So there I was, looking for organic eggs, and I found something new at the grocery store.
Priced double the price of “regular” eggs, placed right next to the organic eggs, was a brand new type of carton proudly proclaiming the eggs came from vegetarian chickens.
I stared at that incredulously for a few seconds. Then I burst out laughing.
As if that’s a selling point!!
Poor birds. Not able to eat their natural fare. Can’t imagine their eggs to be of much chop!
So, just in case this is interesting for you, many Tibetans will not eat eggs because chickens eat so many insects. I.e. because of the many many deaths caused each day by the chickens. They will also often avoid sausages, because many animals are all mixed up in them, so they think they will get the bad karmic consequence of all of them; whereas some Tibetans will buy the carcass of an entire cow and then cool or dry it so they can eat it for a long time, believing they get far less negative karmic consequence that way because it’s only one animal, rather than buying meat from butchers and ending up with the blood of so many lives on their hands.
I don’t think Tibetan education includes much study of supply and demand! And there are more illogical things on this topic that I won’t bother mentioning. But anyway, for such people, that would make those eggs a selling point.
Personally I see the environmental impact of food as highly significant, so I can see a good case for encouraging humans to farm and eat insects - far far less environmental destruction than farming mammals, and probably considerably more healthy too. Not too many Buddhist would agree with me on that though, it conflicts with the narrow numbers game but yeah, I think better to take a broader view and consider ecosystems and the biosphere in general. Though of course vegetarianism and veganism are great, and can be very healthy and veganism is likely the best environmentally.
You can laugh at people for their ethics as much as you want, but there are lots of people who don’t want the makers of their eggs eating euthanized pets and floor-waste from the local meat-processing plant. It’s not that anyone resents worms, grasshoppers, or even the odd mouse, but all kinds of unnatural inputs that industrial egg production uses.
I agree – feeding them pellets and crumbles is monstrous when they should be eating jungle-forage. 
No one takes into consideration all the bugs those cows eat with their grass?
At the same time, we have an industrial food system that at one point thought it was a good idea to, say, feed cows to cows.
All very good points! I didn’t think about that as an ethical question for some humans. For me, I find it unethical to force vegetarianism on another being that doesn’t want it and wouldn’t choose it, especially when that damages their health.
I happen to agree, even as a vegetarian myself. The saddest element in my mind of vegetarian chickens is their living conditions. They must be kept indoors or in a more or less sterile outdoor space devoid of bugs. Gross!
(Though my reading suggests it’s possible to raise chickens on a vegetarian diet that meets all their gross dietary, if not psychological needs, so I’m not sure about the damage to their health. Sounds expensive and unnatural in any case.)
Yeah. When the only way to guarantee a chicken never eats animals or insects is to make sure the chicken has no say over their food whatsoever . . . I just don’t think that’s a selling point.
Now, if there was a breed of chicken (or another species of bird) that voluntarily practiced vegetarianism when they had freedom to move around instead of living their whole lives in a cage, I think you could label those eggs “vegetarian” proudly.
I don’t know of any herbivorous species that actively shun meat or insects, however. As far as I’ve read, all herbivores will happily eat bugs or rodents if they’re mixed into the grass they’re eating. Which implies vegetarianism doesn’t really exist in terms of whole species – maybe some herbivores are vegetarians, but I doubt any herbivorous species contains only individuals who actively shun meat and insects.
If I’m wrong about that, let me know!
Adult chickens should* be able to survive on an all grain diet( *mine have always had at least some table scraps). With some soy or even enough peas or beans with the grain they can meet their macro nutritional requirements at all ages (+a calcium source for egg layers). So vegetarian is more than possible, it’s what most chicken pellets are as far as I know. I’ll attach the ingredient list of the pellets that I use to supplement my chickens diet, I actually have no idea if any of the vitamins are of animal origin.
I would actually much prefer to find a source of animal protein for my chickens than continue to use industrial soy. As long as I can ensure that the animals were raised with fresh pasture every day. I believe that managed rotational grazing is better for the environment than growing industrial legumes.
Industrial raised animals (including ones raised for milk and eggs) continue to be fed some extremely questionable things (including animal protein to omnivores and herbivores) and kept in deplorable conditions.
Agreed!
Eggs in the west generally come from chickens who are forced to eat whatever the corporation wants them to eat. (And I’m not even sure if that’s non-vegetarian anyway to be honest! Mostly maize and soybean I think, no? But anyway…) So I am not convinced that that food being vegetarian or not, makes any difference to their level of wellbeing. And regarding ‘damages their health’, the egg industry is in general an industry of torture and murder, so again, I am not convinced highly unnatural medicated industrial food pellets being vegetarian or non-vegetarian makes too much difference to them. If the ‘organic’ means much (in the UK organic chickens have a far better life than non-organic chickens but I heard organic standards tend to be far lower in the US so I have no idea about that) then the simple fact that those are organic eggs might be enough to indicate they are better off, even if their feed differs from the normally tortured industrialised chickens.
But that’s basically almost all egg laying chickens in the industrialised world, right? For example, quick google tells me:
As of 2014, approximately 95 percent of eggs in the United States were produced in battery cages
Sorry for this image but it’s just a picture of how chickens are commonly treated in the chicken industry, so far as I understand, and while it may be unpleasant to see, it might bring home what we are really talking about:
I would have to say that if we are talking about ethics, not only would I consider that I know no animal that naturally eats industrial food pellets, but more to the point, I might consider it more relevant to notice that no herbivorous species I know of actively seeks lifelong torture and murder.
I’m not telling anyone to not eat eggs. I am just trying to share some perspective on the ethics of this topic. I can appreciate that some people want to chose to cause less death. I think that’s ok for people to want that. And if I want to contemplate the wellbeing of chickens as a serious issue, then I have to consider those things I have just mentioned above, and see if I can frame each point fairly within the overall context, with some kind of coherence.
Yeah, that’s what I mean. “We guarantee these chickens were factory farmed in cages!” isn’t a selling point to me. “We promise these chickens have been raised humanely and given a comfortable life” would be.
Just an aside. This thread should probably be in the Off-topic area, don’t you think?
Sure, sounds like a good idea!
Well in that case you might have to expect to be paying more than double! But anyway, in the UK, I think the added price of organic is probably mostly due to space, they get a lot more space. Even much better conditions than ‘free range’ chickens. And then, I think my own take away from this is perhaps simply that you are not their target audience 
I expect there are some people out there willing to pay extra for organic eggs, and on top of that, wanting to minimise the number of deaths they cause by financing the venture, in which case they may be a good target audience for organic eggs from chickens fed vegetarian food.
