Would You Accept Very Large Eggs As A Sub For Large Eggs?

[ladybirder]

My grocery order is due to be delivered shortly and I have just done a google check on VERY large Eggs. It seems on the info from 2009, which was all I got, that hens that lay these VL eggs are cruelly treated to be able to produce them. Can anybody give me any more recent info re the cruelty aspect so I can make up my mind whether to keep them or not. At the moment I am going to be short of eggs for a couple of weeks. Thank you.

[Barsel]

ladybirder, I understand where you are coming from and I didn't ever think before that the hens might be in pain laying large and extra large eggs. Having read the article that says medium ones are tastier, I will buy free range medium in future.

[Mamyalynne]

As I rarely bake the size of eggs doesn't bother me indeed I sometimes buy packs of Free Range mixed sizes.

[Barsel]

APG you know your hens are treated well, but we don't know that all hens are.

[ladybirder]

APG I wish I could answer your question with the links I read but I can't find them at the moment. The accusations were that to produce the VL eggs chickens were starved and made to moult. I guess this means if all eggs are to be VL? I'll have another bash at trying to find a link.
Pasta, there does not seem to be any shortage of people willing to eat VL eggs.

[AuntPollyGrey]

Barsel I know -but I still would like to know how or what you can do to make a hen lay a jumbo egg? Extra food would just make them fat and fat hens start to 'clock'. As Jumbo eggs are not that much more money than the smaller ones the commercial producers could not afford to give medication to their hens to encourage larger eggs ( if that exists of course which I doubt). I know some breeds lay smaller eggs (Bantams) and the larger breeds have larger eggs - accompanied I presume with corresponding larger 'egg holes ' lol!

[AuntPollyGrey]

Ladybirder /VL eggs chickens were starved and made to moult./

hens stop laying when they are in Moult.

[pastafreak]

And my link said that large eggs come from certain breeds, and its also to do with the anatomy of the bird.
Maybe LBs ling is from the US where rules are not so strict. I can't imagine UK farmers starving their chickens to get big eggs.

[Cloverjo]

I used to buy my eggs from a local farmer, and she said that very large eggs come from older hens. No cruelty involved.

[allenlondon]

Rexy's comment summed it up:

"I keep poultry and every now and again my chickens lay extremely large eggs. It is very stressful and must be extremely painful for them."

Comparable, possibly, to excreting giant faeces - which can be extremely painful to a human.

Free-range small or medium eggs seem the least injurious to chickens or to their egg-laying.

But hey, who cares? They're only bloody birds, to who gives a ****?

A

[pastafreak]

Has no one on here taken on board the fact that *most* hens that lay large eggs are properly 'equiped' to lay them?

// The egg size a hen lays has to do with the size of the shell gland and ratio of the length of the magnum (where the albumen is deposited) to the whole length of the oviduct. //

[AuntPollyGrey]

Good . Grief Allen try reading all the posts before you kick off-it makes you look like one of these ignorant vegans. Free range and organic hens can lay all sorts of sizes of eggs from tiny to huge -usually because of their age or breeding.
I will listen with full attention if you would like to inform me of how you can make a free range chicken lay the size of egg you feel suitably 'non cruel'? In my experience they lay the size of egg that suits them, not us.

[Mamyalynne]

It would be commercial suicide to feed birds up tp lay eggs larger than they would normally, as stated - different sizes are laid then graded.

No on here has said 'they are only birds' Allen, except you.

[Mozz71]

Surely eggs can be different sizes, just as babies can be.

[Mamyalynne]

* no one here...

Exactly Mozz, we don't sent the nine,ten,eleven pounders back.

[pastafreak]

I was wondering,APG, just how one would control egg sizes...I mean, there's a vision I have of farmers chasing hens around a field because they must be "ready" to drop a medium egg.

[allenlondon]

Compassion? Nah, forget it.

[pastafreak]

I suspect those of us who eat eggs...or even chickens...are being lumped together as having no compassion.

[Mamyalynne]

Quite likely.

[iluvmargie]

The difference being mozz hens lay eggs continuously, but humans only give birth every nine months!

[allenlondon]

"I suspect those of us who eat eggs...or even chickens...are being lumped together as having no compassion." (Pastafreak)

Lummy, you're a wise old bird, pasta - well spotted, chum.