[lil fu fu girl]

Originally Posted by QuickSilver

I second this. Chickens have the worst quality of life of all farm animals. Unfortunately, "cage-free" or "free-range" chicken doesn't necessarily mean that the chickens are treated well. Here is what I've read about Clover, a big organic brand:

Clover does not use anti-biotics. This means that the chickens are extremely vulnerable to disease, and because they still live in extremely close quarters, one sick chicken could easily wipe out the whole flock.

Clover therefore can't afford to let the chickens go outside, where they could pick up a bug. But the chickens need to be "free range". To solve this problem, Clover keeps the chickens inside a close facility for X number of weeks. At that point, they open a small door to the outside. However, since the chickens have been raised in totally closed facilities, they no longer want to go outside. Hence, these "free range" chickens actually spend their lifetimes indoors.

There are also big problems with inbreeding chickens to produce eggs that are totally uniform in color and size. In one line, roosters were actually raping and killing hens - their hardwired courtship behavior had accidentally been bred out of them.


Anyway, if you are able to, I really encourage everyone to buy eggs as locally as possible, either from a farmers market, or from a store that will stock local eggs. The ones I buy are all different colors, even green!

I've also heard that eggs actually stay fresh longer if they are not cleaned. I'm still looking for a place that will sell dirty-looking eggs.

We do most of our shopping at Whole Foods as well, and we buy eggs from "Giving Nature". They are allowed to roam free and are not subject to caging , antibiotic overdosing, or fat additives in their organic grains. The age of the hens are also closely monitored, as the age effects the nutritional value that is in the egg. We eat a lot of eggs at our house as well, more so than meat, so buying quality healty eggs is important.