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Egg prices are soaring. Are backyard chickens the answer?

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

#241

Post by fragmede »

latexr wrote: post #231
fragmede wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> why do you get to decide that it isn't the purpose of a cow to be eaten? Clearly you’ve never experienced the sight of animals in a slaughterhouse, as they realise what is happening to the animals in front and begin to panic and violently bellow and push back. > You're arguing on the Internet, it's already a waste of time and space. That is only true for people who don’t engage in good faith and don’t have a genuin…

your attempt to evoke an emotion doesn't answer my question though.

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

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

#242

Post by jagged-chisel »

rscho wrote: post #179
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How's that? I know American eggs get cleaned and bleached, but that doesn't happen in Europe yet salmonella is not a huge issue. (cleaning eggs also removes some of its natural barriers, making it mandatory to refrigerate them to keep them edible)

Industrial eggs are tightly controlled. Homemade eggs are far more susceptible to infection. AFAIK, scrubbing eggs like in the US is generally a bad idea, and results in the need to refrigerate them.

This doesn’t explain the lack of salmonella from eggs in Europe

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

#243

Post by christophilus »

MichaelRo wrote: post #150
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…

Definitely it's not about the cost and convenience. And I haven't seen it discussed much, which tells a lot that the HN-ers are city dwellers with little experience in the countryside life. But the biggest, nastiest, deepest problem with anything animal is ... shit. Animals produce shit and lots of animals produce loads of shit. And chickens don't have the notion of "this area is for eating, this one's for shitting",…

At the backyard scale it’s not so bad. My neighbor just mixed it into a big dirt pile that we all use for fertilizing our flowers and shrubs.

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

#244

Post by throwmeme888 »

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.

eggs are homogenous in nature, so a blind test between two eggs can reveal the superior quality of one type of homogenous product. Especially when it is an egg, which is entirely "natural"

a chicken nugget is not the same thing as whole chicken, because it has many chemicals, additives, flavouring agents, msg, organ meat, etc and is then battered or crumbed and deep fried before being packed. It also has a different texture altogether, and is eaten with the hands which children find easier than using cutlery.

compare a child tasting two different varieties of dark chocolate in comparison to a milk chocolate with caramel filling, or two varieties of whole milk to chocolate skim milk, et cetera.

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

#245

Post by somenameforme »

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…

It's just the circle of life. Live in a remotely rural area with animals around and you're going to see pretty regular death. For instance foxes are beautiful, extremely intelligent, and amazing animals. They'll also systematically and sadistically kill literally every single chicken inside a henhouse, one by one, if they get in. In another instance a dog I loved more than anything as a child to young adult was killed by a wild boar - tusk straight into the lungs.

The same, by the way, applies to vegetarian stuff. The amount of critters being killed to keep them away from the veggies would probably shock you, especially in the rather inhumane way its sometimes done in industrial farms. Shooting, for some baseline, is considered one of the most humane ways of dealing with large pests.

I simply see nothing wrong, at all, with eating meat. It's a natural and normal part of life and also, by far, the easiest way to ensure you hit all your necessary nutrients without going overboard on calories - especially if you live an active life and/or are into things like weight training.

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

#246

Post by latexr »

y-curious wrote: post #232
latexr wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Aren't plants alive?" is such a bad faith argument that I don't know why you even bother replying. It's legitimately on the level of "internet troll". I eat meat btw, but I wouldn't even entertain someone that pretends there's no difference between a sentient mammal and a stalk of broccoli

You are right, of course. But I have noticed as of late that I sometimes became unkind in my replies, which I don’t like and didn’t use to happen. I want to do better.

Surely the right move here is not to play, but if you don’t get annoyed trolls can’t win either.

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

#247

Post by kypro »

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…

I also own chickens. Before I got them I thought chickens were pretty stupid animals and wasn't particularly fond of them, but I liked the idea of keeping them for eggs and some entertainment.

I've had mine for about 6 months now and they've totally won me over...

They're far more friendly and intelligent than ever I imagined. Mine love hanging out with me in the garden. One of them is very affectionate and will sometimes decide to sit on my shoulder and is happy to be held. They're all totally different and have very unique personalities which I didn't expect. Their personality will depends a lot on the breed of chicken you get too and some are much more tame than others so it's worth thinking about the type of chicken you want.

I've trained mine to come to me when I whistle which can be super useful when I need to get them back in the run. Obviously you can't train them like dogs, but they're surprisingly smart and will learn things.

They've very curious animals. Mine like to fly up onto my window sill to watch us in the kitchen which is quite sweet.

They'll eat pretty much anything so they're very cheap to keep once you have your coop built. I have 3 (getting a 4th soon) and it's costing us about £3 per month for their feed which makes up about half of their diet, and for that they'll give us about 60-90 eggs. I wouldn't get them for the price of eggs though. If you want to give them a good home it's going to cost you. They're also quite a lot of work. I need to clean mine weekly, feed them daily and provide them general care. Buying an automatic coop door is a good way to reduce some of the hassle of having to let them out and shut them in every day.

I don't eat mammal meat, but I do eat chicken and fish and its been hard for me to eat chicken recently. I'm trying to reduce the amount of chicken I eat in favour of eggs.

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

#248

Post by pipe2devnull »

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

Free range isn’t that much space still. Pasture raised is better and at my local grocery store I can get a dozen for like $8/dozen.

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

#249

Post by gadders »

Vinnl wrote: post #169
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…

Sounds like the true answer is having a colleague you can buy £1 eggs from.

Hahaha - possibly!

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

#250

Post by zoky »

memsom wrote: post #184

Wow! I wondered about this article - US centric. I wondered because eggs are not expensive here. I just looked [1] [2]. I can get a dozen free range for about US$4 at the current conversion rate. They are a supermarket own brand, but even the "fancy" ones are something like that for 6, but some are actually still close to $4 for 12. The US chicken market (not necessarily eggs specifically) was in the Morgan Spurlock…

Hmm. After Spurlock lied through his teeth in his first film, why would anyone trust him ever again?
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