Why don't vegans eat backyard eggs?

Created on: 01.09.2025
Last edited on: 01.09.2025

First off: Backyard chickens are chickens that have been rescued or purchased by private individuals. These chickens live under human care for the production and provision of eggs, or as pets.

Most people probably agree with us that chick shredding and similar practices in the conventional egg industry are immoral. But these don't happen with backyard chickens, you might think now. Isn't it perfectly fine to eat their eggs in this case?

The short answer: No!

First of all, good treatment cannot justify abuse. Imagine if we kept humans in free-range environments with beautiful surroundings, only to take away their periods or other things. Doesn't sound so okay anymore, does it? And there are several other points that argue against such use of animals:

• The origin of the chickens: By buying chickens from the egg industry, e.g., from a farmer or breeder, people financially support the industry behind it. The practices carried out there include, among others, killing male chicks shortly after birth, or killing laying hens as soon as they are no longer considered profitable. Even for backyard keeping, probably only (egg-laying) hens are bought, which means the male chicks are again left over as “waste” and destroyed.
  According to the principle of supply and demand, chickens continue to be bred. Consequently, buying chickens often fuels an existing slave market.
  
  
• Overbreeding: Laying hens are usually severely overbred. As a result, they lay an average of about 300 eggs per year instead of the usual 10-15. The laying performance has therefore been specifically increased thirtyfold by humans. This process drains the animals massively – if you have a uterus, you can imagine how exhausting it would be to have your period every day. Most laying hens are bred for suffering, for whom mere existence is an unimaginable strain.
  Furthermore, these chickens often suffer from nutrient deficiencies and resulting diseases such as osteoporosis (brittle bones due to calcium loss). Often, egg binding also occurs, where an egg gets stuck in the cloaca and blocks it, which usually leads to death under severe torment. Backyard chickens can also be affected by this.
  This cruel breeding must first and foremost be prevented by not buying animals bred from it and thus demanding further breeding. For rescued chickens, there is the possibility of feeding them their eggs back to replace at least some of the lost nutrients. Furthermore, for rescued laying hens, it may be necessary to free them from the high laying rate by administering hormones.

Inflammation of the cloaca

• Suppression of natural behavior: Hens have an innate instinct to brood their eggs. This primal instinct and the associated behaviors cannot be lived out by removing the eggs. Since most people view animals as resources rather than individuals, their needs are often dramatically relegated to the background even in backyard keeping.
  
  
• Critical view of chickens as individuals: What is the intention of keeping backyard chickens? If it's primarily about eating their eggs, the animals are degraded from companions to resources. Consequently, for some chicken keepers, it's normal to kill the animals if they eat their own eggs, no longer lay enough eggs, or get sick.
  However, the value of chickens we adopt should never depend on their usefulness to us. Just imagine someone adopting a dog, and if it doesn't cuddle as the human wants, it gets killed. You'd find that cruel, wouldn't you? So, the adoption of chickens should not be tied to the condition of their usefulness. Domestic chickens must also not be our slaves and be abused for human ownership claims!

What do vegans eat instead of eggs?

Those who live vegan and consequently abstain from animal products still get to enjoy great taste – replacing vegan eggs is easier than ever today. Healthy, protein-rich vegan egg substitutes can be created from tofu, chickpea flour, or innovative plant-based egg alternatives from the supermarket. Here are Raffaela's favorite recipes for vegan eggs:

🍳 The Mild Veganer's vegan scrambled eggs
🥚 The Mild Veganer's vegan omelette

Conclusion

Chickens are not resources, their eggs are not commodities! For this reason, vegans do not eat eggs – not even if they come from seemingly cute backyard chickens. Rescuing chickens is, as with pets in general, fundamentally noble, provided it is done with the intention of offering them the most contented and long life possible, taking their interests into account. By taking their eggs from chickens, one always makes potential compromises regarding their interests, and that is unjust.

Veganism is about looking at non-human animals differently than we probably learned to: They are here with us, not for us. They are sentient beings with their own interests, and the value of their lives exists independently of their usefulness to us humans. The chick shredder didn't appear overnight. Our ancestors discovered that they could use chicken eggs and wanted to do so on an ever-larger scale. Thus, chickens became mere production facilities in the eyes of humans, and precisely this must be consistently broken!

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