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Why Don't We Eat Other Types of Bird Eggs Besides Chicken?

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Gourmandize

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Quail eggs: edible, but it's a cruel business

In some organic grocery stores or farmer's markets, you might be able to find quail eggs. They're as nutritious as chicken eggs and have a similar taste but are much smaller in size. To give you an idea, about three to four quail eggs are equivalent to the serving size of one chicken egg. Their shells have a distinct speckled appearance, and the eggs weigh just 0.35 to 0.42 ounces. You'd have to eat several in order to satiate your hunger.

But as tasty as they are, the cultivation of quail eggs hides a cruel truth:
Unlike for chicken breeding, the conditions of quail breeding are less regulated and do not have to be communicated by sellers. Quail are therefore often kept in tiny cages, cannot run around freely and are exposed to artificial light for 24 hours.
In the wild, quail only lay up to 15 eggs a year. In high-performance breeding, they lay up to 200 eggs in their short "usage time" of 38 weeks and are then slaughtered.


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