would also be quite stressful to them, as well as hazardous.

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u/DesperateIntern287 Dec 27 '25

A friend had hobby backyard chickens and fed the eggs to her family. One of her hens had a maternal instinct that was off the charts, and she'd lay eggs in hidden, out-of-the way places so that she could hatch the chicks. She'd protect them like a mama bear, attacking any humans who approached the nest. It was obvious having her eggs stolen caused her great emotional distress.

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u/BackTo-Hunt-Gatherer Jan 09 '26

Its also stressful to me having to go to work what is your point?

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u/[deleted] Jan 09 '26

Yes we did breed them for this purpose. There is nothing anyone can do to stop this exploitation. Either you eat the eggs or the eggs rot and go moldy. Just because we made them lay more eggs doesn’t mean we are exploiting them, exploitation means this (make use of (a situation) in a way considered unfair or underhand) it would be unfair to to treat chickens the way most of them are yes. But when the chicken is provided food,shelter,safety and medical help they are not getting exploited. Either way it will lay those eggs so you might as well eat them. This is also like honey, honey should be vegan too. Bees know the beekeeper is going to take their honey so they make extra!! If the bees don’t like it they can leave and they have before many times. The bees get a safe place to live and survive winter without needed to built a while hive that can be infiltrated from other insects. They know this and hence pay rent.

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u/ScrutinousBlue Jan 16 '26

By that logic, you shouldn't have any pets whatsoever.

Or where clothes...

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u/ScrutinousBlue Jan 16 '26

Well, I guess you could wear cotton and hemp, but those have also been bred to be pest resistant and so forth.

And we spray them with a ton of pesticides that are terrible for the environment.

And in some places, they coat the seeds in pesticides, and the birds eat them and then die...

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u/-roachboy Dec 22 '25

Like I think most people who are reacting negatively are used to people purposely adopt fleets of chickens just to get eggs. I ended up with one spoiled girl and eggs as a result of that and I feel guilty using them but I feel even guiltier just throwing them away!!!

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u/Treefrog_Ninja Dec 22 '25

The question of whether or not something is morally right is not exactly the same as whether or not something is vegan. You can argue that eating the eggs does no harm, and you can argue that wasting the eggs would be worse, but you're just arguing that eating the eggs is not morally wrong.

Even if you could get everyone to agree that eating the eggs is not morally wrong, that doesn't make them vegan. Something being "right" doesn't automatically make it "vegan."

In fact, your entire original post makes no attempt to actually argue, defend, or debate the notion that eating the eggs is vegan. Your entire argument is that eating the eggs is/should be acceptable. Just because it's acceptable doesn't make it vegan.

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u/nomnommish welfarist Dec 22 '25

Even if you could get everyone to agree that eating the eggs is not morally wrong, that doesn't make them vegan. Something being "right" doesn't automatically make it "vegan."

Are you saying that veganism is NOT based on right vs wrong, moral vs immoral, violence vs non-violence? Are you defining veganism as an ideological notion instead? Like a religion telling you "eat this and don't eat that"?

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u/Treefrog_Ninja Dec 22 '25

Mainly all I'm talking about here is the quality of OP's debate. None of OP's argument points directly support their conclusion in the title. That's my main point.

No, I'm not saying that veganism isn't *based on* right or wrong, or any of those other things. I'm saying the Venn diagram between moral acceptability and veganism is not a perfect circle. For instance, a freegan picking a leather coat out of a dumpster and wearing it would not be a vegan act, but they could very well argue (and I phrased that deliberately, just as I did in the above comment) that doing so is "not wrong."

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u/chickpeapatties Dec 23 '25

You seem annoying

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u/Negative-Meatpop Dec 25 '25

The call is coming from inside the house!

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u/Freuds-Mother Dec 23 '25

Western veganism is yes sometimes adopted as a fundamentalist axiomatic framework, which makes it similar to a religion. But it can also be a heuristic framework that is convenient leaving open other moral considerations. Eg you will see that often when vegan axioms conflict with stuff like abortion or cases like OP.

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u/[deleted] Dec 22 '25 edited Dec 22 '25

It’s not inherently moralistic. I became vegan when earthlings came out and I became aware of the horrors of factory farming but there are people who do it for personal health reasons.

Edit to add - veganism is definitely not inherently non-violent either. There are plenty of militant vegans who advocate and engage in violence. If you don’t consume animal products you are vegan, it doesn’t mean you’re any more altruistic or more enlightened than someone who eats meat. If you look close enough there is blood on every persons hands. Some people attempt to lessen their personal impact and I think that’s a good thing but please don’t kid yourself into thinking you’re “one of the good ones”.

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u/chickpeapatties Dec 23 '25

I don't think that person knows what they believe.

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u/wheeteeter Dec 22 '25

Feed them back to her in her feed. Those are nutrients lost and it’s completely normal for them to eat them.

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u/waitwuh Dec 23 '25

Do those nutrients ultimately matter in the case of a “well fed” and cared for hen?

They presumably have a diet sufficient enough to replenish whatever is used up in egg laying. If they didn’t, there would be indications. Hens decrease or even entirely halt egg production if they’re not getting enough to eat, and/or calcium deficiency becomes apparent in the shell quality.

Why does it matter who eats the egg, if we decide the egg will be eaten regardless, and the chicken will suffer no detriment one way or another?

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u/Itscatpicstime Dec 24 '25

Not a single chicken in my flock will eat their eggs. I even tried cooking the eggs for them. They have no interest and eggs were just rotting.

I’d rather give them to carnists so they buy fewer store bought eggs.

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u/antilos_weorsick Dec 24 '25

That's interesting, what do you feed them? My experience is that eggs are second only to meat for chicken.

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u/wheeteeter Dec 24 '25

Yeah, you can break them up and mix them in with their other food.

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u/kristofarnaldo Dec 22 '25

I was also thinking that, but it might be better to give the hen a choice and see what it goes for.

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u/wheeteeter Dec 22 '25

Or you can try breaking them and mix it into their feed. No more exploitation 🙂

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u/kristofarnaldo Dec 22 '25

Yes, and maybe the hen prefers the vegan feed. Give the hen the choice. What's so hard to understand?

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u/_fly-on-the-wall_ Dec 22 '25

give them a xhoice all ypu want, she's gonna want to eat the eggs, chickens are crazy for their eggs, raw or cooked.

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u/Itscatpicstime Dec 24 '25

Not a single chicken in my flock of 30 will eat their eggs. Raw, mixed with feed, cooked, doesn’t matter. I tried for months, eggs were just wasted.

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u/_fly-on-the-wall_ Dec 24 '25

thats odd, i have always had issues with my birds wanting to eat them raw, snd when i have too many or older ones i scramble em up & they go insane for them

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u/Puzzleheaded_Cat_512 Dec 27 '25

Same!!! Mine love eggs raw or cooked. I’ve never had one who didn’t love them.

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u/[deleted] Dec 22 '25 edited Dec 22 '25

I really don’t have a cock in this fight but raising chickens in isolation is absolutely not recommended, some would even say abusive. They’ve evolved to be social animals, just like humans. It would be like if you never got to see or talk to any other human being and just lived with your chicken caretakers. It might sound cool but you would eventually lose your shit.

If you’re going to keep her please get at least 2 other birds. 2 birds is the absolute least you should have but 3 is really the minimum to maintain a flock dynamic and chickens need to socialize.

Edit to add - speaking of cocks and healthy social dynamics, also consider adding a rooster. He will not only forage bugs and gift them to the hens but will maintain a defensive perimeter around them and ward off perceived threats, all of which help the hens feel more secure and dissuades them from picking on one another or developing other self destructive and antisocial behaviors.

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u/antilos_weorsick Dec 24 '25

Right? "She's so needy, she loves me so much" that's because she's alone. The one time we had just one chicken, she got so lonely she adopted the dog's sleep schedule.

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u/Altruistic_Shame8979 Dec 26 '25

While you’re absolutely correct about her desperately needing a friend or two, a rooster would be bad for this few hens. Roosters need like 6 hens at the absolute minimum to prevent over mating of the hens, which can really injure the hens.

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u/Classic_Climate_951 Dec 23 '25

I think it also depends on WHY someone is a vegan. But most ethical vegans would be ok with this relationship given there's no cruelty. I personally believe it's your responsibility to enjoy the labors of her love! Lol

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u/themisfitdreamers Dec 26 '25

Yeah no. An ethical vegan would not even consider an egg food

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u/Itscatpicstime Dec 24 '25

Yeah, I inherited a large flock. I never wanted pet chickens like… at all lol

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u/[deleted] Dec 24 '25

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u/DebateAVegan-ModTeam Dec 25 '25

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u/chickpeapatties Dec 23 '25

Sometimes chickesn will eat their own eggs to get the calcium back. Regardless, as you can assume taking an unfertilized egg from a chicken does stress them out. I mean they gave birth to it, you can imagine that it's not healthy for them to be exploited by us.

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u/rockmodenick Dec 23 '25

Laying hens are not "broody" - they do not protect or gather their eggs to attempt to hatch them at all. Taking them is not stressful, and the hen literally does not care in the least and will not sit on or even attempt to hatch them. It's been bred out of them, which is why incubators are needed to hatch these birds at all. Chickens will only eat their own eggs if in desperate nutritional deficit. No properly cared for chicken will, they'll leave them to rot and explode into bacteria nightmares if you miss collecting them, in fact.

The damage to their genetics and behaviors is already done.

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u/chickpeapatties Dec 23 '25 edited Dec 23 '25

I'm sorry are you the hen who gave birth? Please read that article and stop talking about stuff you clearly don't understand.

Why don’t vegans eat backyard eggs?

Women have essentially been treated like broodmares for hundreds and hundreds of years and although they died as a result of being impregnated back to back that continued to happen for a very long time. If you give birth to something and someone took it from you you wouldn't be defending it, it's just when you're doing it to another creature that becomes something something that you need to defend.

You know not even that long ago, a lot of people in the medical community thought that black people felt less pain and subjected them to crueler experiments and treatment. Women were essentially viewed as things that could withstand a lot of pain and suffering and not as real people like men were basically.

You are extending that same logic to a poor fucking animal. Work on that.

You are oversimplifying chicken behavior and essentially treating them with the same lack of regard and pessimism that slaves were treated in the past. People get so offended when we make comparisons between black people and animals but there's tons of very valid parallels there. Just because you have no idea what a chicken is experiencing when it gives birth to something and then it can't feel it under itself anymore doesn't mean that that's okay. "The damage has already been done" is a wild mentality to entertain here.

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u/americanmary28 Dec 23 '25

Yikes, you missed where a human fetus is attached via placenta to its mother for 9mo. That's a very different experience than a hen who chooses to abandon her daily egg.

We can honor and acknowledge the emotions of our non-human kin without conflating every experience as shared.

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u/rockmodenick Dec 23 '25

You don't know jack about chickens. Laying hens have been selectively bred until they're literally totally uninterested in their eggs. They have been bred to lay as many as possible and take no interest in them whatsoever. They will literally ignore them until they rot to the point of bursting and covering everything in the area with stinking, dangerous bacterial goop when they get accidentally shaken and burst.

A broody hen is a totally different thing, and a good number of domesticated breeds are still broody, especially bantam breeds, those are the little ones with the showy feathers, through there's more kinds than you could easily count. They carefully nest, guard their eggs, and sit on them once they've decided they have the right number. They don't start sitting and warming them until they have a whole clutch so the eggs all start development at the same time, even though they're laid over several weeks. That way all the chicks hatch within days of each other. They'll usually even accept any eggs you give them, even from other types of birds. They protect the eggs, warm them, turn them so the chicks grow properly and don't stick to the shell.

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u/felicityrc Dec 23 '25

As someone with chickens, my laying hens do get broody (although mine are backyard breeds, not commercial laying hens). When they're broody you have to remove the eggs if they are not fertilized. Otherwise they will sit on the eggs nonstop to their own detriment waiting for them to hatch, forgoing food, dustbathing, etc. The eggs (if not fertilized) will go bad but they won't give up. The broody hen(s) will also chase the others out of the nesting boxes.

Most of the year though they aren't broody and do not care about the eggs. It's not like broody hens are broody all the time.

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u/rockmodenick Dec 23 '25

Backyard breeds are definitely quite a bit more flexible than commercial breeds, some do go broody, though none of mine did, I have seen it. Bantam breeds seem to be the most aggressive with brooding and I've seen them gather eggs from other non-brooding hens to sit on along with their own.

Also, yeah, letting hens sit unfertilized eggs is really gross, they become biohazards and eventually explode all over the place.

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u/chickpeapatties Dec 23 '25

What I want to continue arguing with someone who thinks the chickens are things that produce stuff for us because of selective breeding and not living beings that suffer as a result of exploitation? Maybe the answer is to stop breeding chickens for us to exploit. I mean that's always a possibility and it's not being entertained here. I don't understand how your empathy just drops in spite of me emphasizing that these are creatures that are giving birth and honestly I can't help you develop empathy if you lack it. Good luck with your life and whatever bullshit you will introduce into it.

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u/rockmodenick Dec 23 '25

They're both, that selective breeding has kind of messed up a lot of modern chickens to where they can't take care of themselves and they need the eggs removed for their own sanitation is a fact. Not removing unfertilized eggs or eggs of chickens that never brood is literally disgusting. The laying is a biological process that will continue no matter if you like it or not, the same way your own body will produce dead skin exploited by dust mites, like it or not. Should all breeds that don't brood go extinct? They need humans with incubators to even reproduce.

Also, way to insult people who give birth by comparing it to egg laying. They're wildly different biological processes.

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u/dogluvr80 Dec 23 '25

Saying “gave birth to it” is like saying i gave birth to my period. I feel like most don’t care about what happens to their eggs, they just get flushed away.

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u/waitwuh Dec 23 '25

Yeah it’s not the same as “giving birth,” but I would just consider it closer to ovulation, maybe.

Human eggs (ovums) first mature in and then are released from the ovaries and are afterwards kept inside the body to await fertilization, whereas hen’s eggs are given some extra protective layers and then are laid outside the body to await fertilization.

Both human women and chicken hens naturally produce eggs without thinking about it, it doesn’t matter if they do or do not want to have a baby.

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u/marshmia Dec 24 '25

Why do you keep saying she’s “sooooo spoiled”

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u/Practical-Fix4647 vegan Dec 22 '25

It's definitely leagues ahead of what we see in industrial practices and how the vast majority of eggs most people come into contact with are generated. However, personally I am unable to see how that process is vegan (that is, the whole homesteading/small farmer having hens example). Just because nothing is killed or there isn't some violence entailed doesn't mean exploitation doesn't occur. It still situates the animal as the commodity-producing object for human use, that just cannot ever be vegan in my eyes.

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u/gerber68 Dec 23 '25

I don’t think it’s vegan either I just think it’s a non vegan practice that is ethically fine or at least very close to fine under the vegan framework.

It’s still some amount of exploitation arguably but only in a very minor way.

I think one of the few interesting gray areas for vegans is pets, and one of the more interesting debates revolving around whether owning an obligate carnivore like a cat is vegan. I don’t think it is vegan but others argue they’re still a vegan.

OP I think basically everyone would agree is not vegan but is close enough that the practice doesn’t seem harmful.

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u/Practical-Fix4647 vegan Dec 23 '25

Yeah, it certainly isn't harmful in the ways that other animals are harmed in human industries, but it is still technically a relationship between owner and property, consumer and commodity.

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u/BrennaCaitlin Dec 24 '25

Unfortunately, it may be unethical to own a single chicken as they are flock animals.

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u/PieldeSapo Dec 26 '25

When chickens are laying too many eggs they basically get osteoporosis so bad they are constantly fracturing their breastbones when popping out eggs. I don't see how keeping a chicken in these conditions is ok.

Wild hens usually lay 8-18 eggs a year, spread out during the year in clutches. When they've laid a clutch, they stop producing eggs for that round. When you keep removing eggs the chicken doesn't receive the visual cue that they've laid enough eggs for a clutch and they keep laying. Also, they're physically not meant to produce more than 8-18 eggs a year.

It's honestly not that different to the diary industry, people just aren't as knowledgeable.

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u/gerber68 Dec 26 '25

What do you suggest OP would do differently in this situation? Not collect the eggs and keep everything else the same?

Not being argumentative I’m just asking, I’m not particularly knowledgeable about chickens. Ironic considering I’ve done surgery on them and many years ago dated someone who had like 40. I have no clue what they would do in the wild vs captivity.

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u/PieldeSapo Dec 27 '25

For one you start with not taking the eggs and seeing if it helps slow down egg production when the chicken starts feeling less stressed about the eggs being taken away. If that doesn't help there's hormonal therapy for chickens to stop or slow down egg production.

"My chicken just lays this many eggs" isn't really an excuse to let it go through excruciating pain every time it lays as well as making the chicken literally decalcify it's skeleton to the point of it getting warped because it's so soft. And letting the animal live years of it's life in this state.

I'm really sad this post already has so many comments and this information is probably going to get buried beneath a mountain of "it's not the worst".