By Leslie Goldberg

Obviously, I wish you wouldn’t buy any eggs at all. But the large eggs are the worst, explained chicken expert Jan Galeazzi of Animal Place, a farm sanctuary in Grass Valley, CA. And there’s even some eggs that come in “extra large” and “jumbo” sizes which, for the hen, can be, well, just imagine…

As she held one of the rescued chickens, tucked under her arm, Jan talked to a group of us gathered recently in the chicken yard connected to Animal Place’s chicken barn.

She explained that modern selective breeding has created a chicken that doesn’t much resemble the one that God/evolution created. The God-made chicken produces about 15 eggs a year. The man-made chicken produces up to about an egg a day.

An egg a day. Doesn’t matter whether the hen is on a factory farm, a “free range” or in a backyard.

The larger the egg, the harder it is for the chicken to pass them. Sometimes they just can’t lay the egg. It won’t come out. The egg can either break inside her oviduct, causing an often fatal infection or get pushed back into the stomach.

The chicken’s stomach can get filled with eggs in shells so that their abdomens become huge and it’s hard from them to walk. Eventually they often die from the condition.

Also, just the strain of producing so many eggs wears the chicken out after a couple of years. On factory farms they are “culled” at a year or two. In the backyard, commercially bred chickens can usually live about four or five years. The biggest killer of laying chickens (besides the chicken industry) is cancer of their reproductive systems.

I recently saw a “joke” on the internet: “Hey vegetarian, my food poops on your food.”

Well, Mr. Carnivore, actually your food also poops on your food. Eggs come from a chicken’s so-called “vent.” In a chicken there’s no additional hole for poop, explained Jan.

Speaking of poop, it also gets into the meat. A New York Times article cited a study finding that 48 percent of chicken found on grocery store shelves was contaminated with e coli, generally an indicator of the presence of fecal material.

That’s basically why you’re supposed to cook the shit out of chicken flesh and chicken secretions.

Sorry, eating eggs and eating chicken “meat” is just shitty on so many levels.

– A Vicious Vegan blog post –