Hi guys,
If I open a bakery or a cake shop, I need a large amount of chicken egg. The question is sorry if this silly question, does this increase the suffering of those chicken, is making cake bad karma if that’s related? Thanks 
Kamma is one of the four imponderables. A layperson should strive to keep the five precepts and to be supportive of the monastic sangha. As for eggs, there are a few considerations: my advice - which doesn’t answer your question - I doubt a bakery opening would cause a boom for the egg industry but if you can secure them from a humane source that allows the hens free-range (not cage-free but free-range) and provides unfertilized eggs would not be as cruel and would keep the 1st precept. Modern egg laying hens live very short lives and don’t have a connection to their own eggs for the most part. They abandon the eggs upon laying ( so one isn’t breaking the 2nd precept by stealing their eggs from them) and they are hatched by the billions in huge machine incubators so the industry is rolling right along with or without your new bakery. Male chicks are slaughtered by the billions as well. It’s a cruel industry. Better not to support them but there are worse livelihoods (don’t know about the other bakery stuff and how it would all fit with right livelihood or not). Right livelihood isn’t mentioned as much when discussing the precepts but it requires not breaking the five precepts. How about a vegan cake shop? Best wishes.
3 Likes
Thanks for your reply. I finally find out (sorry a newbie here) we can’t force chicken to lay more eggs. So if we want more eggs, we need more hens, not force the chicken to lay more eggs. As for the Vegan cake shop is a beautiful idea, but need to do the research if the demand is relatively high, the business can survive and so on. But I don’t think many people crave Vegan cake here.
Scarcity has the potential to fuel demand.
3 Likes
Chickens lay unfertilized eggs, some breeds lay one a day, others lay an egg every few days.
If you have a rooster servicing the hens the eggs will be fertilized which may complicate the ethics. But most farmers keep hens only and the girls eat and live a decent chicken life and lay eggs and farmers gather them. A chicken may turn broody(develops urge to sit on eggs for days on end. But if eggs are unfertilized this is fruitless for the hen. If not broody chickens do not have any attachment to their eggs from what I’ve noticed.