Egg prices are soaring. Are backyard chickens the answer? • Hacker News Board

Re: Egg prices are soaring. Are backyard chickens the answer?

#221

Post by niemandhier » Thu, Feb 20, 2025, 11:32 AM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #159

niemandhier wrote: post #137

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...

It's only tech heavy if you decide it should be though.

I tried the low tech version first, and one night forgot to close the coop and brother fox killed all the chicken.

Also chicken are not particularly smart, so switching on light to lure them in when it’s getting dark is very useful.

Re: Egg prices are soaring. Are backyard chickens the answer?

#222

Post by gadders » Thu, Feb 20, 2025, 11:35 AM UTC

latexr wrote: post #198

gadders wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had chickens for probably 15 years now, starting with 3 and ending up with about 20 (mixture of hybrids, pedigrees and rescued battery/farmed hens) and 2 geese. This happens a lot with chickens. Chickens are a gateway drug to more chickens. If you have a few chickens, they take about as much looking after as a rabbit - keep their food and water topped up, and clean them out once a week. I agree that you won't ma…

> It makes no sense to get a £80 vet bill on a chicken that cost £20. This logic is confusing. You are taking a purely transactional view when it comes to the chicken’s health, but you also admitted they don’t turn a profit. In that vein, it makes no sense to get the £20 chicken in the first place. Your utilitarian view is also the opposite of what the person you’re replying to is describing. Do you believe that if o…

I think it is the distinction between "livestock" and "pets".

I would also be very surprised if any vets ever managed to treat a hen successfully. They tend to hide any illness until very sick.

Re: Egg prices are soaring. Are backyard chickens the answer?

#223

Post by CharlieDigital » Thu, Feb 20, 2025, 11:38 AM UTC

prepend wrote: post #210

com2kid wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm told the eggs taste way better, I don't really notice it because I really only eat my own eggs, but perhaps I just got used to them At 2 years old my son could blind taste test tell the difference between my neighbor's chicken's eggs and store bought eggs. He refused to eat eggs (still doesn't) until we convinced him to try one of the eggs from our neighbor's chicken's. He liked that egg. Every time we've tried…

I think you demonstrated that eggs taste different, but not better. My 2 year old would only prefer to eat frozen chicken nuggets. That doesn’t mean they are superior to actual whole chicken.

    > That doesn’t mean they are superior to actual whole chicken.

Taste is subjective. Sounds like his son preferred the taste of one over the other.

My kids prefer nuggets over the whole roast chicken my wife and I eat. The salt, MSG, and seasoning of the nuggets along with the fat from the oil tastes better to them. Sadly, nothing I say will convince them otherwise.

Re: Egg prices are soaring. Are backyard chickens the answer?

#224

Post by fragmede » Thu, Feb 20, 2025, 11:38 AM UTC

latexr wrote: post #216

fragmede wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

aren't plants alive?

They are, and you don’t kill them or harm them to eat the things they produce with the purpose of being eaten and spread . If you want to engage in the conversation, please make an effort to do so in good faith and actually address the arguments. If you’re only going to make basic queries everyone already agrees with, we’re just wasting time and space.

> purpose of being eaten and spread

why do you get to decide that it isn't the purpose of a cow to be eaten?

You're arguing on the Internet, it's already a waste of time and space.

Re: Egg prices are soaring. Are backyard chickens the answer?

#225

Post by pqtyw » Thu, Feb 20, 2025, 11:42 AM UTC

pulkitsh1234 wrote: post #106

qq99 wrote: post #93

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…

> 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

You needed HN to figure that out? I assume this is obvious sarcasm but almost none of the domesticated animals species would exist if almost all humans throughout history weren't willing to do that.

Even eating dogs was perfectly standard in most more "primitive" and/or destitute societies.

Re: Egg prices are soaring. Are backyard chickens the answer?

#226

Post by nightfly » Thu, Feb 20, 2025, 11:42 AM UTC

awongh wrote: post #191

qq99 wrote: post #93

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…

> it's definitely _not_ the _monetary_ solution Does this also take into account the current price of eggs in the same product category? i.e., organic, free-range eggs? For current Erewhon prices, 8 eggs a day is $11.30 in free eggs a day, so $339 in eggs a month? https://erewhon.com/subcategory/33022/eggs - $16.99 a dozen

I'm not who you're replying to... but: it cost me $2-2.5k to build my coop two years ago which houses 5 hens, and they cost roughly $10-20 per month to feed, change bedding, etc. Realistically my household eats 4 dozen eggs a month. Even with current egg prices I'm not saving any money for a long, long time.

Still absolutely worthwhile for my mentally though and one of my major life goals

Re: Egg prices are soaring. Are backyard chickens the answer?

#227

Post by latexr » Thu, Feb 20, 2025, 11:42 AM UTC

gadders wrote: post #222

latexr wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It makes no sense to get a £80 vet bill on a chicken that cost £20. This logic is confusing. You are taking a purely transactional view when it comes to the chicken’s health, but you also admitted they don’t turn a profit. In that vein, it makes no sense to get the £20 chicken in the first place. Your utilitarian view is also the opposite of what the person you’re replying to is describing. Do you believe that if o…

I think it is the distinction between "livestock" and "pets". I would also be very surprised if any vets ever managed to treat a hen successfully. They tend to hide any illness until very sick.

> I would also be very surprised if any vets ever managed to treat a hen successfully.

I know for a fact it is possible. I am acquainted with veterinaries and have kept chickens temporarily while they were recuperating.

> They tend to hide any illness until very sick.

Indeed. So do rabbits and other “exotic” pets. It does make treatment harder, but experienced people tend to develop a sense to notice it sooner. You yourself have probably already developed that skill to some extent and might be able to identify “strange” behaviour is specific individual chickens.

Re: Egg prices are soaring. Are backyard chickens the answer?

#228

Post by black6 » Thu, Feb 20, 2025, 11:43 AM UTC

nozzlegear wrote: post #40

My wife and I would love to have some backyard chickens, but ironically we live in a small farm town in Iowa where backyard chickens (both hens and roosters) are banned by town ordinance. A couple years ago a 5th grade student went before our city council to ask for an exception so she could raise chickens to show at the county fair for her 4H project; the council granted the exception, but not without raising concer…

I recently got fined for having backyard chickens within 100 feet of a neighboring residence. That's the ordinance, and I can't meet it in a low density neighborhood.

Fuck the city. I still have chickens and will continue to have them.

Re: Egg prices are soaring. Are backyard chickens the answer?

#229

Post by christophilus » Thu, Feb 20, 2025, 11:46 AM UTC

mcny wrote: post #165

burnished wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Past generations of my family used to name animals that they raised for meat after dishes they could end up in. There are practices people can engage in to distance themselves from the animals they interact with. But also some people who raise animald for meat hire a person to collect them for slaughter in part because of the emotional toll involved. As to your last question.. I think you might be confused? People do…

> People don't like to kill in general. I used to believe this. Then I came up with a twisted question to ask people (I am fun at parties) The question is something like, if you had to come up with a name for someone to kill within twenty four hours can you do so? The conditions are you get a full and unconditional pardon. It won't be held against you at all. If need be, we will even arrange it such that the person c…

Putin and Xi immediately jumped to my mind.

Re: Egg prices are soaring. Are backyard chickens the answer?

#230

Post by ThePowerOfFuet » Thu, Feb 20, 2025, 11:50 AM UTC

latexr wrote: post #207

wrigby wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Admittedly this is pedantry on my part, but isn’t this only true for fruits? GP’s argument seems perfectly valid for e.g. carrots or mushrooms.

Mushrooms are “fruits”. The “plant” itself is the mycelium underground and the mushroom is the “fruity” part which is produced to spread the “seeds” (spores). And fruits are broader than most people think. Many of the things you think as vegetables are fruits: pumpkins, zucchinis, tomatoes. But even outside fruits there is food you can harvest without harming the plant, like potatoes. And we haven’t even gotten into…

> Mushrooms are “fruits”. The “plant” itself is the mycelium underground and the mushroom is the “fruity” part which is produced to spread the “seeds” (spores).

They are the "fruiting body" of the fungus, but biologically they are not fruit.