Going vegan

I decided to take the Vegan Pledge for 30 days three weeks ago. I have been vegetarian for quite sometime now but decided to take the plunge and stop eating dairy and eggs too. It's going quite well but I didn't expect it to be too much of a challenge as I only drink soy milk, don't use butter and rarely eat cheese. The only problem I foresaw was eggs. But since I eat eggs once every two months or so it wasn't as bad as I thought. There does appear to be quite a lot of substitutes out there for most of these items I gave up. What did take me by surprise was proper vegans did not eat honey either. But I don't use honey so again no problem.

My decision to become vegan was based on information I found on some of the animal welfare websites. Whilst browsing I  read about the plight of battery chickens. I was horrified at what I read but apparently even free range chickens have a pretty lousy life. The exits for them to get out of to walk outside is usually so narrow there isn't always the chance for all the birds to get out. They have the ends of their beaks cut so they can't fight or rather cause damage to the other birds if they do fight. But this is a very painful procedure that is performed, without analgesia, and the birds are in a lot of pain for days afterwards.

Any male chicks that are produced are killed soon after hatching as they are no use to the farmer as they don't give enough meat when fully grown and of course do not lay eggs. One of the methods of killing is to shred them alive. How f**king barbaric is that?! Can you imagine a human baby boy being killed like that? Of course not! It is beyond all civilised behaviour. But it's okay to do this to other animals and birds?

I will stop now because the more I think about it the angrier and frustrated I become. I just hope that making the decision to become vegan helps some poor cow or chick out there. One less meat/dairy/egg eater to cater for.