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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?

#491

Post by conjectures »

crazygringo wrote: post #372
whycome wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not the egg industry that will lose out if more people have backyard hens. It’s the poultry industry and the eating general. More people will start to find eating intelligent emotional animals as abhorrent as eating dogs or cats.

People have been keeping intelligent animals like chickens, pigs, and cattle for millennia. And continuing to eat them. Ironically, vegetarianism really only started to become popular in the Western world once people lost their connection to farms, and meat and poultry were something you bought in pieces, plastic-wrapped.

> Ironically, vegetarianism really only started to become popular in the Western world once people lost their connection to farms

As did dental care and cars. Correlation is not causation.

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

#492

Post by philipwhiuk »

indoordin0saur wrote: post #486
redcobra762 wrote: post #436

I genuinely don't understand why the focus is on egg prices. Who out there is paying more than a total of $3-$5/month more in eggs? And no, even to the absolutely poorest among us, that's not a meaningful amount. Yes, egg prices, as a percentage are going up a lot, but as an absolute value? I can get a dozen eggs from Walmart right now for $5.46. That isn't, by any measurement, a lot of money more than I would have p…

When I was a growing teenager I would easily eat 6-12 eggs in a day.

That's a crazy diet.

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

#493

Post by 0xdeadbeefbabe »

deepvibrations wrote: post #443
erellsworth wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes sense to me. If you grow up seeing animals slaughtered on the regular you probably won't think much of it, especially when the adults around you treat it as completely normal. You grow up in an environment where you might think meat comes from the magic meat factory, when you see an animal slaughtered for the first time it's likely to be shocking enough to turn a lot of people away.

Very true. Just like when slaves were commonplace, it was 'normalised' and many people just turned a blind eye.

The people who think meat comes from a magic meat factory are blind.

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

#494

Post by partitioned »

watwut wrote: post #315
whycome wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not the egg industry that will lose out if more people have backyard hens. It’s the poultry industry and the eating general. More people will start to find eating intelligent emotional animals as abhorrent as eating dogs or cats.

Given people grew animals for eating for centuries and generally were more cruel to them then we are , I doubt.

We are orders of magnitude more cruel to factory farmed animals than farming at any other point in history.

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

#495

Post by philipwhiuk »

MagicMoonlight wrote: post #266
h0l0cube wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the highest end organic feed tho Maybe feed them your food scraps? Or bulk buy and prepare your own grains/pulses?

This makes me wonder - would chickens grow more efficiently if you cook their food for them? When we invented cooking it gave us a massive advantage because of the nutritional efficiency, yet we feed animals just random raw stuff. Would feeding them porridge instead of grain lead to higher output?

> When we invented cooking it gave us a massive advantage because of the nutritional efficiency,

I was reasonably confident cooking reduced nutrition but reduced food-based disease way more.

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

#496

Post by 9dev »

thaawyy33432434 wrote: post #384
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)

lack of bleaching force owners to keep high standard (hygiene and vaccinations) If you wash your eggs before using them, you will never get salmonella.

But you will get rotten eggs easily.

In thirty years in Europe, I’ve had a single incidence of salmonella infection when I handled egg shells badly while doing a Carbonara (which requires raw eggs to be spread right over the plate). This really, really isn’t a problem if you follow minimal hygiene when cooking (don’t touch food after touching shells without washing your hands in between.

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

#497

Post by margalabargala »

hahamrfunnyguy wrote: post #306

I've been considering getting a few hens for a while. The cost of setup, feed and the work involved for "free eggs" are quite a bit. However, it's more worth the cost now than it's ever been, especially considering the increased self-reliance. There are ways to offset the feed costs by growing your own feed or tapping into waste streams like food/produce scraps.

If you get a few hens, don't do it for financial reasons. There are a lot of reasons to do it, but money isn't one. The financial breakeven will take many years to decades.

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

#498

Post by jkestner »

shagie wrote: post #465
CharlieDigital wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going through the school system (private pre-K/K and public) was really what changed my kids' eating habits. Once they get used to the school nuggets and pizza, it's hard to "unlearn". They were more diverse eaters as young kids and ended more picky and narrow in their food choices. It's why pizza is the staple of every kids' birthday party.

I believe this is a difficult problem for schools. They need to have food that meets the standards (as they are defined), appealing enough to 6 through {age} range to have them eat it, something that can be prepared with relatively low skill demands, and something that can be prepared easily in the quantities needed with the kitchen staff provided. That really gets down to reheated chicken nuggets, pizza, and other c…

I think it's like the rest of the school experience—your parents are the major influencers here. Our kids like what we like because we've fed them what we eat, from sardines to Sichuan to sushi. They take leftovers to school — cheaper and they don't like most of the cafeteria food anyway.

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

#499

Post by pulkitsh1234 »

xaldir wrote: post #338
pulkitsh1234 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Maybe they just never develop a bond with these animals. I love my chickens and I'm really sad when I lose some to predators. Yet I have no issue to harvest them for eating. They are not pets, I raise them for eggs and meat. Maybe it's because I was raised on a farm, but I make a difference between pets and farm animals and that does not mean that I don't have a "bond" with some of the latter.

The first step is to acknowledge that there is something wrong here. This categorization of "pets" and "farm animals" as different sets is completely virtual. In real life, both are just animals.

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

#500

Post by indoordin0saur »

nbaugh1 wrote: post #459
redcobra762 wrote: post #436

I genuinely don't understand why the focus is on egg prices. Who out there is paying more than a total of $3-$5/month more in eggs? And no, even to the absolutely poorest among us, that's not a meaningful amount. Yes, egg prices, as a percentage are going up a lot, but as an absolute value? I can get a dozen eggs from Walmart right now for $5.46. That isn't, by any measurement, a lot of money more than I would have p…

TBH I haven't even noticed a price increase here in Brooklyn. I did notice that a lot of the "oh no eggs are running out" hysteria lined right up with some incoming winter storms, which typically drives up demand for basics like eggs, milk, and bread in the days before. Empty shelves for these items is incredibly common before snow. I don't doubt that there are places gouging, especially in Manhattan, but I just don'…

So weird how people freak out over winter storms in NYC. In the decade I've been here I don't think I've seen a single snowstorm had enough of an impact to close grocery stores.
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