What do you think of people eating eggs?

[Kath Worsfold]

To explain, I have met a couple of people recently who eat eggs while claiming to be vegan. One person had an aunt who had rescued chickens, whose eggs she and her aunt ate. Another runs an animal sanctuary, and her family eat the eggs their rescued chickens produce.

Now, in a completely different instance (not the same people), today I was raked over the coals on FB. A person had put up a photo of a dozen eggs in a carton, saying "yummy, healthy eggs". I (thinking the pic was of ordinary eggs, or "free range" eggs) disagreed and said I thought all eggs were cruel, posting a link to the Peaceful Prairie site that explains about chicken exploitation.

This caused several posts rather bullying me, and saying how doted on these peoples' hens are, how they'd had the best vet care - no expense spared, and how tired they were of "zealots". I apologised, saying I hadn't realised they were rescue hens. Then they challenged me, saying they had 34 rescue hens, how many did I have? I replied that I had only 25 rescued roosters, so they were ahead of me there. I had apologised twice to these two women, but it didn't seem to appease them.

I think these women are "animal lovers" but not vegans, if you get my drift (quotation marks used intentionally). They have saved and rehabilitated quite a few animals of different species.

So, what do you guys think of all this? What is the morality of it? My take on it is - OK it's not hurting those particular hens, but there would never be enough of this type of eggs to go around, so it's best to set an example of not eating them at all. Since I am vegan and don't use any animal products, I don't have to make this decision, but what about other people? Would anyone be justified in eating rescued hens eggs?

[Susan Cho]

I've seen exactly such advice before.  Bleh.