I know a older couple that have spent the last year or so traveling around Africa doing 'chicken projects' where they help build chicken coops and teach poor families how to raise chickens (pretty simple to do, actually, but there are little strategies one can use to increase profits- hardest part is keeping predators from eating them!) Cool stuff, glad to see Bill Gates onboard!
Why I Would Raise Chickens
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Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens
#22I 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 obstacle going to be overcome?
Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens
#23If they're so great, why do they need to be promoted?
Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens
#24> 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…
In order of severity: 1. Family ends up homeless because there is no legal framework to raise small anymals in urban environments, and the flock is framed as "unruly pets" by abusive landlord/neighbours. Family ends up worse than how they started without help. 2. Family receives the flock, but not any training/resources to tend them properly. Chickens die of illness, malnourishment, or get killed by urban predators (…
Regarding 1: Property rights and records are always a problem in the developing world.
> Less than 5 percent of Haiti's land is officially accounted for in public land records, according to the United Nations, compounding the difficulty in establishing who owns what land. [0]
Regarding 2: Another difficult problem as conditions unique to a market are often not known by outsiders. Outsiders have a different assessment of how to properly care for resources or best practices that may not be applicable to the local market or may even be counter-productive.
Regarding 3: Always a possibility you underestimate their utility curve in regards to current and future consumption
[0] http://reliefweb.int/report/haiti/unclear-land-rights-hinder...
Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens
#25I 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.
Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens
#26> 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…
They lock you at home like any pet, difficult to move house and also keep the chickens, need a big garden, unless you have a huge garden they prevent social use of it, don't reliably lay, people work long hours and don't have the time for cleaning out pens and ensuring water/food is available, cost of keeping them far outweighs the fiscal benefit, they attract rats, you can't be keen on gardening and have free range chickens as they eat flowers.
Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens
#27> 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…
Feral flocks of chickens? Possibly, it costs more to feed the chickens than the chickens provide in economic benefit? Avian influenza spreads like wild through chicken populations and from thence to poor families?
Chickens aren't afraid of people and like to use human structures as coops, so they aren't likely to go completely feral. Even if they did, it is likely they would be fairly easy prey for hunters as domesticated chickens don't have the camouflage and skill at flight their wild progenitors had.
Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens
#28If you want to raise backyard chicks, double check your local chicken ordinances! Unfortunately, even when they are allowed, it can be the source of tension between neighbors: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/nov/27/nation/la-na-nn-back...
But once you do check them, I recommend trying it. Raising chickens can be rewarding.
Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens
#29It is not specified what they mean by "chicken" (age and breed and sex) but $5 seems like really expensive. I know that you can buy baby chicks from an incubator for egg laying purposes for like 3 euro or less in rural western Europe. Breeds meant to be harvested for their meat cost even less.
If the number of people raising chickens gets anywhere near that 30% goal, it seems very likely the price of chickens will drop much lower.
Re: Why I Would Raise Chickens
#30> 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…
In order of severity: 1. Family ends up homeless because there is no legal framework to raise small anymals in urban environments, and the flock is framed as "unruly pets" by abusive landlord/neighbours. Family ends up worse than how they started without help. 2. Family receives the flock, but not any training/resources to tend them properly. Chickens die of illness, malnourishment, or get killed by urban predators (…
Re: 1 - it seems from the video that raising chickens is quite common in sub-Sahara Africa and not likely an issue.