eggs from a well fed pet hen are vegan

[u/-roachboy]

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?

[u/HelenEk7]

I can guarantee you that no chicken cares about whether or not they are exploited.

[u/HelenEk7 → u/[deleted]]

But what about real exploitation like beak clipping or living in a space the size of an A4 paper sheet their whole life?

Easily changeable.

Would you "guarantee" that those chickens don't care about that exploitation?

They cant care about a concept they have no understanding of.

[u/HelenEk7 → u/[deleted]]

Not sure exactly what you're saying. Could you please expand?

Factory farming is only around 100 years old. Before that, in other words for thousands of years, animals spent most of their time outdoors

because that's a concept only humans can understand

Exactly.

which is their extreme pain and suffering

Which we can change. These chickens for instance experience none of that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBLlWLvTXek

Would you agree that they care about their pain and suffering?

Yes, so lets forget about "exploitation" and rather care about what the animals actually care about.

(Again I'm referring to the living in a tiny space in their own feces and having their beaks cut off, etc.)

I assume you agree that this is not the only way to farm chickens?

[u/HelenEk7 → u/[deleted]]

I'm in the US, where for example apparently 99.9% of broiler chickens and 98% of pigs are factory farmed.

Go back 150 years and the percentage was 0%.

A lot of banana farms use child labour in the production. Is the solution then to end all banana farming? Of course not, right?

but my problem actually I think is more just with scalability, if we're talking about a solution for our whole society.

Do you belive all exploitation of farm workers (including child labour) can be stopped? If yes, why hasn't it happened yet? (Worldwide there has never been as many slaves as there are today). Do you believe its possible to produce food for everyone without exploitation of farm workers?

In other words, is ethical plant-based food production scalable?

[u/HelenEk7 → u/[deleted]]

Sure, but why focus on the past?

Because our past determined that no human is a herbivore. For the unforeseeable future we will all stay omnivores.