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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?

#551

Post by bee_rider »

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…

It was an election thing, right?

It was not really plausible for Republicans to say they are going to do something about healthcare or insurance (I mean, hopefully that isn’t controversial—it isn’t like they are lying about that, healthcare just isn’t part of their platform). It was a folksy way to complain about the economy under Biden without complaining about capitalism.

Now it is a folksy way for Democrats to complain about the economy, that doesn’t require bringing up the fact that there was some inflation under Biden. And it has some vague healthcare relevance (since bird flu might jump to humans).

The way stuff gets talked about in America now is intense focus on extremely niche stuff. Our legislative branch is not really functional anymore, so we can’t talk seriously about solving big problems. So, let’s put a on our blinders and talk about eggs. The eggs represent our whole system, it is dumb as hell.

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

#552

Post by shkkmo »

zoky wrote: post #250
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?

"lied through his teeth" isn't an accurate description. His openness about his history of drunking wasn't ideal and did damage his credibility. However other people have partially reproduced the health effects of what he did and his level of drinking is pretty common in the USA so it's not like he's some crazy outlier.

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

#553

Post by GJim »

partitioned wrote: post #490
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.

Why do people always think its the killing? Almost every vegan/vegetarian has most of their issues with how its raised and treated its whole life. The constant meat eater trolling about how its natural to eat meat and animals do it, ignore the fact that its not natural to keep animals in pens where they cant turn around for their entire life that is basically pure torture from birth to death. If all meat was produced…

> its not natural

Neither is using fire to cook food.

Your point? (Or are you recommending a raw food diet?)

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

#554

Post by fullstick »

qoez wrote: post #457
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…

People who work out a lot eat way way more than $5 in eggs per month; maybe $5 per day is more accurate (it's not only the rich who want to work out).

I work out every day, sometimes multiple times per day, and never eat eggs.

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

#555

Post by asciimov »

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…

There was a time in my life where our household of 2 was regularly going through 3 dozen eggs a week just for breakfast. Back then that would total $5 a week. Today that same amount of eggs are just under $20.

It’s not just the eggs, all grocery prices have gone up massively post covid. But eggs prices are easier to spot because they are super inflated thanks to bird flu, and are easy to understand as a necessity.

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

#556

Post by aziaziazi »

georgeecollins wrote: post #516
deepvibrations wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Everything biological is going to be eaten. Your dog or cat would eat you if you were dead and they were hungry enough. I am not saying we shouldn't evolve past eating meat, it would be great for the environment. But to say that one biological creature eating another biological animal is unethical is an indictment of nature.

I agree with you but think you miss that the common concern is with the farming process. The fact to eat another animal usually comes as

- a shortcut : “I don’t eat animals” instead of “I avoid encouraging the farming process by consuming the product of those farms: […]”

- and/or a following philosophic stance, that seems logical (debatable) when someone avoid encouraging the farming process.

Few are the vegans that claims that an animal eating another animal is not natural, or that they cats wouldn’t eat them in the condition you describe (which to be honest, rarely happens).

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

#557

Post by LightBug1 »

whycome wrote: post #309
pjerem wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do own two chickens since maybe 6 months for random reasons. Before that I thought they were pretty "stupid"/"uninteresting" animals but I was really wrong. They are in fact very lovable little beings. They have interestingly complex relationships between them, they are very social and I do have a special bond with the first I got, especially because we hadn’t the necessary hardware to keep her hot enough for multi…

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.

Considering the bizarro world we're now living it, I wouldn't put it beyond us for it to go the other way.

If people realise they are still comfortable eating intelligent emotional animals like chickens, the dogs and cats of this world should watch their backs!

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

#558

Post by slothtrop »

ilikecakeandpie wrote: post #483
slothtrop wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* gestures to most of recorded history * Before the industrial revolution, 80% of us worked the land, most familiar with animal agriculture.

This is irrelevant. Do you bring up that before the industrial revolution that grown men used to marry children when people talk about modern views on grooming?

Did you miss the context? The other user questions whether people have ever been unperturbed by slaughter when raising animals. It's a strange sentiment when you consider that historically we have been much, much closer to the animals we consume and intimately familiar with the process of how they get to the table.

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

#560

Post by ozmodiar »

cluckindan wrote: post #307
ozmodiar wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My neighbor has chickens and the predators are no joke. Raccoons constantly trying to weaken their coop, weasels always ready to slip into any little hole, hawks and other birds of prey circling overhead. They've lost a lot of chickens despite keeping a close eye on them and trying to keep a very sturdy coop. It's like a signal goes out to all the wild animals "COME GET TASTY CHICKENS HERE!" Of course we are in a pre…

Tell them to get a farm dog or two. That’s pretty much the only working answer to predators on a farm.

We're a bit rural but still too tightly packed for farm dogs. They've got a regular dog but it doesn't have quite the free rein a farm dog requires to keep chickens locked down. Kind of the worst of both worlds as far as the chickens are concerned.
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