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Why I Would Raise Chickens

gatesnotes.com

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Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens

#111

Post by olooney »

tbrock wrote: post #91

What is the ratio of female hens to male roosters? Quick googling tells me 10 to 1 but I'm not sure if that is correct. Is there any other species that has a similar extremely lopsided number of one sex?

The natural sex ratio of chickens is 50/50. Chicks are sexed when a few days old and excess males are disposed of.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick_sexing

There is strong evolutionary pressure that keep sex ratios at close to 50/50 in the vast majority of species. Some species (e.g. clown fish) have environments and traits which push this equilibrium away from 50/50. Fisher's explanation for this phenomenon is widely accepted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher%27s_principle

Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens

#112

Post by return0 »

shireboy wrote: post #99

I am not poor, but did recently raise chickens for about a year, and did the math on how they fared as an investment. I would disagree they are "easy and inexpensive", though in a 3rd world setting with some luck it may vary. Here's a rough summary from my experience: -1 x Coop (self-made from scavenged wood, home store bought wood, wire, and hinges) ~$400 -5 x laying chickens ~$100 (Chicks are cheaper, but you pay t…

so most of your cost was the coop. You could just put any old fence in a corner of your garden and you'd be fine. And you can feed them all the leftovers of the day.

Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens

#113

Post by 50CNT »

y04nn wrote: post #101
cmurf wrote: post #100

Impractical to raise chickens in cities where it's illegal to butcher them. The egg laying tapers off at 3 years, but they'll live to ~10 years. That's a pet, or a freeloading chicken you have to feed but don't get eggs from. So...? Yeah, not terribly practical unfortunately.

You can eat it after 3 years.

Not if you are unable to butcher them.

Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens

#114

Post by maxerickson »

Spooky23 wrote: post #95
gearhart wrote: post #84

Anybody else surprised by how much a chicken costs in Africa? $5 is £3.45[1] and I can buy a (dead, plucked, gutted, packaged, delivered to my door) chicken in the UK for £2.95[2]. I realise the local supply's much lower because my Sainsbury's chicken is grown in a cage in a factory somewhere, but nonetheless, I didn't expect that. [1] I presume USD is the currency in the video, since 5 of the local currency is £0.00…

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.

Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens

#115

Post by mod »

shireboy wrote: post #99

I am not poor, but did recently raise chickens for about a year, and did the math on how they fared as an investment. I would disagree they are "easy and inexpensive", though in a 3rd world setting with some luck it may vary. Here's a rough summary from my experience: -1 x Coop (self-made from scavenged wood, home store bought wood, wire, and hinges) ~$400 -5 x laying chickens ~$100 (Chicks are cheaper, but you pay t…

I think this is way out of line. (I also keep chickens, though not with the tractor I'm about to list):

Here's a $300 chicken tractor, complete package: https://www.aosom.com/pawhut-96-wooden-backyard-hen-house-ch...

Depending on your situation, you might not need much of a coop. I would expect you could get away with $100 in supplies, in the US--not using scavenged wood--if you didn't need an enclosure etc, and just a small coop with nesting boxes.

Chicks are $2 and less, so it seems absurd to pay $20 for a laying hen. In my area I think hens are worth about $6-$8.

Your 12 eggs/week (for 5 hens) was a bit low, but of course that can vary greatly by variety. Many hens can lay for 4-5 years, though, and slow down as they go. I'd expect near the end you'd get 12/week. FWIW I had 9 chickens and was getting 3doz+/week. If it was winter, you might have needed a light in the coop to extend 'daylight' hours. They lay more slowly in the winter.

My feed runs about $12/month in the winter, $3/month right now. I seriously can't see how you could feed 5 chickens $20/month worth of feed. Around here 50lb bags of layer pellets go for $10-$12. Plus I throw them scraps from the table, which would be waste anyway. I bought one thing of straw that is going to last about 2 years for $12 at TSC. I don't count my time--and actually, these days my six year old does nearly all of the work to take care of the chickens (releasing, feeding, locking up at night). The straw need not be purchased, though--plenty of substitutes could be had for free or cheap. Shredded newspaper would probably work.

For your $500 + $20/month I think you should have been able to handle about 15-20 hens and therefore triple your production, or make your money back in about 30 weeks. Even at 100 weeks, it's not a bad investment, IMO, given that it just generates money forever after that.

Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens

#116

Post by ghshephard »

TrainedMonkey wrote: post #83
nostromo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unintended consequences are one thing to consider, another is opportunity cost. Gates should have two control groups: A) Gets a bunch of chickens B) Gets the money the chickens would cost (including all project overhead) C) Gets nothing My guess is that B would in-fact have the best outcomes for the simple reason that Africans probably know what they need to improve their lives better than do foreign central-planners…

Option B is liable to cause inflation if not executed extremely carefully.

If you are handing out USD, there won't be any inflation. And I don't think there is anywhere in the developing world that USD isn't seen as good as local currency (if not better in many countries)

Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens

#117

Post by Houshalter »

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,…

> 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 chicken. But it has so many times more meat on it than a chicken, and is more energy efficient per calorie consumed too.

Similarly with beans and cabbage. They might be easier to grow, but in terms of calories they seem much less efficient than, say, potatoes.

If this was addressed in the article, sorry. It's just a blank page on my browser.

Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens

#118

Post by MustardTiger »

tbrock wrote: post #91

What is the ratio of female hens to male roosters? Quick googling tells me 10 to 1 but I'm not sure if that is correct. Is there any other species that has a similar extremely lopsided number of one sex?

That's not the natural ratio at birth, that may be what some people like to keep their flock at by eating the males.

Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens

#119

Post by personjerry »

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,…

As a bonus, chicken meat is also usually considered healthier :D

Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens

#120

Post by MustardTiger »

Grishnakh wrote: post #39
spydum wrote: post #10

maybe I'm missing something, what will the chickens eat? "whatever they find on the ground" is not exactly a strategy for growth, especially if everybody is raising chickens, you can pretty much expect the availability of edible stuff to reach zero in villages. not saying this doesnt work, but it's still an energy in/out problem right, where is the new source of energy?

As the other poster said, chickens will eat all kinds of stuff, including food waste. I've even heard you can let them loose in your garden for a limited time and they'll eat all the insects. (However you want to limit their garden time or else they'll eat your crops after finishing off the bugs.)

They will gladly start with your crops and ignore the bugs, depending on what you are growing. Letting chickens in your garden is one of those things lots of websites repeat, but doesn't actually work well at all.
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