Hi there, I am embarrassed to admit I don't know the answer to this question, hope you can help! My nephew (aged 12) wants to know whether if he gets a supermarket or shop bought chicken egg and incubates it, will it hatch? I think that this won't work as I reckon the eggs we eat are not fertilised, my boyfriend thinks they are fertilised (and so the roosters are having a right old time all day in the battery hen cages!) Another thought, if the eggs are unfertilised and so couldn't ever become chickens, is it ok for vegetarians to eat eggs?
2007-02-07 07:06:24 · 12 answers · asked by Julia 3 in Education & Reference ➔ Trivia
The eggs that are purchased at the store may or may not be fertile (most aren't, hens are never exposed to a rooster), but a store-bought egg won't hatch even if incubated because of the treatment it's been subjected to after being collected from the hen. It's been detergent-washed and refridgerated, which negates the viability.
If you want to incubate fertile eggs, I suggest your nephew contact a livestock feed store and ask them if they can refer him to a place that produces chicks for either the feeder market or the egg-layer market. He can buy a fertile, viable egg from them.
2007-02-07 07:20:58 · answer #1 · answered by Karin C 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Eggs you buy in the supermarket have not been fertilized, so no, a store-bought egg cannot hatch a chick. As for whether eggs are OK in a vegetarian diet, it is up to the individual. So far as I know, most vegetarians eat eggs, whereas people who follow a "vegan" diet avoid all animal products, including eggs, butter, milk, etc.
2007-02-07 07:18:00 · answer #2 · answered by spacey_post 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Some eggs are fertilized and some are not. But what really happens is that if the eggs are collected before natural incubation period time and then taken to market I dont think the eggs will hatch out. If you collect eggs as soon as they are laid they will have to be naturaly incubated or artificially incubated. Here is something you can try. Put some fresh laid eggs in a bowl of water....If they wobble about....there are live chicks in them.
2007-02-11 06:48:10 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
This is going to upset a lot of vegetarians.
Most will only eat eggs from free range hens.
They imagine these chickens walking around the front garden of a pretty little cottage with roses over the front door.
Wrong.
Most of them are in fields without one blade of grass in it.
Just thick soggy muck. With thousands of chickens in the field, the grass doesn't get a chance to grow.
Secondly, it's possible that free range eggs have been fertilized, and then taken from the hen who was trying to hatch them out.
Egg goes to shop - vegetarian says, with a smug look on their face, "Oh, I only eat free-range eggs."
They are eating unborn dead chicks!
If you buy the cheapest eggs that come from caged hens, the eggs have not been fertilized and those hens, whilst living in a cramped cage, have clean straw to sit on, not thick, soggy mud.
Ever cracked open an egg and found blood in there?
The chances are that this was an fertilized egg.
2007-02-07 08:52:30 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Vegetarians don't class eggs as meat , Im a vegetarian and i've never thought anything of the sort, meat is animals wheras eggs aren't . i have egg now and again, hardly ever though but when i do i buy free range eggs! People whoo don't eat eggs and dairy products are known as vegans, these are the ones whom don't eat animals or any food associated with animals.
2007-02-07 07:16:58 · answer #5 · answered by Hayley- Lou :) 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I'm a vegetarian who doesn't eat eggs, but I'm not a vegan- I think that supermarket eggs ain't fertilised. I don't eat eggs because I see it as a chicken's period.
2007-02-08 09:10:58 · answer #6 · answered by JaY 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Right, I'm no expert, but...
hens don't have to be mated to lay eggs (strange, but true), so bought eggs will not hatch unless from a really "green" free range:
no-one else will pay to feed an "unproductive" ****.
depends on your definition of vegetarian; no animal has been harmed/killed, but it is an animal product.
I say "eat and enjoy", but it's your life.
2007-02-07 07:20:46 · answer #7 · answered by selractrad 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
After an egg has been taken from the heat of its mother or an icubator it will no longer hatch. And of course it needs to be fertile. Yes all dairy products are okay for vegetarians to eat.
2007-02-07 07:17:26 · answer #8 · answered by Smarty Pants™ 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
vegetarians can eat them but vegans cant because they come from an animal...the eggs we buy are not fertilised so chickens wont come out of them...Xxxx
2007-02-07 11:02:11 · answer #9 · answered by 100%IrishXOX 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
vegetarians do eat eggs. and all eggs sold are unfertilized they come from battery chickens.
2007-02-07 07:13:27 · answer #10 · answered by grumpcookie 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋