Should I cohabitate with and routinely handle disease vectors that I have no prior experience caring for?
Egg prices are soaring. Are backyard chickens the answer?
641–650 of 879 posts
Re: Egg prices are soaring. Are backyard chickens the answer?
#642Earlier quoted context omitted.
Harvesting crops is materially different from slaughtering animals, and calorie for calorie, plant-based nutrition involves less termination of life than getting calories from animals (if you're grouping insects and non-animal life into the "forms of life" being killed). If people don't like killing in general, or killing animals more specifically, they can live a wonderfully health(y|ier) life by going plant-based,…
What makes my wife and I fail every time is protein intake. We are both active and require a lot of protein. We drink whey protein 1x a day, have quinoa for salads and occasionally eat eggs. The problem is come dinnertime, we have few options. We can't eat: - beans: Yes, I rolled my eyes too. My wife gets bloated painfully and it's happened so many times that I've stopped preparing bean-primary dishes - beyond meat:…
> We are both active and require a lot of protein.
I'm curious what your targets are. I've found getting 0.8g of protein per kg of bodyweight (USDA recommendation) is easy on any diet whereas 1.5g/kg or higher on a vegan diet can be hard depending on your target macro ratio. If you're bulking or doing long-distance running/biking (i.e. carbs aren't a limiting factor) then it's totally doable. Besides tofu, seitan, and beans there's lentils, chickpeas, edamame, spinach, nuts, seeds, nooch, etc.
> beans: ... My wife gets bloated painfully
If she's committed to making beans work you could experiment with varieties and preparation methods that are more digestible, or she could try Beano. But honestly that seems like a lot of work.
> beyond meat: it's expensive, gas and bloat is still an issue, a big one
Same, I just can't digest it. I'm glad the faux meats exist for folks who want them, but I'm sad at how it's displaced other veggie burgers at restaurants.
> Tofu, seitan and TVP are all good, but they're extremely boring (user error attributes to this I'm sure).
I've come to appreciate the blank canvas they provide but that did take a lot of trial and error to get to the point where I knew what to do with them. Similar to beans it depends on how committed you are. (In my case it took a long time for the incongruence between my food choices and my ethics to grow big enough to overcome my innate laziness and affinity for barbecue.)
> Every vegetarian/vegan I've talked to is just not into weightlifting, so they sort of dismiss the diet needs we need.
I know a few vegans into powerlifting/streetlifting, and as mentioned above bulking isn't too hard -- the real issue is cutting. Every one of them supplements with protein powders, especially while cutting. Then again, so do all the omnivore lifters I know.
Re: Egg prices are soaring. Are backyard chickens the answer?
#643Earlier quoted context omitted.
Electric fence? Chickens can fly, my man...
Ummmm.... that is why you clip their wings. (Though clipping one wing is more fun, that way they flap about in circles).
Even without clipped wings, my chickens only try flying over the electric netting/fencing when my livestock guardian dog gets a bit too "playful".
Re: Egg prices are soaring. Are backyard chickens the answer?
#644Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why should they "bat an eye" about killing animals raised on their own land? It's how we've lived since the dawn of time. Death is a part of life. If you think it's wrong to kill animals to eat, I would ask you "By what moral standard?"
This argument would be valid if humanity would continue all practices it has done "since the dawn of time". We have dropped some practices and we continue with some. We no longer leave the dead to rot, we bury/burn them, and so on. We developed religions, science, etc, and we are in a different era now, our lifestyle has completely changed, we don't have to hunt, don't have to build our own shelters, and we are no lo…
Just so you know I agree the "counterargument" about killing plants makes no sense at all. But thank you for your thoughtful reply. My ethical framework is different than yours but I respect how well thought out yours is.
Re: Egg prices are soaring. Are backyard chickens the answer?
#645Should I cohabitate with and routinely handle disease vectors that I have no prior experience caring for?
This is true of all animal husbandry but unless you're buying chicks from huge sellers you'll be fine.
Re: Egg prices are soaring. Are backyard chickens the answer?
#646As 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…
How does one travel/vacation if they have chickens? Are they self-managing enough to be left alone for 1-2 weeks a couple times a year?
Re: Egg prices are soaring. Are backyard chickens the answer?
#647Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, the daily tasks are pretty small. Just a few minutes a day. Scoop some food, change out the water, gather the eggs. Every so often, you need to do bigger chores, like go buy fees or fix something in your setup. A couple times a year you need to do a deep clean of the coop (throw out all the straw, scrape any poo that's collected on the floor or wherever, put in clean straw). Sometimes a chicken dies, and that's…
What are your thoughts on a more communal approach? Say we have a neighborhood of 20 single family homes that all participate in tending a large garden and raising chickens. Would the cost and chore time drop to a level where it was saving all involved enough money to justify the effort? I ask because I used to have a good sized garden at my old house, growing enough veggies to both preserve and distribute to neighbo…
When four roommates often can't keep the kitchen sink clean of dishes, I wonder how a 20-home communal coop would work without creating politics and resentment.
Great, the guy who "cleans" the coop when it's his turn by gently sweeping it for two minutes just swiped all of the eggs again.
I always thought it was silly that everyone in the suburbs owns their own lawn mower, edger, and weed whacker. Why not have a communal shed on every cul-de-sac? ...Until I lended tools out to people and saw how they treated them.
I'd think most of the time you'd need some sort of oversight structure just to manage people.
Re: Egg prices are soaring. Are backyard chickens the answer?
#648Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 mean, no it is not difficult, look at French school menus. You just have to not have the bad options on stock. Kids eat better in a lower-middle-class area preschool in France than they do in the most expensive daycare in the Bay Area.
They do... https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/01/24/no-more-nuggets-schoo...
> ...
> Not many schools can afford gourmet offerings like Mount Diablo’s, which also benefits from California’s year-round growing season. But school menus in several places have improved in the past decade, with fresher ingredients and more ethnic dishes, said School Nutrition Association spokesperson Diane Pratt-Heavner.
> In a national survey of 1,230 school nutritiondirectors, nearly all said the rising costs of food and supplies were their top challenges this year. More than 90% said they were facing supply chain and staffing shortages.
> The survey by the nutrition association also found soaring levels of student lunch debt at schools that have returned to charging for meals. The association is urging Congress to resume free breakfast and lunch nationwide.
> “This is the worst and fastest accumulation of debt I’ve seen in my 12 years in school nutrition,” said Angela Richey, nutrition director for the Roseville and St Anthony-New Brighton school districts in Minnesota, which serve about 9,400 students. They don’t turn away a hungry child, but this year’s school meal debt has surpassed $90,000, growing at a rate of over $1,000 a day.
> Making food from scratch isn’t just healthier, it’s cheaper, many school nutrition directors say.
> But that’s only possible when schools have kitchens. A national shift away from school kitchens began in the 1980s, which ushered in an era of mass-produced, processed school food. Pre-made meals delivered by food service companies meant schools could do away with full-time cafeteria staff and kitchens.
> ...
Los Gatos High School Hires Chef Consultant to Improve Student Meals - https://youtu.be/nMMO9fBWnjc
Re: Egg prices are soaring. Are backyard chickens the answer?
#649As 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 hear another downside is the sheer amount of poop to clean up.
you mean free fertilizer to gather and use.
Re: Egg prices are soaring. Are backyard chickens the answer?
#650Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 think the problem with this argument is the assumption that nature is inherently good. Nature is cruel and uncaring. Moving beyond it is a good thing imo. We’re just lucky that as a species by the roll of the dice we were given the power by nature to usurp it.
>> Nature is cruel and uncaring
These are not the same thing. You're interpreting "uncaring" as inherently cruel, but it's not; just uncaring.