Most eggs are not even sold under humane pretexts. It’s easy and delicious to veganize your favorite egg dishes! The longest stage of egg production occurs in the shell gland or uterus. Thin-shelled eggs are common in layer hens because the birds do not have sufficient calcium stores to produce such a high rate of shells. At the hatcheries that supply female chicks to factory egg farms, small farms, and backyard egg hen enthusiasts, male chicks are sorted and killed shortly after birth by being ground up alive in giant macerators, gassed, or left to suffocate in garbage bags and dumpsters. Photo: Tufts OpenCourseWare/ Creative Commons 3.0. Egg shells are mostly made of calcium carbonate, and for each shell produced, the hen must mobilize approximately 10% of the calcium stored in her bones. The unnaturally high rates of labor intensive, energy depleting egg production that modern hens are forced to sustain means that even on small farms and backyard chicken operations, hens are virtual prisoners inside their own bodies. “Cage free” and “free range” eggs are better from a humane standpoint than battery caged eggs, but they’re not as much better as you might think. Cluster of developing egg yolks in hen ovary. But due to pressure from consumers, more humane growing methods are becoming more popular. Photo: Robert Grillo. The ovum remains in the infundibulum for 15 to 18 minutes, and it is here where fertilization would occur if the hen mated with a rooster. “Cage-free” only means that hens are not kept in cages. This is where the shell is deposited around the egg, which takes 20-plus hours. We need to encourage pastured egg and chicken production. Though the hens aren’t in cages, they get only a square foot or so of space each and are kept awake in artificial light to increase production. The vagina also pushes the egg out through the vent or cloaca, the shared exit through which urine, feces, and eggs are excreted. These conventionally-raised, factory-farmed eggs come from birds who are kept in wire battery cages stacked by the thousands on top of each other inside warehouses without fresh air or sunlight. From fluffy omelets to sunny side ups, from savory quiche to crème brûlée, this comprehensive guide to “vegan eggs” showcases incredible recipe creations, mouthwatering photos, and heaps of egg-free baking tips. Rodriguez, Sheila. More than one pound of rotting egg material removed from sick hen. The ovum, or yolk, stays in the magnum for 3 hours while the albumen, or “egg white,” is added. Female human ovaries also contain developing eggs. Tried and tested: these easy vegan sunny side ups (pictured with vegan sausage) from The Non-Dairy Evolution Cookbook taste so much like the real thing you won’t believe your mouth. See also: The Happy Herbivore’s detailed Guide to Egg Substitutes for Baking and the all vegan baking website veganbaking.net. Their bodies could never sustain the physical depletion of laying the hundreds of eggs that domestic chickens have been forced to produce through genetic manipulation. “Cage free” hens are packed into large warehouses often containing more than five thousand birds apiece. “Unlike most domestic hens, who have been selectively bred to lay eggs year-round, wild fowl breed and lay primarily in spring. Reproductive disorders in egg laying hens include tumors of the oviduct; peritonitis; egg binding (large eggs getting stuck and being slow and painful to pass); and uterine prolapse, a condition in which the lower portion of the oviduct fails to retract back into the body after oviposition, or the depositing of an egg. Safeway – O Organic Cage-Free eggs, Open Nature cage-free eggs, Lucerne peeled hard-cooked eggs In store: Sauders – cage-free brown eggs, free-range eggs, pasture-raised eggs In store: Shaws – O Organics Cage-Free eggs, Open Nature cage-free eggs In store: South Mountain Creamery Cage-Free Brown Eggs – all products certified In store. Certified Humane mandates that for their humane status, "there must be 1.5 square feet per hen, litter for dust bathing, perches for the birds, and ammonia levels at a maximum of 10ppm, which means the scent is imperceptible. All chickens used for meat and eggs are the result of centuries of violent domination and decades of invasive genetic manipulation that dooms even those lucky enough to be rescued to a lifetime of unnatural frailty and disease. The organic eggs from Costco brand Kirkland are Certified Humane: While not pasture raised, they’re cage- and antibiotic-free. More than 260 million are killed every year in the U.S. alone.4. While their lifespan is eight to ten years, hens used for eggs are generally killed at 12 to 18 months when their egg production declines. The third stop is the isthmus, a constricted portion of tissue where the inner and outer shell membranes of the developing egg are added over a period of 75 minutes. It takes 24-26 hours for a hen to internally construct an egg (adding the albumen, shell membranes and shell). Just because one egg gets stuck and cannot be laid, it does not stop her body from making another egg the next day, and the next, and the next…”. Retrieved 2/11/2014 from http://www.humanesociety.org/assets/pdfs/farm/about_chickens.pdf, 4. This means that all eggs, even those from rescued hens, are the product of a long line of injustice. They’ve partnered with several small family farms throughout the country, which guarantees peace of mind for Costco and gives these smaller purveyors a steady stream of business. Not only will you need to use fewer eggs per serving but "there's no indication, medically speaking, that egg yolk is bad for health â it's in fact where all the healthy vitamins are. University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, Food and Environment, Poultry Extension, Small and Backyard Flocks: Frequently Asked Questions. Like egg binding, prolapse is commonly a result of small birds being genetically manipulated to lay an unnaturally high rate of unnaturally large eggs. For more on hatcheries, please visit Mercy for Animals. Since humans have no biological need to consume eggs, we can withdraw our support from this exploitative industry by choosing plant-based egg alternatives for baking and cooking. In chickens, however, the cycle of creating and passing eggs is arguably even more physically taxing, especially in modern layer hens who have been bred to produce unnaturally high rates of eggs. Hens ovulate for the same reason female humans do: to reproduce. Even on small farms, for every egg-laying female hen, approximately one male chick is killed as a newborn by suffocation, gassing, maceration, or electrocution, because he is considered a “useless by-product” who can’t lay eggs or grow large enough for meat. In chickens, the ovary is a cluster of developing ova, or yolks. “The Morally Informed Consumer: Examining Animal Welfare Claims on Egg Labels,” Temple Journal of Science, Technology & Environmental Law, 51 (2011). It is tragic as some cases are so severe they can not be corrected, but we try to save these wonderful animals! Bottom line: The most humane eggs you'll eat are the ones from chickens allowed to roam and feed on their natural diets. Each of these sections is like a station along an assembly line and is responsible for a specific stage of egg formation. The birds are crammed … In fact, the process of making and passing an egg requires so much energy and labor that in nature, wild hens lay only 10 to 15 eggs per year.1,2, The Red Jungle Fowl — the wild relatives from whom domestic layer hens are descended — lay one to two clutches of eggs annually, with 4 to 6 eggs per clutch on average.3. This is where a thin outer coating of mucus, called the cuticle or bloom, is added to the shell. The Mayo Clinic says that healthy people can eat up to seven whole eggs every week without raising their risk of heart disease.Â. Egg production is ugly business for most chickens that supply our supermarkets. Buying eggs is a tricky business. This is a main reason egg-laying hens are so commonly afflicted with debilitating osteoporosis, as the near constant production of an unnatural quantity of eggs depletes their bodies of massive amounts of calcium. Backyard Eggs provide at least 108 square feet of pasture per bird, so the hens have a huge amount of space to roam and eat grass, bugs, worms, etc. They’ve partnered with several small family farms throughout the country, which guarantees peace of mind for Costco and gives these smaller purveyors a steady stream of business. Backyard Eggs are also Certified Humane, and Non-GMO Verified (this is a big deal since most non-organic hens eat GMO feed). Because male chicks will never lay eggs and are not the breed sold for meat (meat chicken breeds have been genetically manipulated to grow much more breast muscle and flesh), they are considered worthless to the egg industry, and so are disposed of as trash. Wayne Hsiung, a lawyer and founding organizer for Direct Action Everywhere, an animal rights group, recently traveled to a cage-free egg farm, where he said he encountered cannibal hens, unhealthy, injured chickens and grim living conditions for the animals expected to lay eggs in personal spaces about the size of a standard sheet of paper. Similarly, chickens raised on vegetarian feed may be deprived of actual grass, as chickens are not naturally vegetarian and actually thrive off eating bugs and worms, the Washington Post reported.