By "very well" I mean: in expansive settings (way beyond commercial "free range"), totally uncaged and with a large, secure coop (secure from predators), not de-beaked, and - most importantly - not killed when they are no longer producing eggs...
My own take on it has been that there's obviously no inherent ethical issue with eating eggs themselves, it's whether or not there's any cruelty involved. Usually chicken owners, even the most compassionate, do kill their chickens when they are no longer "economically viable", ie. when they stop producing eggs and therefore offer no material return on the cost of feeding them. This is what makes eggs 'un-vegan' as a source of food. But because the chickens in question here are well looked after and the long-term relationship of their owners to them isn't linked absolutely to their "usefulness", it strikes me, on balance, as being fine to eat their eggs...
I suppose one could argue, from a certain point of view, that any cultivated use of an animal product (when the animal is kept partly for that purpose) is "assertion" by humans of a primacy that isn't warranted and involves ethical issues, at least around our view of things, our place in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps it leads de facto to a hardening of the false view that somehow we are eternal, outside of the purview of impermanance, etc. But then again, maybe that's much too philosophical for its own good and another point entirely!
Anyway, how about it? Any thoughts on 'vegan'/'cruelty-free' eggs?