“Why not eggs from backyard hens?”

The hens may be happy — but where they came from, and what laying costs them, still matter.

It’s a fair question, and often a kind one. No cages, a garden to scratch in, a name instead of a number. The hen lays anyway — so what’s the harm in eating the eggs?

Where the hens come from

Hens for a backyard flock are usually bought as chicks, from a hatchery or a farm store. Laying breeds hatch boys as well as girls, and their brothers can’t lay eggs and don’t grow big enough to be raised for meat — so male chicks of laying breeds are killed at a day old. Some breeds are even crossed so that chicks can be sorted by colour the moment they hatch.

Buying hens to lay eggs keeps that system going, however well the hens are treated afterwards.

About 330 eggs a year

A hen’s wild ancestor, the red junglefowl, lays only around 4 to 15 eggs a year, depending on the source. Around 1900, a hen bred for laying produced about 83 eggs a year. Today’s laying hens produce close to 330. That isn’t natural — it’s the result of a century of breeding for more eggs.

What laying costs the hen

Every eggshell takes calcium, and to keep up, a hen draws it from her own bones. Researchers consider this high, sustained laying likely a major cause of the keel bone fractures that are common in laying hens. In one small study, 9 of 13 White Leghorn hens — a typical laying breed — had keel fractures, compared with 4 of 40 red junglefowl hens.

So the eggs aren’t a free extra. Each one costs her something.

What happens when she slows down

A hen lays less as she gets older, but she can live for years after that. The honest question for any egg-keeper is: will she still have a home when the eggs stop?

Where veganism lands

Giving rescued hens a safe home is a wonderful thing to do. Sanctuaries that do it often go the other way entirely: Farm Sanctuary gives its hens implants that suppress laying, to protect them from the bone and reproductive problems that heavy laying causes. Keeping hens for their eggs is something else — it’s still using an animal for what she produces.

Saying it at the table

“If the hens are happy, I’m glad. But they were bred to lay 330 eggs a year, each one costs them something, and their brothers never got a garden at all.”

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