(07-08-2015, 01:43 PM)Jade Wrote: Re: backyard laying hens and egg production...
Yes it is very true that backyard egg production facilitates the slaughter of male baby chicks. Most animal rescues that have egg laying hens will break the eggs and feed them back to the hens, which they find to be an incredible treat and also helps replenish the resources spent to lay such a high capacity of eggs. So really, the eggs should go back to the poor chickens who have been bread to be freaks of nature.
If one is not going to give up eggs, backyard chickens are still less cruel than factory farmed eggs, but definitely is not a cruelty free business. A compromise would be to adopt an aging flock that has slowed down production that a previous owner may not want. But still I think the most proper thing to do is to feed the eggs back to the hens.
Speaking of 'naturalness', this form of cannibalism is 'better'?
Yes, a chicken eating eggs is cannibalism... is that more natural than the predator-prey relationship that occurs when another creatures eats the eggs?