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Why I Would Raise Chickens

gatesnotes.com

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Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens

#221

Post by x0x0 »

rsync wrote: post #214
developer2 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to provide an entirely uneducated guess regarding cows. I would bet that the average person without any training or resources is capable of raising chickens, whereas the average person would have their cows die before maturing. I'm not commenting on the "average African". I'm talking about my own first-world Caucasian self. I bet you I could raise chickens with very few resources. I also bet I couldn't do t…

"I'm going to provide an entirely uneducated guess regarding cows. I would bet that the average person without any training or resources is capable of raising chickens, whereas the average person would have their cows die before maturing. I'm not commenting on the "average African". I'm talking about my own first-world Caucasian self. I bet you I could raise chickens with very few resources" Your instincts are incorr…

OTOH, hay is hard to make and expensive to store, because you absolutely cannot let it get wet. If it even becomes damp it can give cows the heaves (and will give horses), and it can give farmers farmer's lung. Plus an untimely rain after you cut it can ruin a growing season's entire yield.

If you get it wet, you'll burn your barn down because it composts.

Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens

#223

Post by vit05 »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #25
fiatmoney wrote: post #22

I don't get it. As mentioned in the article, chickens are incredibly easy to bootstrap (ie, it's not like they require a huge capital outlay to get started, and they literally pay dividends in further chickens), and have been present in the area for centuries. What has been the obstacle that has kept them from already being common enough to drive the expected benefit of further investment to ~0? And how is that obsta…

They're giving away vaccinated chicks. I suspect that the vaccines are the main problem they're addressing. It's certainly possible that it's easier and cheaper to give away vaccinated chicks than it is to give away vaccinations.

Gates is very addictive with vaccine stuff, I think you are right. This could be the trigger. But could be cultural and educational stuff too, maybe people must learn how great breed a chicken could be.

Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens

#224

Post by paganel »

oh_sigh wrote: post #205
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,…

What country in europe? Are they $2/day because they don't have jobs, or because they work but they only make $2/day?

The poorer parts of Romania.

> Are they $2/day because they don't have jobs, or because they work but they only make $2

It was, let's say difficult, for them to find a steady job in their early 50s after the steel works factory that was feeding my hometown and where they had worked for almost all their life closed down. They had to sell the city apartment (because bills have a nasty habit of showing up at your door each and every month) and moved out to the country-house, where at least they were able to put some food on their table.

I shared these personal details because I think that my parents' story happened to a lot of people in Eastern Europe in the '90s-early 2000s (Russia saw its average life expectancy actually go down in the '90s), I'm talking about people who fell hard through the social safety net's very large holes. Things are better now, of course, but there are entire generations who saw their entire life's work go to nothing. I think a similar thing is now happening in places like Greece.

Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens

#225

Post by zhte415 »

bencollier49 wrote: post #2

If six times as many people raise chickens, won't the sale price of chickens go down and negate (part of) the effect of providing all the chickens in the first place? Shouldn't the number of people raising chickens have already reached a market equilibrium?

Yes and no.

Owning the chickens means owning capital, not being a waged consumer. Chickens also have inherent value, being able to lay eggs and have more chickens. Also many suggestions in the article about empowering women, which compounds the impact of capital ownership. Mainly marxist interpretation.

Owning chickens means a surplus of chickens, and therefore there will be no more grain. Malthus.

Price of grain/feed will change, but assuming chickens eat grain + anything, it might not change that much. Added benefits of immunized chickens. Unknown effect of price of chickens, perhaps deflationary pressure on price of other goods. Ricardo, perhaps.

The network effects will be interesting. Every house with a couple of chickens is very worthy selfsustainment.

A form of basic income.

Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens

#227

Post by raintrees »

Meta: Almost 10,000 lines of code for that web page (I have NoScript on by default, I check source to see what I am missing when I get blank pages).

But back to the main point: When my wife and I moved up to this very rural area of coastal Northern California, we took over dad's chickens. He had been keeping them penned, but we let them out, and the eggs became drastically better tasting. More protein, I assume.

It has also taught me that chicken-based epithets carry some weight, they are not the brightest of creatures.

We are considering adding a few more this year, we have avoided roosters, so we do not have the risk of fertilized eggs. The trade off is we pay for the odd hen or two, once every couple of years or so.

We now enjoy more traditional recipes that use uncooked eggs or lightly cooked - I hadn't realized what I had been missing.

I have definitely learned quite a bit, but so much more to go.

Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens

#228

Post by [deleted] »

kenshaw wrote: post #182
spoofball wrote: post #157

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…

This is a clear troll. Absolutely nothing said by this poster has anything to do with the actual article. Additionally, the user account is only 13 days old. Moderators, please kill this account and postings.

[deleted]

Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens

#229

Post by rwmj »

bencollier49 wrote: post #109
rwmj wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK, the 1950 Allotments Act trumps all other covenants and local ordinances, provided you're only keeping hens and they are not a nuisance (and despite the name, the Act in this instance applies to keeping hens anywhere). http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo6/14/31

Could you just confirm that for me - a deed of covenant is unable to restrict the keeping of hens in UK law? I ask because I'm pretty sure out deed of covenant says 'no chickens'. It might also be 'no sheep'. Don't suppose the Allotments Act covers sheep though.

Well you can read the Act, it's quite short and written in reasonably plain English.

The relevant section is S12.1 (S12.2 has been repealed). It only applies to hens (female chickens) and rabbits, not to any other species. It appears to supersede any covenants. As far as I know this aspect of the Act has never been tested in court.

Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens

#230

Post by gadders »

jakeogh wrote: post #103

I started raising chickens 2 years ago. A few things I have learned: If you have a yard that they can run free in, they don't need a coop. Chickens will happily roost in the trees. I live in southern Arizona, so the winters are mild, but I know of people that do the same thing in much colder climates. Chickens are tough. An added benefit is they are actually safer, if they are locked in a coop, and a predator gets in…

Our cat is a pretty good hunter - normally one dead mouse/baby rabbit/vole/bird per day and he leaves the chickens alone.

He did pounce on one once by jumping on it off the bonnet of my wife's car, but soon got off it. I think it was more for fun than a serious attempt.

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