From: abulsari@abo.fi (Abhay Bulsari VT)
Subject: What's wrong with free-range eggs ?
Organization: Abo Akademi University
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 06:12:05 GMT


From: Michael Traub <traub@btcs.bt.co.uk>


This  is  a  piece  on  eggs  taken from "An Introduction to Practical
Veganism" published by the Vegan Society (UK) Ltd. in Jan. 1983.


What's Wrong With Free-Range Eggs?
----------------------------------

Comparatively  few  people  would eat chicken if they had to kill the birds
themselves,  but  many  vegetarians even are happy to eat eggs because they
keep  comfortably  unaware  of  the  associated  killing.  In  order to get
laying  hens  you  have  to  have fertile eggs and half the eggs will hatch
into  *male*  chicks.  These  are  killed  at once or raised as table birds
(usually  these  days  in  broiler  houses) and slaughtered as soon as they
reach  an  economic  weight. So for every free-range hen happily scratching
around  the  garden  or  farm  who,  if  she  were  able  to bargain, would
probably  willingly  pay rent with her daily infertile egg, a corresponding
male  from  her  batch  is  enduring life in a broiler house or has already
been subjected to slaughter or thrown away to die.

Even  the  free-range  hen will usually end up on a dinner plate as soon as
her  egg  production  drops. Small owners, keeping for family use only, may
be  willing  to  feed  them  through the annual moult, but few will persist
for  many  years  if  the  hen  really  "goes off lay". Commerically viable
concerns probably find it pays to cull at the second or third moult.

Town  dwellers  moving  into  the  country  in  search  of  self-dependent,
non-exploitive  life-styles  find  it hard to smother their compassion when
they  have  to  send  for  slaughter  the  birds they have treated as pets.
Moreover  they  find it a difficult and expensive business to prevent their
free hens ranging over their vegetable patches with disasterous results.

In  spite  of the many advertisements with misleading "Farm Fresh" captions
below  pictures  of  happy,  scratching  hens,  only 5% of eggs produced in
this  country  are  from  free-range  hens.  Most of the other 95% are from
battery  houses  though  there  are  now experiments in straw yard and deep
litter projects that will afford some relief to the imprisoned birds.

Few  people  now  can  be  entirely  ignorant of the horrors of the battery
cage  system.  The  hens,  when  they  reach  laying  age, are crammed into
cages,  often  four  birds  to a cage only 15 inches by 9 inches. They have
not  even  room  to stretch their wings. They cannot perch, scratch or even
preen   themselves   properly.  Their  feet  become  deformed  by  constant
standing  on  wire  floors. Food and water is supplied mechanically and the
eggs  roll  away  down  sloping floors. They are often "de-beaked" lest the
close confinement and boredom cause them to peck their fellow prisoners.

Eggs  may  be  a  good source of well-balanced, easily digested protein but
if  produced  in  battery  systems, as they nearly all are, it is difficult
to  believe  that  they  are  not  adulterated  as a result of the frequent
medication  to  which  the  hens  are subjected in order to keep them alive
and  laying  in  basically  unhealthy  conditions,  to  say nothing of such
refinements  as  the  chemicals  added  to the feed to "improve" the watery
whites and pale yolks that are typical of battery eggs.

Even   "free-range   eggs"   from   healthy   chickens  are  very  high  in
cholesterol,   excess   consumption   of  which  is  widely  recognised  as
associated  with  heart  disease - a major killer of Western males in their
prime.

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