Explain this to Abby
by Benjamin Lyons
For those of you who consume eggs or egg products, next time you feel like ordering that egg McMuffin or bacon and eggs at a café, I’d like you to think long and hard about how you’d explain this to Abby. Think about how you would justify to my 6 year old daughter that you paid people to abuse the body and mind of her beloved pet so badly that she needs extreme surgery in order to remain alive. Justify the pain and suffering of the innocent creature, and the uncertainty and sadness that you inflicted on our daughter by way of this, so you could have a tasty bite to eat.
ANYWAY, Amber’s surgery went really well. The blockage turned out to be eggs. When their oviduct is just battered beyond belief, sometimes the eggs can’t make their way out any more. The hens can reabsorb quite a few of these internally laid eggs, but each time they do, a bit of scar tissue forms. Eventually they can’t absorb any more, and they begin to build up inside them.
This is usually brought on by stress, overcrowding and artificial lighting which just happen to be the exact conditions most laying hens are kept in.
The surgeon said there were probably 30–40 eggs in total in there, which is what is in the picture below. About a kilogram of crap was removed in total.
She’s not out of the woods yet, as it was pretty major surgery, but she’s awake and standing.
We’ve all been worried sick about our poor girl. If you eat eggs, our collective misery and anxiety is on your hands, as are the large sums of money spent on fixing her so that she can lead a normal life.
There is no winning with eggs. All males are dropped in grinders after a few days of life as it’s the most humane method of mass execution. All chickens are sent to slaughter once their production drops. All chickens suffer terrible health problems in their short lives. All of them are killed by being strung upside down into a machine that tries (often unsuccessfully) to stun them, before the next machine slits their throats (often unsuccessfully) and dumps them into boiling water (often consciously) to make the feathers easier to remove. You can’t win. Free range, barn, cage, it’s all the same.
If you absolutely insist on eating what is basically a detachable placenta soaked in amniotic fluid, adopt your own hens so at least you’re not funding obscene cruelty on a daily basis. Or better yet, go visit some egg facilities to witness first hand the horror that you’re participating in. Don’t sit there wishing Amber well with her recovery if you’re going to continue causing these problems.
Just have a fucking heart.
It’s not hard.
EDIT: sorry for the rant; it just makes me so fucking angry that this is all preventable cruelty. If dogs were treated like this, Facebook would explode in an uproar of rage until the perpetrators were out of business. But chickens? Nobody gives a fuck.
Words and photos by Benjamin Lyons
