UK Query From a New Vegan

jake1234_-

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  1. Vegan newbie
Hi All,

I have recently made the transition from long time Vegetarian to attempting to be a Vegan and have a few questions for those who have been doing it for a long time:

1. I've recently come across some ideas that I'd never even considered previously and was wanting to know what thoughts any of you had. How do you avoid harming insects and other beings (i.e. dust mites) etc.. when being vegan. By this I mean, how is washing your clothes done, hoovering, driving a car, using flour etc... All these things may cause harm to insects. Are there alternate ways to do these things?

2. Secondly, what are peoples opinions on eating eggs that come from chickens that you own and know are being safely and lovingly looked after?

Thanks, Jake
 
1. I don't intentionally kill insects, but I don't always go out of my way not to. I mean I keep food properly stored, and things cleaned. I have scattered some bay leaves in my cabinets I have grain products (grandmother did this for grain insects). I don't anything but spiders and occasional stink bugs inside. Spiders I leave alone, stinkbugs I take outside. I feel lucky to live in Ohio Us, cause many bugs freak me out!
I go what I feel is possible and practical in my life. I avoid commercial cleaning products and try to do my best to reuse and recycle and limit purchases

2. I keep out of this. I avoid eggs, but have heard aruements from those who have chickens and the circumstances they have are far from where I'm at, same with bee keepers.

I also believe in not letting the perfect become the enemy of the good. Do your best, and always seek to discover better
 
I don’t avoid harming insects. I have no mercy for ants that find their way into my food, or flies, mites, lice, ticks, fleas.

I heard the argument that by getting chickens for eggs, you’re still paying for the death of chickens. They kill the males when they’re chicks. I guess depending on how you get the hens, but it seems like too much effort. If you’re a vegetarian it might be better than store bought eggs, but eggs will never be vegan. It’s easier to go vegan than try to find the right circumstances where no animal suffers for your eggs.
The correct way to phrase it is you're a vegetarian but only eat eggs from your chickens. A vegan will never eat an egg.
Asking if a vegan would eat eggs from a pet hen seems similar to asking if a vegetarian would eat roadkill. A vegetarian doesn’t eat meat, no matter how it was obtained.
 
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If you look at the definition of vegan it has several keywords. One of them is intent. So if you unintentionally kill insects you are still vegan. The other keyword is practicable. This is up to you but if you decide its impractical to avoid killing something like the insects around you than you are still vegan.

The backyard chicken is sort of a gray area. but there are some good essays on it and I think the general consensus is that you vegans should not have backyard chickens.

Here is a good essay on it.

 
Hi Jake and welcome.

For me there is no essential difference between these two arguments.

I know that to produce laying hens there will have been chicks put to death. However, those chicks have already died so there is no extra harm in keeping my own hens for their eggs.

I know that to produce a steak an animal will have been killed. However since the animal is already dead there is no extra harm in eating the steak.

And, Lou, there really, really is no grey area here. It is not vegan.

Roger.
 
There are instances where killing a new infestation of insects can be far better than trying to live with them, or use natural deterents.
I once moved into a house where soon after was swarming with fleas. They must have used some kind of insecticide that killed live ones but not eggs. We used flea bombs
I brought home a shirt from a garage sale and without thinking laid it on my bed. I got bedbugs and called an exterminator.
These kinds of insects don't just leave on their own and I feel the quicker they are gone the less harm is done to all
 
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Hi Jake and welcome.

For me there is no essential difference between these two arguments.

I know that to produce laying hens there will have been chicks put to death. However, those chicks have already died so there is no extra harm in keeping my own hens for their eggs.

I know that to produce a steak an animal will have been killed. However since the animal is already dead there is no extra harm in eating the steak.


And, Lou, there really, really is no grey area here. It is not vegan.

Roger.
Not understanding what you're saying here
 
Hi Jake and welcome.

For me there is no essential difference between these two arguments.

I know that to produce laying hens there will have been chicks put to death. However, those chicks have already died so there is no extra harm in keeping my own hens for their eggs.

I know that to produce a steak an animal will have been killed. However since the animal is already dead there is no extra harm in eating the steak.

And, Lou, there really, really is no grey area here. It is not vegan.

Roger.

Well, i already don't think that it's not vegan to eat eggs. And I think BiteSize has put together one of the best essays on the subject.

But I do think it's ok for me to label it a gray area. Although it might be a semantic issue. Perhaps I should/could call it a "controversial issue". But my reasoning is simply this: There are so many "vegan arguments" or debates on the subject. I think its sometimes called the "Backyard Hen Debate". If you google it you will find dozens of essays on the subject. IMHO anything that produces that many views is a grey area. Or perhaps let's just call it controversial.

Some of the debates include hypotheticals that are at least worth considering.
What if the hens were rescued is my favorite. Or what if the chickens are serving another purpose such as eating insects off the vegetable in the garden or providing fertilizer. Or keeping you company. (I've heard they make good pets, too).

To tell the truth, I don't spend much time reading these essays or time on considering them. Eggs are not essential to good health. In fact, its easy to argue that they are not even good for you in the first place. I've spent more time on the health issues of eggs than the ethical issues.

I am a big fan of informed decision making so I do believe that when a vegan considers eating eggs he should look up some of the articles and make up his own mind.
 
  1. I don't usually deliberately hurt insects: if a fly/bee/wasp gets into our house, I just open a window and try to shoo it out rather than smack it. I always catch spiders in a cup and then promptly release them outside. I do kill mosquitoes and horseflies as there are limits to my compassion! It's either me or them, and I don't give them my blood if I can avoid it!
  2. Consuming eggs is not a vegan practice, whether they come from rescue hens or not. However, that doesn't necessarily mean it would be wrong to do so. You just wouldn't be vegan.
 
Hi All,

I have recently made the transition from long time Vegetarian to attempting to be a Vegan and have a few questions for those who have been doing it for a long time:

1. I've recently come across some ideas that I'd never even considered previously and was wanting to know what thoughts any of you had. How do you avoid harming insects and other beings (i.e. dust mites) etc.. when being vegan. By this I mean, how is washing your clothes done, hoovering, driving a car, using flour etc... All these things may cause harm to insects. Are there alternate ways to do these things?

2. Secondly, what are peoples opinions on eating eggs that come from chickens that you own and know are being safely and lovingly looked after?

Thanks, Jake
(1) Veganism isn't about being perfect. Just make sure you never intentionally kill animals. For example, instead of swatting flies, just shoe them outside, and instead of setting rat poison, set catch-and-release rat traps. Some of these are easy to avoid e.g. keeping your house clean, rubbing lemon on sugar containers to repel ants etc.

(2) Sure! You can sure eat the eggs of chickens you lovingly treat. The reason one shouldn't eat eggs big corporations produced is that they are so interested in getting a profit that they don't care about how they treat the chickens. If you love your animals and never slaughter them etc., then yes, the eggs are completely ethical.
 
(2) Sure! You can sure eat the eggs of chickens you lovingly treat. The reason one shouldn't eat eggs big corporations produced is that they are so interested in getting a profit that they don't care about how they treat the chickens. If you love your animals and never slaughter them etc., then yes, the eggs are completely ethical.

Eating eggs is still not vegan. And if you read that article by BiteSize you might not think its even ethical. Although it might be ok in certain situations. I would classify it in the "debatable" category.
 
Backyard hens aren't a grey area. The process of producing eggs hens directly results in the suffering and death of animals so that we can possess and exploit other animals for no good reason at all.
 
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There are instances where killing a new infestation of insects can be far better than trying to live with them, or use natural deterents.
I once moved into a house where soon after was swarming with fleas. They must have used some kind of insecticide that killed live ones but not eggs. We used flea bombs
I brought home a shirt from a garage sale and without thinking laid it on my bed. I got bedbugs and called an exterminator.
These kinds of insects don't just leave on their own and I feel the quicker they are gone the less harm is done to all
Once i was living in a rented room in a big block house. The whole house was swarming with fleas (they are bed bugs, but we call them "human fleas"). My landlady called an exterminator several times, but it wouldn't help. That was dreadful. It was dreadful that nothing could be done. Those beasties were devouring my ankles while i was sleeping. I got into hospital soon after i moved into that room (not because of fleas, of course), and mom and Liza paid that woman for the rest of the monthly rent and took all my garbage back to our flat in Kolpino. Fleas are a nightmare. God save us all from fleas.
What about other malicious insects,- once, "homey ants" appeared in our building's ventilation system. Mom called them "homies", because everyone thought they were cute! Nevertheless, with time, their quantity got reduplicated, and it became clear that they actually WERE causing inconvenience. Natural ways couldn't keep them from coming to our flat and eating our food. I was an omni then, and i remember them eating grease. They loved grease. Sorry for the details, but their favourite food was human undies. So, they were pretty gross in fact. They were crawling under lids of skillets where cooked meaty food was kept after cooking is finished (they also loved fried eggs), and they were dying on the surface of those products, so the products were covered with LAYERS of dead ants.
Anyway, everything changed when cockroaches came from the ventilation. Our flat had been always quite clean, so cockroaches didn't have very much to eat there,- yet they were still coming, and even trying to organize their nests somewhere around the flat and behind our gas stove! So dad sent us all (mom, Liza and me) to the country to protect us from the poison. He stayed at home, bought a lot of "Mashen'ka" (a super poisonous Soviet insecticide, mostly against cockroaches) and spilled "Mashen'ka" all over the flat. All cockroaches died, and those who were in the ventilation, either died or went away. The ants died too. Luckily, neither cockroaches nor ants ever came back.
That's interesting that those people who live by the (Black) sea, suffer from tropical cockroaches. They are nasty beasties. They never live at home,- they live outside. But they love dumpsters, a.k.a. food leftovers left in street dumpsters. Their body size is remarkable, and one can faint if he sees such a monster crawling across his feet (which sometimes occurs, though they never bite humans). Lol, that's why cats are taught to catch and kill tropical cockroaches from birth (btw, cats succeed).😁
 
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Backyard hens aren't a grey area. The process of producing eggs hens directly results in the suffering and death of animals so that we can possess and exploit other animals for no good reason at all.
Why exactly? (All I know is that egg companies usually shove their chickens in little cages, grind or suffocate male chicks alive and brutally murder the hens once they are too old to lay "enough" eggs, and by buying their eggs you are supporting this cruelty, but if you actually love your chickens, you probably won't do any of these things to them.)
 
Why exactly? (All I know is that egg companies usually shove their chickens in little cages, grind or suffocate male chicks alive and brutally murder the hens once they are too old to lay "enough" eggs, and by buying their eggs you are supporting this cruelty, but if you actually love your chickens, you probably won't do any of these things to them.)

I could tell you why. but instead, read the article from BiteSize that I provided a link to. She does a much better job than I could. Then come back and we can talk some more.
 
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I think the thing is where are these chickens coming from? Are they coming from the same place, where they kill male chickens because they don't lay eggs?
 
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I think the thing is where are these chickens coming from? Are they coming from the same place, where they kill male chickens because they don't lay eggs?

That's a good point. Next time you visit backyard chickens count up the roosters. If there are less roosters than hens, something not-so-good is going on.

I guess one point that is commonly made is what about "rescue" chickens?
 
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That's a good point. Next time you visit backyard chickens count up the roosters. If there are less roosters than hens, something not-so-good is going on.

I guess one point that is commonly made is what about "rescue" chickens?
It's just hard for most people to manage, it is a lot easier just to go vegan than worry about all of that.
 
It's just hard for most people to manage, it is a lot easier just to go vegan than worry about all of that.

Yep. Maybe the best thing is that if someone gave you a hen you could keep it in your backyard and NOT eat the eggs.
Besides, I thought we decided eggs aren't that good for you anyway. :cool:
 
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