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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?

#501

Post by IshKebab »

cudgy wrote: post #442

How many eggs do most people even buy? Almost every story is talking about eggs and how much of a burden it is on the public, but what are we talking about here? I can buy 18 fancy Vital Farms pasture raised eggs for $12. How is such a small purchase so important in the financial press? The whole thing is just completely silly. The focus should be on the true cost drivers like healthcare, insurance, child care, and h…

I agree. I doubt eggs are a significant outlay for many people. I think it's probably because it's a stereotypical staple, like bread, milk and cheese. It's a kind of representative of food prices in general.

But yeah it doesn't make any sense to care much about it in isolation, unless you run a mousse business or something.

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

#502

Post by xandrius »

abtinf wrote: post #470
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…

That is expensive. Typically at Costco, 5 dozen eggs is under $12, sometimes as low as $8. Currently it is closer to $20, which is about your price.

Yeah but I don't think those are even near being free-range.

The US has some awful widespread practices for their livestock.

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

#503

Post by bufordtwain »

phendrenad2 wrote: post #434

Prices "soaring" like everything else? I'm sick of these articles that pick one product in isolation and ignore the fact that we're in hyperinflation and it affects products unevenly. (Egg farmers have likely been unable to mitigate bird flu because they artificially kept costs low to avoid shocking the public into abandoning eggs entirely, but now they need to overcompensate because of this random event).

Where is the evidence that we're in hyperinflation?

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

#504

Post by veidr »

adriand wrote: post #330
watwut wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> and generally were more cruel to them then we are Strongly disagree with this part of your statement. The scale of suffering from industrial animal processing far exceeds anything from past centuries. The one-on-one cruelty of past centuries exists today as well (there are plenty of hidden camera videos to that effect), but what's really different is that now we treat animals as if they are mere inputs to industria…

That's so keenly true I wonder how we've ended up with a society where it's not only non-obvious, but even dubious, to such a significant percentage of people.

There's not really any human analogue to industrial meat factories, except maybe like Nazi concentration camps, or ... I mean really only that, right? Maybe something Genghis Khan did might occupy that same space.

Like Eazy-E famously said, it's not how you die, it's how the moments from your birth, all the way through to the end of your life in this world, add up. Do you get a positive number?

Chicken/horse born on a ranch? Yeah.

Chicken/horse/cow born in a concrete meat factory? I mean, I don't think so...

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

#505

Post by belorn »

sandermvanvliet wrote: post #105
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…

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…

We used them to manage the garden. It much easier to put down nets/steel wire around problem areas, then it is to clear out weed and insects, and the chicken bring their own fertilizers to the mix. They are also great at managing grass lawns.

There were several lessons that we learned. Chicken will find dry earth to use as a bath. If one do not want that then you need to remove access and solve the underlying need. They will also dig up seeds and eat seedlings, so any fresh worked soil need to be covered/restricted. They also eat some fruits and herbs, but not others.

In term of total work they did save a lot of time and the garden was in much better shape than before.

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

#506

Post by xandrius »

aj_icracked wrote: post #455

Backyard chickens FTW! I sold my last company iCracked (W12) and have been automating my coop for fun for the last 15 years. I have always wanted to build a company at the intersection of smart home / AI meets backyard agriculture with the end goal of building the world's largest decentralized food production system. So we started Coop with the goal of making backyard chickens approachable to anyone with a backyard.…

Long winded advertisement here. No thanks, I'll check out my hens in the morning.

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

#507

Post by CharlieDigital »

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…

100%; I'm not blaming schools, just pointing out to non-parents how this happens. A lot of non-parents don't have the context.

The kids get used to eating it at schools and birthday parties where people go for "safe" choices like pizza.

I, too, remember in my elementary school days in the 80's, that we had real, cafeteria prepared lunches (shep's pie was my favorite). But it was also a small rural school.

    > They don't help, but I'm not entirely sure they are to blame.
Well, I also believe that there is a biological/evolutionary reason from what I've read. Generally, when kids become mobile, their dietary preferences narrow (so the idea goes) because now that they are mobile, it is more dangerous if they are willing to put anything in their mouth!

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

#508

Post by giantg2 »

ilikecakeandpie wrote: post #340
giantg2 wrote: post #337

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." Or you might find them delicious and need to raise more of them.

Do you know anyone where this has been the case?

Yes, I know people who raise chickens for dual purpose. There are entire breeds of chickens that are dedicated to dual production.

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

#509

Post by 1234letshaveatw »

marcus0x62 wrote: post #440
crazygringo wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chicken tenders are chicken tenders, not nuggets. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with nuggets. Nobody criticizes Italian meatballs, which are ground-up beef in balls. But then for some reason ground-up chicken in a different shape isn't "real chicken"?!

You’ll find the “ground chicken” in a typical industrially produced chicken nugget to be quite different than the ground meat found in a traditional Italian meatball.

correct, the "ground chicken" is much less wasteful and a more cost effective way to feed the masses with a reduced environmental impact

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

#510

Post by jkestner »

gadders wrote: post #146
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'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…

I have two geese as well—have you found they help against predators? Anecdotally, we've had no predators steal any chickens since we added them (though a coyote got some goose tail feathers at first), though our neighbors down the street have been decimated by foxes.

Never considered the ROI, but I built a big walk-in coop for maybe $200 in materials. Think that'd pay off with the current price of eggs, if we sold them.

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