So you're arguing that if not for the demand for their meat, the chickens would be permitted to live longer despite the drop in their egg count? Or that breeding practices would change and peak egg count would be extended, and they still would not be killed when it decreases despite it being more economically efficient? And the male chicks that are bred, which are of no economic interest whatsoever would be maintained why exactly?

That's one point I haven't really emphasised up until now, the male chicks that are killed at birth because they are of no economic interest to the egg industry.

no, i was wrong, sorry, because egg laying chickens are not also bred for their meat, their meat is just used at the end in less expensive chicken foods, i just read that.

On the other hand, you can easily keep a couple of chickens in your back garden, they aren't particularly hard to keep at all, my sister used to have a couple, the eggs were nice!

i also definately want to do this if i have my own house, this is great! http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/busine...yt&emc=rss

(about male chickens, presumably it should be possible to tell well before birth if the chicken is male or female. i guess you'd only have a problem then if you also have a problem with abortion.)

Yeah, and in dog foods and other low grade foods, I believe.

And on that note, if you're going to keep a pet chicken, why not try and adopt a rescued one from a factory farm? Plenty of chickens in need.

If there's a way to determine a chick's sex well before it hatches, the industry certainly hasn't discovered it, and I can't imagine such a painstaking process of checking every egg would ever be practical anyway.

well, the industry is based on profit, not ethics in general. I'm just mentioning it as something that could feasibly change. It's another of those non-essential ugly features of the farming industry.

Anyway, i'm not planning on keeping chickens any time soon, you could though...
but i probably wouldn't save a chicken from a factory farm even then. I don't eat factory farmed eggs if i can help it not just for ethical reasons, but also health reasons. If i was going to keep chickens for eggs they would be healthy ones... it's not like a dog or a cat or something...

IceCream Wrote:Anyway, i'm not planning on keeping chickens any time soon, you could though...
but i probably wouldn't save a chicken from a factory farm even then. I don't eat factory farmed eggs if i can help it not just for ethical reasons, but also health reasons. If i was going to keep a chicken for eggs it would be a healthy one... it's not like a dog or a cat or something...

It was more a general suggestion to anyone reading this thread than to you particularly. It isn't too difficult to nurse a factory farm chicken back to perfect health, although it would obviously depend on the condition of the bird, I know a few fellow vegans who have done so (and they eat their eggs which would otherwise go to waste, so they're not technically vegans ).

Blahah Wrote:Apart from introducing predators, which is obviously lethal, what alternative are there?

Sterilisation, relocation programs etc.

BTW, I have to applaud you for becoming vegetarian, I've never met anyone with the willpower to become vegetarian on environmental grounds alone.

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