Your "Free Range" Eggs Are BS

May I add that all the male chicks in egg production are gassed or shreddered alive right after hatching, because they're of no use to the egg industry? It's almost impossible to find chicken breeds to buy eggs from where this isn't done. Whether "free range", "organic" or whatever, buying eggs supports this barbaric practice.

I'm from Switzerland and people here are proud of welfare laws for animal agriculture. In practice, that means that instead of 99% of animals raised for food purposes coming out of factory farms (as it's the case in the US), it's only 90%, and the factory farms a bit less horrible. Even though we import a lot of eggs from abroad, where they're from battery hens. That then goes into products with "hidden eggs", where consumers don't even wonder where it all came from. And yes, even a small country like Switzerland, with its 7 million inhabitants, manages to gass or ground 2.3 million male chicks each year. So much for progressive laws.

I've vaguely wondered about the male chicks before. I think I always knew they were killed in some weird mechanized industrial process, but I alway held out the hope that "well, maybe there's some kind of genetic engineering they do so only females are born, yeah, that's it... better not look it up... or think about it ever..."

*shudder* I hate industrial meat production, it's just aesthetically gross. Imagine all of those animals stuffed in, wallowing in faeces, feathers, blood, fur and mysterious liquid, bleh! What a stressful environment for food to come from.

My attitude comes from being raised by hunters I guess. I'd be lying if I said that killing in hunting is always neat or cleaner than factory animals (from what I understand, factory cows and pigs get a hammer to the head, which sounds pretty quick and easy). The killing in hunting can be disturbing. It's generally pretty cut-and-dry, in the ribs at an angle and through the vital organs of the torso aiming for the heart. It generally goes well for experienced hunters like my dad, but inexperienced hunters sometimes screw it up. Still, I'd rather my brother accidently shatter a deer's shoulder and have to track him for four kms than eat industrial meat, at least that deer got a few good years in of being a regular deer. *shrug* Seems preferable to me, if I were an ungulate destined to be eaten.

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Originally Posted by JuniperWoolf

I've vaguely wondered about the male chicks before. I think I always knew they were killed in some weird mechanized industrial process, but I alway held out the hope that "well, maybe there's some kind of genetic engineering they do so only females are born, yeah, that's it... better not look it up... or think about it ever..."

*shudder* I hate industrial meat production, it's just aesthetically gross. Imagine all of those animals stuffed in, wallowing in faeces, feathers, blood, fur and mysterious liquid, bleh! What a stressful environment for food to come from.

My attitude comes from being raised by hunters I guess. I'd be lying if I said that killing in hunting is always neat or cleaner than factory animals (from what I understand, factory cows and pigs get a hammer to the head, which sounds pretty quick and easy). The killing in hunting can be disturbing. It's generally pretty cut-and-dry, in the ribs at an angle and through the vital organs of the torso aiming for the heart. It generally goes well for experienced hunters like my dad, but inexperienced hunters sometimes screw it up. Still, I'd rather my brother accidently shatter a deer's shoulder and have to track him for four kms than eat industrial meat, at least that deer got a few good years in of being a regular deer. *shrug* Seems preferable to me, if I were an ungulate destined to be eaten.

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Yea I have always wondered how someone could be anti-hunting and yet eat mass produced meat. It's kind of like someone being anti-prostitutin because he is a rapist so he doesn't need prostitutes. At best Don Quixote lunacy, at worst simple bigotry.

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Originally Posted by Dodo25

May I add that all the male chicks in egg production are gassed or shreddered alive right after hatching, because they're of no use to the egg industry? It's almost impossible to find chicken breeds to buy eggs from where this isn't done. Whether "free range", "organic" or whatever, buying eggs supports this barbaric practice.

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Yes I heard about this too, and it really is grotesque, not because of the manner they kill them but the mere fact that they never live. There is something so unnatural about farming nowadays, that I really am starting to believe my mother when she says that the negative energy around all these places is so bad that the meat we eat is essentially poison.

But if we want to look at this glass as half full, we are making progress; 70 years ago half of Europe was gassing humans, now at least it's only chickens.

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Originally Posted by Dodo25

May I add that all the male chicks in egg production are gassed or shreddered alive right after hatching, because they're of no use to the egg industry? It's almost impossible to find chicken breeds to buy eggs from where this isn't done. Whether "free range", "organic" or whatever, buying eggs supports this barbaric practice.

I'm from Switzerland and people here are proud of welfare laws for animal agriculture. In practice, that means that instead of 99% of animals raised for food purposes coming out of factory farms (as it's the case in the US), it's only 90%, and the factory farms a bit less horrible. Even though we import a lot of eggs from abroad, where they're from battery hens. That then goes into products with "hidden eggs", where consumers don't even wonder where it all came from. And yes, even a small country like Switzerland, with its 7 million inhabitants, manages to gass or ground 2.3 million male chicks each year. So much for progressive laws.

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Good grief, that's horrific. I had never thought about that before. *Shudder* indeed...

I'm not anti-hunting, I'm anti-hunter, because around here the majority of hunters seem to be complete douchebags. Not in any way applying this to all hunters, just the ones I live by.

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Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandis

I just don't think sadness or fear is possible for that animal

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I think fear is hard-wired into all animals. It's for survival.

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Originally Posted by billl

Like other animals, chickens will learn things about people--in particular, they will figure out who might feed them.

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Even fish do this. My grandparents had a big pond on their farm that had fish. My grandfather would feed them pellets everyday. When he went out with the tub o' pellets he would start whistling a specific tune. The fish would hear that tune and would come up to the surface in anticipation. The part of the pond closest to the feeding spot looked like it was boiling from all the little fish mouths opening and closing.

They only responded to that specific tune though.

Once I was in a restaurant that had an acquarium, and I watched a fish moving the little rocks on the bottom from one place to another.

I eat the meat, because it's what's available to me, as well as eggs (yes, organic if possible), but I've seen the videos of the sick cows that were slaughtered anyway for their meat, and I tend to agree with Alexander's mother. I'm going to make a concerted effort not to eat at fast food restaurants, and to eat more vegetables; and while I know organic doesn't mean what we might wish it meant, I will probably try to buy organic vegetables when possible.I live in a suburb, and the closest stores are Kroger's, Albertson's and Wal-Mart.