First of all, chickens didnât ever âlay one egg a monthâ because theyâre clutch layers. Not only that, but many chicken folk are raising heritage breeds, not commercial hens,. Your average commercial production hen (leghorns, Isa browns, etc) produce 5-6 eggs per week, laying an egg a day (which is actually how junglefowl, ie wild chickens, lay. The difference is that jungle fowl lay their clutch and then brood). Heritage breeds often donât because they havenât been bred for egg production, theyâve been bred out of a sense of heritage. Older breeds our ancestors around the world kept for various reasons. Often these breeds are the ones that lay 3-4 eggs in a week instead of daily, which is less often than wild fowl when itâs laying season. In addition, several heritage breeds are being kept for conservation reasons, as the breeds were nearly lost.
And backyard hens are often spoiled pets. They get fed rich, hearty, varied diets. Usually a staple chow and then extras like leafy greens, bugs, fruits, veggies. Often they get table scraps. Iâve seen countless people make warm oatmeal on cold mornings to give to Their Ladies. They make them chicken sweaters, and aprons, and diapers so they can visit inside the house for snuggles. Enrichment is increasing for them every day. Most people allow their birds to free range during the day when itâs nice out. They give them names.
They also lay eggs, often infertile ones but even the fertile ones arenât âbabiesâ like youâre thinking. They are absolutely inert without incubation for over 24 hours straight because chickens lay a clutch of 8-15 eggs and need them to hatch at all the same time so they donât start incubation until the hen stops laying and sits on them. Brooding is just as hard if not harder on them than laying is, because they stop eating and drinking except once a day, and hold in their poop so they only poop once a day instead of eliminating waste every 15 minutes or so like they would normally. This can cause them to lose a lot of weight and some birds will sit on eggs until it seriously threatens their health. So normally you donât WANT them to brood if you can prevent it, unless you know they have fertile eggs AND you want babies or know how youâre going to re-home them. Itâs also not possible to safely fix a bird; anesthesia is an extremely dangerous risk that often leads to death and no vet in their right mind would risk it just so you can prevent a chicken hen from laying eggs.
IN SUMMARY: The eggs they naturally produce by existing and being well cared for are edible, nutritious, and taste good, you cannot safely prevent them from laying them, and leaving the eggs in with them can lead to negative health consequences.
So what would you have someone do? Throw away food just because your pet produced it instead of the dirt? Thatâs illogical and wasteful.
Like, if you just donât want to eat eggs, then donât. I donât particularly like eggs either! I keep chickens as pets, and they produce a bunch of eggs I donât eat, so I sell them or give them to other people. BUT if youâre not eating eggs from backyard chickens because of some misguided idea that itâs cruel, youâre just wrong, and you should stop spreading that lie.
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