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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?

#761

Post by UtopiaPunk »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #647
0xEF wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 comm…

Community projects like this can operate successfully, but they do take work (like intentional communication and meetings), and there are politics. If we're envisioning 20 houses, yeah, there probably needs to be some kind of structure.

Since you mentioned the suburbs specifically, I'll also note that, at least imo, that: - the suburbs are designed in such a way as to encourage atomized, isolated living (houses are relatively far a part, you usually need a car to get anywhere, fenced-in yards are the norm, etc). - presumably people are moving out to the suburbs because they find that lifestyle appealing, so there's some self-selection happening such that people in the suburbs are less interested in sharing stuff communally.

So if you were just trying to get 20 households that happen to live closest to you involved, it probably is too big a committment for them.

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

#762

Post by Server6 »

kelnos wrote: post #744
UberFly wrote: post #719

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your sample size of one isn't that relevant to the previous comment.

Wouldn't that situation be fairly common for backyard chickens? I feel like most people who keep chickens in their backyard aren't going to have contact with other chickens. The exception would be a neighborhood/community where a lot of people have backyard chickens. But even then, wouldn't the chance of infection still be low?

The risk it outside wild birds. If you have feed on the ground and wild birds are also eating it (and pooping on it), your Chickens could be infected.

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

#763

Post by squidsoup »

cryptonector wrote: post #715
crocowhile wrote: post #463

The egg price is due to the H5N1 epidemics, which also means that this is the least indicated time to get a backyard chicken. The US should have dropped battery caging, like the rest of the world did 15 years ago.

You do realize that a lot of people don't buy the H5N1 epidemic thing, right?

Certainly easy to perpetuate insane conspiracy theories like this when the anti-science administration is no longer collecting stats on infectious diseases.

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

#764

Post by freddie_mercury »

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…

> 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.

The reason the US has been culling is because they refuse to vaccinate chickens. Even China began vaccinations in 2004 ... over 2 decades ago.

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

#765

Post by kelnos »

SoftTalker wrote: post #721
jorvi wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

Eh, not sure I buy that interpretation. Ensuring that the meat you eat only comes from ethical sources is hard, especially if you eat at restaurants, or if you eat food that other people have cooked. (Do you really want to be that person who goes to someone's house for dinner and on-the-spot refuses to eat because their host isn't sure of the provenance of the meat?) It can also be significantly more expensive. It would be entirely reasonable to decide to give up meat rather than deal with all that, if it matters to you.

And on top of that it does make a statement about one's values. Even if someone was ok with doing all that homework, they might want to give up meat as a form of protest against all the factory animal farming out there.

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

#767

Post by kelnos »

__turbobrew__ wrote: post #580
deepvibrations wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely this is more a case that it used to be much harder to be vegetarian and almost impossible to be vegan! Now we actually have a clear choice given the development and availability of so many other foods and supplements. Hence for me to value my enjoyment of foods above the life of another animal seems pretty harsh at best. Even chicken eggs really are not cruelty free - if you truly love animals, you would stop…

> it used to be much harder to be vegetarian Millions of Indian people have been vegetarian for hundreds (if not thousands) of years now. I guess there are manufactured meat replacements now, but I prefer to just eat things like legumes over factory made vegan food.

I assume GP meant "... in the West". I grew up in the US in the 80s and 90s, and I can't imagine being a vegan, or even a vegetarian then. Certainly it would be doable if you always cooked your own food, but restaurants would mostly not accommodate you (unless you'd be fine with just a boring, flavorless salad), and if you went over to anyone's house for a meal, they'd think it was weird that you didn't eat meat.

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

#768

Post by ryao »

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…

In December, I decided to try an egg diet where I would regularly consume a double digit number of eggs per day. This has has made the price of eggs quite noticeable. I am not eating as many these days as I did when I first had the idea.

Interestingly, when my grandparents were really short on money in the 20th century, they resorted to eating only eggs to get by. It remained a healthy diet option for poor people until recently.

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

#769

Post by NewJazz »

notfed wrote: post #738
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…

Let's say I have a few chickens in my backyard that don't have bird flu, and we (myself or my chickens) never come into contact with any other chickens. Aren't we safe? If not, what are the possible vectors? Is it from random birds flying in my yard? My visits to grocery stores?

Your birds could get sick from other birds. It doesn't just affect chickens. I'd exercise precautions with your birds. Both to keep them quarantined from wild birds and keep yourself and family quarantined.

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

#770

Post by kelnos »

rthomas6 wrote: post #660
crazygringo wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But unless you were nobility, meat wasn't available at every meal, or even every day. It cost too much. Meat for most people was a special occasion kind of thing. Ever notice how the English words for animals have Germanic roots but the words for their meats have French roots? Chicken -> poultry Cow -> beef Pig -> pork That's because the peasantry, the ones raising the animals, spoke Old English, and the nobility, th…

I always wondered about that. I thought it was just for euphemistic purposes to create more separation between the food we eat and the animal that it came from.
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