151–160 of 879 posts
Who would have thought that not enforcing antitrust regulation will lead to corporations so large that they can just do whatever they want with impunity because there is no meaningful competition any more?
As someone who once built a large coop [1] then just bought a pre-built shed for the 2nd coop, it's definitely _not_ the _monetary_ solution. You will probably lose money overall for quite some time. I'm still probably underwater. BUT, there are definite upsides: - Chickens are very sweet animals, and are quite intelligent. You will grow to love all the silly things they do. You can pet them, they are super soft, and…
Some other downsides: - The smell… Chicken crap is horrible. Our neighbour has chickens, we have flies. Lots of black flies. - Bye bye garden… My dad has two chickens (did I mention the smell?) that free roam and absolutely tear up everything looking for a tasty bite. - Can’t eat the eggs This isn’t necessarily a chicken problem but mostly a problem with chemical industry. We’ve had a lot of PFOA/PFAS contamination a…
This would probably create resiliency for egg supply, but given that a source of bird flu is wild birds and transfer to and from humans would increase mutations wouldn't it likely increase probability of more bird flu and more human cases?
As someone who once built a large coop [1] then just bought a pre-built shed for the 2nd coop, it's definitely _not_ the _monetary_ solution. You will probably lose money overall for quite some time. I'm still probably underwater. BUT, there are definite upsides: - Chickens are very sweet animals, and are quite intelligent. You will grow to love all the silly things they do. You can pet them, they are super soft, and…
> If you really like eating chicken, you may end up finding it difficult to eat them again in the future after you develop a bond with them. I used the believe the same, but as I found out on HN, there are a lot of people who won't bat an eye killing animals raised on their own land. Maybe they just never develop a bond with these animals. But then the question should be is it just the "bond" which is holding someone…
For a lot of people it's an exchange thing. You give the chicken a place to stay, food and care and in exchange you get to eat it when it gets old. They do bond with them but there's this understanding from day 1.
If you don't get that out of it it'd turn into an omlette so instead of turning into an omlette it gets to enjoy a large percentage of its life.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a recent experiment, we were on the more reasonably priced organic feed until I discovered my local feed store had this stuff over the holidays, so we're trying it out. The quality of the eggs is absolutely miles above what I already considered really good eggs though. I'll probably get around to making our own someday, but I'm not there just yet.
> The quality of the eggs is absolutely miles above what I already considered really good eggs though. I must drive past a dozen (lol) honesty boxes on the way to work offering the sale of eggs and this is my general experience as well. Its amazing how individuals can produce and sell a product as cheap if not cheaper than mega corps with such staggeringly different quality.
https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/ne3ivw/i...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9Ui4zmqyxY
https://www.fietsnetwerk.nl/en/places/farmers-vending-machin...
https://www.deboeropautomaat.nl
Here's a German company that will sell you your own egg vending machine:
https://vendy1.de/en/blog/egg-vending-machines/?srsltid=AfmB...
I'm sure drive-through egg vending machines would be popular in the US! (And drive-by egg delivery too.)
> Family-sized egg operations create resiliency This would probably create resiliency for egg supply, but given that a source of bird flu is wild birds and transfer to and from humans would increase mutations wouldn't it likely increase probability of more bird flu and more human cases?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is the amount of time required for all the different chicken activities? (estimated weekly average)
Yeah, the daily tasks are pretty small. Just a few minutes a day. Scoop some food, change out the water, gather the eggs. Every so often, you need to do bigger chores, like go buy fees or fix something in your setup. A couple times a year you need to do a deep clean of the coop (throw out all the straw, scrape any poo that's collected on the floor or wherever, put in clean straw). Sometimes a chicken dies, and that's…
I ask because I used to have a good sized garden at my old house, growing enough veggies to both preserve and distribute to neighbors because I grossly underestimated the yield. While it was nice to have the neighbors love me, it was also a lot more work than I had bargained for (especially when otherwise working 40+ hours per week) and it got me thinking about community gardens and whatnot, why those might make more sense these days
> Family-sized egg operations create resiliency This would probably create resiliency for egg supply, but given that a source of bird flu is wild birds and transfer to and from humans would increase mutations wouldn't it likely increase probability of more bird flu and more human cases?
It would likely much increase salmonella infections. Which currently appears as a far nastier problem.
(cleaning eggs also removes some of its natural barriers, making it mandatory to refrigerate them to keep them edible)
Backyard chicken farming is a great hobby, and surprisingly tech heavy. My Coop controller, which is hand build by grumpy bearded East Germans, even has modules to integrate into a smart home system and supports remote monitoring via cellular network. https://jost-technik.de/PHB2.0-Klappensteller%20+%20Steuerun...
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Imports?
Good point. I didn't imagine a lot of egg imports happened.