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Why I Would Raise Chickens

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Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens

#151

Post by mcguire »

jsprogrammer wrote: post #66
bko wrote: post #3

> If you read this article, watch the video above, and answer one question below, I will donate—on your behalf via Heifer—a flock of chickens to a family in poverty. Giving a flock of chickens to desperately poor families sounds like a great idea that will pay dividends for many years. However, I can't help but be reminded of the many charitable programs that sound great but end up having very unusual unintended cons…

Heifer generally does not perform a 1-to-1 action with your donations. That is, donating a flock of chickens through Heifer is actually making a monetary donation to the entire organization. It is unlikely that your donation will be directly linked to a specific flock donation to a particular family (if it results in any animal donation at all). According to the latest filing I have seen, less than half of a donation…

Charity Navigator:

http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary...

~75% of total expenses go to programs and services.

Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens

#152

Post by ensignavenger »

LionessLover wrote: post #97

> A farmer who sells 250 chickens a year can bring in $1,250, versus the extreme-poverty line of about $700 a year. (That's the comment when you answer the quiz correctly.) What a simplification. I'm all for the chickens, but the quiz and this quiz-answer-comment make it seem a little too easy. If you want to sell 250 chickens a year you a) need quite a few more than that, b) you need SPACE - and it should provide pl…

250 chickens a year wouldn't be that hard. 8-12 weeks from birth to butchering weight would mean you need a substantially smaller flock than 250 birds. If they scrounging for most of their diet, it may take a bit longer to get to butcher weight. Also, if they are scrounging you need more space- and your success will depend on keeping predators out. But you won't need 'several hundred' chickens at any one time to reach that goal.

Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens

#153

Post by g8oz »

Houshalter wrote: post #127
thevardanian wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly doubt that Beef is a more efficient if source of meat than Chicken. I think Chicken meat is a lot more efficient. A little quick googling and I found: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio

Why would you think that? Larger animals are usually much more energy efficient for various reasons - less surface area to radiate heat, and economies of scale with larger organs.

They are not more efficient in terms of how many acres are required to produce a given amount of calories.

Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens

#154

Post by kuusisto »

maxerickson wrote: post #114
Spooky23 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chickens weren't sold that way until pretty recently in history in rich countries. Like cows, chickens provide ongoing sustenance. That $5 chicken may yield $50 in eggs. When the bird gets old, you make some soup.

$5 seems to be the price for a carcass. In the video, dead chickens are tied together and draped over a bike for transport to wherever they are being sold.

I'm pretty sure the chickens tied together on the bike are alive. I imagine it's just a lot easier to transport a bunch of them with a bike when they're tied together like that.

https://youtu.be/MwZxBPYqiLg?t=17s

Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens

#155

Post by skvale »

thevardanian wrote: post #125
Houshalter wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's way more profitable to raise chickens than, say, cows. You need to have a bigger barn for cows, you need to do all the hay thing, which is very time consuming and demands a lot of extra work just for feeding said cows, you need to pay someone to take care of the cows when they go out to eat in the summer on the communal field. This is surprising to me. Of course a cow should be more work to raise than a chicke…

I highly doubt that Beef is a more efficient if source of meat than Chicken. I think Chicken meat is a lot more efficient. A little quick googling and I found: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio

The conversion ratio would hold if they ate the same things. Cows can survive on grass, which is often plentiful. Chickens more so on grains, which are harder to come by.

Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens

#157

Post by spoofball »

The way chickens are raised today, you'd be insane to raise chickens.

Chickens of the old, roamed the grass, picking little shits that no one could find or eat, growing slowly but steadily, surviving and mating.

Today, they gorge on soybean-B12 juice that was raised on ex-rainforest area.

It's highly unsustainable and ridiculously bad investment.

Bill Gates has previously written about meat and its sustainability and has shown serious lack of understanding of how it all works on a global scale.

Yes, chickens being raised on a field filled with little nutrients only chickens can see is exactly the same as cows being raised in an environment where grass grows around them and climate is pretty stable.

That's not the way Africa or India will get its dosage of meat, and it cannot be done in any way other than massive soybean way (the best source of protein and growth for all living animals).

When we get Africans or Indians on the luxurious flesh, we'll never get them off the bandwagon and the unsustainability of the process will ruin more rainforests, more oceans, more living species and more life.

Absolutely disappointed with Bill.

I guess he's totally oblivious to the dead oceans zones that are caused primarily by animal agriculture.

Or that 90% of the rainforest is being cut primarily for soybean, that is primarily given to the animals in the animal agriculture.

Can't believe a guy was solving a problem this huge and he seems to still be on the meat bandwagon.

Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens

#158

Post by rconti »

paganel wrote: post #69

My parents live in a village in Eastern Europe with less than $2 a day (I also chip in to financially help them), and they do indeed raise chickens, they've being doing that for the last 15 years or so, since they moved out to the countryside. Bill Gates is correct in his assessment, it's way more profitable to raise chickens than, say, cows. You need to have a bigger barn for cows, you need to do all the hay thing,…

This immediately makes me think that, as the supply of chickens goes up, their value goes down. You won't be able to sell a chicken for $5 anymore if everybody has enough. But the point is taken that they produce a lot of food for how little upkeep they require.

Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens

#159

Post by bromuro »

paganel wrote: post #133
Houshalter wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's way more profitable to raise chickens than, say, cows. You need to have a bigger barn for cows, you need to do all the hay thing, which is very time consuming and demands a lot of extra work just for feeding said cows, you need to pay someone to take care of the cows when they go out to eat in the summer on the communal field. This is surprising to me. Of course a cow should be more work to raise than a chicke…

> They might be easier to grow, but in terms of calories they seem much less efficient than, say, potatoes I agree about potatoes, but that only works for relatively cooler climates, i.e. places like Poland or Ireland. It can easily get to 35-37 degrees Celsius in the summer at the place where my parents live (not to mention places like the Indian subcontinent or Africa), at which point storing potatoes becomes a cha…

> I agree about potatoes, but that only works for relatively cooler climates, i.e. places like Poland or Ireland. It can easily get to 35-37 degrees Celsius in the summer at the place where my parents live (not to mention places like the Indian subcontinent or Africa), at which point storing potatoes becomes a challenge.

Is it? Here in South Italy we successfully grow potatoes and we have such hot summers.

Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens

#160

Post by maxerickson »

kuusisto wrote: post #154
maxerickson wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$5 seems to be the price for a carcass. In the video, dead chickens are tied together and draped over a bike for transport to wherever they are being sold.

I'm pretty sure the chickens tied together on the bike are alive. I imagine it's just a lot easier to transport a bunch of them with a bike when they're tied together like that. https://youtu.be/MwZxBPYqiLg?t=17s

Yeah, giving it a second look, you are right.
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