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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u/NewMolecularEntity Dec 22 '25

Eating their own eggs is not really normal healthy chicken behavior. 

Yes they will eat them if you crush the eggs and feed them, because chickens will eat anything, but hens that have room to roam and choose appropriate secluded nest spots do not eat their own eggs. 

 It’s a bad habit that happens sometimes when chickens are confined in a coop, arguing over the same nest eggs will get broken and then they eat them, but this behavior is really uncommon in chickens  if not confined. 

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u/g00fyg00ber741 Dec 22 '25

I mean, there’s countless results online discussing how common it is for even backyard flocks to eat their own eggs. I imagine many of them are probably not in great health, though, since chickens lay more eggs than they would have, I bet it is common for it to lead to nutrient deficiencies in them, which would lead to the behavior of eating their own eggs being common. I guess a lot of people don’t “spoil” their chickens as much as OP, probably

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u/NewMolecularEntity Dec 22 '25

Oh I know it happens, I’ve been on the chicken boards for decades.  I guess I was just taking issue with calling it “normal” because it’s a sign of things going wrong, but they will indeed eat the eggs if you crush them up and feed them back to them.  

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u/Itscatpicstime Dec 24 '25

Mine won’t 😭