What do you do with the eggs?
One of the most frequently asked questions I get asked at the farm is, “what do you do with the eggs?”
Answer, “we cook them and feed them back to the birds.”
Question, “isn’t that considered cannibalism?”
Answer, “Nope. An egg is produced from a chicken’s own body and belongs to that bird. By giving the egg back to the chicken, this helps to give them the nutrition back that was lost producing the egg.”
Egg laying in domesticated chickens depletes chickens of essential nutrients. Chickens make laying eggs look so easy, but in fact, it is an arduous task and there are many health hazards associated with laying eggs. Take a look at this video and you will see that so many things need to go right to form an egg that it is a miracle when an egg is actually laid. Imagine this happening in their bodies every single day! No wonder factory farm birds are spent after 18 months (if they live that long).
Chickens bred for egg laying lay their entire body weight in eggs every 24 to 30 days (during prime laying period). Egg laying hens have been irreparably harmed by the selective breeding that has forced them to lay an unnatural and unhealthy number of eggs — between 250 to 300 a year — resulting in a host of painful and life-threatening reproductive diseases and premature death. Undomesticated chickens living in their natural habitat have been known to live 30 years and more. They lay eggs just like other wild birds do — for purposes of reproduction — and only a few clutches per year; around 10 to 15 eggs total on average. Unfortunately, the factory farmed hens we rescue will live only 4 to 6 years on average and commonly die of complications caused by egg laying.
https://freefromharm.org/farm-animal-welfare/backyard-chickens-expanding-understanding-harm/
I don’t have the iconic vision of collecting farm fresh eggs from happy hens that is perpetuated by the egg industry. Instead, seeing the eggs that our birds lay is actually a reminder to me of the gruesome life of millions of egg laying hens.
I look forward to sharing with you our new Kind Kitchen YouTube cooking series which will have some great videos on baking without eggs.
