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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?

#721

Post by SoftTalker »

jorvi wrote: post #585
partitioned wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You're a reasonable / pragmatic vegan. Vegans that won't eat meat because of the kill are ideological / dogmatic vegans. There's even a small amount of vegans that consider lab meat to be something immoral (how they loop their head around that one, I do not know). I'm currently dating a girl that's vegan and is super chill about it, but when I was 16 I dated a vegan girl also. My mother made two separate dishes for h…

> Vegans that won't eat meat because of the kill are ideological / dogmatic vegans

I've never met any other kind of vegan person. If they were concerned only about the living conditions of the animals, then they would eat free-range ethically-raised meat. They don't. Even if it's really free-range and not what the government allows to be called "free-range."

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

#722

Post by 0x457 »

sethammons wrote: post #663
thijson wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We put the redundant roosters in the woods, let nature do the killing for us. They didn't last one night.

Getting eaten alive makes you feel better than euthanizing them quickly?

Well, at least a wild animal had something to eat?

I'd say main benefit is not doing it youself.

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

#723

Post by PastorSalad »

digitallis42 wrote: post #657
PastorSalad wrote: post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The two-decade war between my Dad and the local foxes cannot be understated. The chickens are fully enclosed, naturally. They currently have a (completely buried) overturned concrete igloo under their feet. There’s a dual perimeter fence, the outer one is regularly coated in all manner of larger mammal’s urine he buys online. Team Fox is currently tunnelling to map out the concrete igloo, convinced there’s an opening…

Pea gravel. Lots of pea gravel in the holes. Blow it in with water. You can't tunnel in pea gravel.

I will pass this on to the general, he appreciates the intel.

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

#724

Post by nemo44x »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #710
nemo44x wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know, farmers always had dogs on the farm but they didn’t eat them and continued to eat the chickens. Chicken is really great and succulent. Hard to resist frying one of them up and sucking the meat off the bone. Absolutely no desire to do that with a dog.

Almost no culture routinely eats meat-eating animals. It is very easy to determine, even in ancient times, that it is incredibly easy to get sick from eating meat-eating animals. This is because predators often catch and eat diseased prey, and end up having a lot of parasites and such. Not to mention the meat of such animals tastes much worse.

Yeah plus the whole they eat things I can't and turn it into something I can eat.

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

#725

Post by backyardflock »

dyauspitr wrote: post #711
philco wrote: post #703

This feels like an insane proposition to me, I'll explain: 1. Soaring egg prices are due to culling + deaths related to the proliferation of H5N1 (Avian Flu). 2. The reason we have been proactively culling is to minimize spread AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, to minimize the number of exposures H5N1 could have to Humans. 3. The reason we want to minimize exposure between chickens and humans is because each exposure of an infec…

We have a backyard flock where the run and coop are completely enclosed. So in theory they should be more protected given that no birds or critters can get into that space to give my chickens bird flu. That being said, I have no faith in the Trump government to do the right things required to stop the spread of this and I feel like we are pretty screwed either ways.

[flagged]

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

#726

Post by qq99 »

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…

> It makes no sense to get a £80 vet bill on a chicken that cost £20.

I guess it depends on how you look at it. By analogy, it makes no sense to have my cat go to the vet either (and pay thousands of dollars for a ~$50 cat lol), but they still go. I guess it's all about personal choice and perspective. It does feel a bit silly in a way though

> but if you pick one up, they also smell nice

Agreed, a clean chicken can smell really good!

> If chickens weren't incontinent, though, they would make great indoor pets

That's the big thing! On Japanese twitter, chicken diapers are a popular item!

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

#727

Post by genewitch »

genewitch wrote: post #522

I am going today to buy 6 chicks, as i was told all 4 hatcheries in my area were producing chicks for sale this week. I was told they would be $5-$12 depending on the breed. I was concerned because of the culling last year (over 130,000,000 fowl culled in 2024, before the election, even! weird!) that it might be hard to get new chicks, but as i was told > Chickens lay a lot of eggs in the US farm to table is 60-90 da…

note: i bought six americauna female chicks for $33 with tax, 2 hours ago with no issue. Some person in front of me bought like 60 birds.

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

#728

Post by horrible-hilde »

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…

The eggs do taste better but that depends on what you are feeding them.

You don't have to eat your chickens, it’s up to you.

predators and rats and avian flu are the tough problems.

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

#729

Post by qq99 »

gadders wrote: post #222
latexr wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It makes no sense to get a £80 vet bill on a chicken that cost £20. This logic is confusing. You are taking a purely transactional view when it comes to the chicken’s health, but you also admitted they don’t turn a profit. In that vein, it makes no sense to get the £20 chicken in the first place. Your utilitarian view is also the opposite of what the person you’re replying to is describing. Do you believe that if o…

I think it is the distinction between "livestock" and "pets". I would also be very surprised if any vets ever managed to treat a hen successfully. They tend to hide any illness until very sick.

Our hen was treated successfully, but it wasn't for a sickness, in this case it was an injury:

She somehow got one of her talons very loose and it ripped off, naturally becoming infected. The treatment was antibiotics and later full amputation of the toe in question + chicken house rest. She's still living happily, but would've died without treatment. Overall, it was a surprisingly cheap treatment ($130CAD?)

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

#730

Post by Sargos »

philipwhiuk wrote: post #495
MagicMoonlight wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What makes you reasonably confident? Cooking leading to better nutrient absorption and our IQ growth is mainstream science so making a wild contradiction like that without something to back it up isn't very helpful. Helping with food-based illness is an interesting thought though.
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