[1] vegans disagree on this point, but that's a different debate
I eat eggs myself, so I'm not preaching. I just sometimes wonder whether I should.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/22/worlds-f...
While I agree with you, the people/companies who supply those chickens to the local supplier still have no use for the male chicks.
So even if you're buying eggs laid by hens that have a great life, you're still causing animals to be killed.
Like I said, I have no right to be preachy. I just want more people to think clearly about this stuff.
I hope the "no-kill" method becomes widespread.
Some roosters would obviously be preserved as breeding stock, just as they are now.
Or you get into a situation where harvesting crops is morally wrong because it deprives animals of food.
It does deprive them of food, but to me it seems theres enough distance between the 2 things, that harvesting isn't morally implicated.
The only way to determine the gender of a chick (until very recently!) is a visual check done after the animal is born.
It seems less cruel for an animal to spend its life standing in a field than for it to be stuck laying eggs its whole life or being milked twice a day for as long as its useful, only to be led to the slaughterhouse. In fact, commercial chickens are the most cruel industry, chickens are so cheap they are treated like a bulk good, rather than like a living animal. Even free range chickens live a shit life.
We talk about treating our servers like cattle, rather than pets. But cattle are actually treated very well, there's a lot of value in a single beast and it's worth looking after them when they're sick. Chickens are so cheap (they cost, what, $7 at the supermarket?) that if they're sick or injured, it's cheaper just to turn them into fertiliser.
Of course, that's just the commercial industry. Home raised laying hens tend to live a comfortable life.
If you can find eggs from birds that are used this way I think that's a fairly ethical thing. Yes the birds are being used but they're also living pretty close to how they would otherwise.
I first heard of this from Joel Salatin, how exactly I stumbled onto that I have no idea. He's an interesting character for sure, but I can't help but have respect for the way he thinks about farming and what he calls honoring the animals.
For every egg-laying chicken out there, a male chicken is slaughtered, and both egg-laying and dairy milking harm the animals (for instance, compare avg. life span of a dairy cow with their natural life-span).
There's also the factor of number of animals killed - One lamb feeds a lot more people than one chicken, yet both are living animals capable of pain and suffering.
That's not to say that either is particularly ethical, but (as a vegan), I don't think you can easily say that eating eggs is intrinsically more ethical than eating meat.
But the point of my comment us not that Lambs are less ethical than chickens...but killing and eating a few week old animal is hardly "more" ethical.
Obviously the debate has a lot to do with your belief in consciousness and ego. Does a lamb have an ego and is it conscious of its own mortality (in the abstract sense)? Does the sheep suffer existential angst? Are these requirements for the industrialised raising and slaughter of animals for food to be unethical?
Is that not better than letting them suffer for a year?
If you buy eggs from a shop, I'd say there is a fair chance that the animals are not treated that well.
EDIT: I now realize many others have already made this point in other comments, oopsie.
-Maximum of 3000 chickens in a flock and a maximum of 6 chickens per square meter in the coops, which must allow daylight in.
-The chickens must have access to perches and nests.
-At least one third of the flooring must be loose bedding, such as straw or sand, to allow the chickens to dust bathe.
-The chickens must have all-year access to outdoor areas with at least 4 square meters per chicken. It must be covered by grass or other vegetation, and must provide shelter from wind/weather. An outdoor area must stand unused every other year, for parasite prevention and to let the vegetation regrow.
-Beak trimming is prohibited.
-Feed must be organic and must include roughage.
While it's not perfect, it's a damn sight better than battery caged hens.
Under the HFAC standard, antibiotics are forbidden, mammalian proteins in feeds are forbidden, beak trimming has strict guidelines, etc.
Note that HFAC paradoxically/disappointingly doesn't require chickens to be have range, but if the package says free range, there's a 108 sq.ft.-per-bird requirement. Pete and Gerry's eggs are marked free-range.
Not even speaking about the fact that it's pretty difficult for somebody who lives in a city and doesn't own a car.
I think dairy also applies. Yes, lots of dairy operations in business today are cruel. But they don't have to be.
There are dairy operations now that let the cattle decide when to be milked. The machines are fully automatic. The cattle need not be separated from their calves, either.
With all of those systems in place, there is no real ethical difference between the dairy operation and a human mother using a breast pump and donating the excess to a milk bank.
I don't think it's immoral to keep livestock, I'm questioning whether the situations are analogous in an ethical sense.
Yeah, the animal is not autonomous. Do animals understand autonomy? Can they tell the difference? Maybe whales in capyivity can, but they are used to roaming the vast oceans. I think cattle would be perfectly happy in such an environment. Anthropomorphizing them is not helpful.
None of that is an argument that it is necessarily unethical or immoral to take milk from an animal.
Repeating the point: to me, the ethics of collecting milk from autonomous creatures that willingly give it are a separate thing from the ethics of taking milk from creatures that do not have autonomy.
You are, actually. You're extending a human concept, with human morals and human judgement, to a non-human animal. It is not known whether non-human animals understand the concept of autonomy, let alone value it.
Given that many humans do not understand autonomy, I doubt that any non-human animal does.
But that's all beside the point. With these automated machines, if the animal chooses not to give milk, then no milk is collected from the animal. Since the animals do choose to give milk, it can hardly be argued that they are coerced in any way.
I wholeheartedly recommend fruitarianism if you can make it work (might not be easy).
Is it? Seems quite central to the debate to me.