Is eating eggs bad for the environment?

 This question came into a discussion with my colleagues tonight when talked about having a vegan diet. Being a vegan can be something to do with religion, concern with animal welfare, health, and for the sake of the environment. To answer the question, let's look at how do chickens lay eggs.

 Illustration: The Spruce / Ashley Nicole Deleon

The lifespan of a chicken is 5-10 years, and hens start laying eggs around six months old. Eggs are formed from the inside to the outside. Each hen has a thousand yolks (ova) at birth. When a yolk is mature, it will be released from the ovary to the oviduct. This takes 15 minutes to half an hour, and fertilization happens here if the hen mates with a rooster. Next, the yolk travels down to the magnum and the isthmus sections of the oviduct. The inner and outer shell membranes are formed to hold the egg content together loosely. It takes about 2-4 hours. After that is the most time-consuming part: forming the eggshell. The shell gland in the uterus is responsible for this, and it takes about 20 hours to finish the process. Each eggshell is made with about 4 grams of calcium. The Colour pigment of the shell is added during the last few hours. All in all, it takes about 24-28 hours for a hen to lay an egg. 

After 30 minutes of laying an egg, the whole process will start again in the ovary. After laying 8-12 eggs, the hen may take a small break before laying eggs again. Hens may stop egg production if they don't get enough nutrients, stress, age, light, or molt (period of feather loss and regrowth). My opinion is, eating eggs is not bad for the environment because hens lay eggs quite often, and they don't lay eggs when they have poor living conditions. Moreover, the chance of killing a chick when you crack an egg is pretty small. When eggs are taken away every day or two and are kept in a cool place, there is no opportunity for them to become mature.

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