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CONSCIOUS CONSUMER
lay eggs for at least 12 months. Wild birds lay only in springtime when daylight hours are increasing. To stimulate 'laying hens' to lay eggs all year round, bright lighting in the barn is maintained for 14 to 17 hours a day.
These days the poultry industry has been marketing eggs as a vegetarian food. It claims that since the eggs are unfertilized they would never hatch in to a chick and hence it has no life. Thus, the consumption of eggs does not involve any killing of life! It is true that the eggsproducedbycommercial poultry industry are unfertilized. However, they cannot be deemed as cruelty free! By consuming eggs we support an industry that involves significant amount of cruelty and inhumane treatment of birds.
Battery cages
Different birds are used for egg production. Chicks are hatched at hatcheries, raised in pullet barns for about 19 weeks, and then transferred to the "laying hen barn” for their egg production life. The average laying hen produces more than 300 eggs a year. Hens begin egg production at five to six months of age and continue to
Small groups of three to five hens are kept in cages. The cages are built at an angle so eggs automatically roll out for collection and are gathered twice a day. They are then packed and refrigerated on the farm, ready for delivery to the grading station.
Did you know?
Eggs rolling down the angled cages
A cake with no eggs and dairy tastes
delicious!
The eggs, once they are laid are well looked after. However, what about the egg laying "machines”? Are they well looked after?
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THE FIRST STEP OF JAINISM
