It will vary from person to person in regards to the whole backyard chickens thing. That's a common argument I hear from people; "well, I only get my eggs from happy chickens in my neighbor's backyard," etc. etc.

The fact that you guys didn't kill the chickens is cool and to be honest, a little surprising. But, I suppose the big issue you would run into from a moral vegan is that when you get right down to it, the problem here is that you still kept another species in captivity for your benefit. Now, when I say you, I don't mean you personally. I'm just saying in a general sense, here, that this is what a moral vegan might take issue with.

I once got a very nasty message sent to me because I commented on a news article about a trend (maybe) called 'veggan' a while back, or, vegan with eggs. I simply pointed out that this is not a thing. Well, most people in the comments apparently never eat eggs, except from their friend's backyards where the happy chickens run around and all is well. I pointed out that the issue here is that the animal still can never consent to this arrangement. Well, I was surprised, though I don't know why, that I had several people angrily inform me that 'chickens can't talk, so they can't consent dipshit so what's the problem?' Well, that's like saying, 'I was hitting someone but because they can't speak English, they can't consent, so that must make it OK.' Well, that's sort of a fundamental for moral vegans -- consent. The animal can't consent, so inevitably, it's an exploitation, no matter how innocuous it may seem.

All in all, I'm not writing all of this to attack you, and I mean no offense. I just wanted to put it out there, why this is still going to rub some vegans the wrong way, when maybe it doesn't seem like it would/should.