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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?

#851

Post by phendrenad2 »

pstjean wrote: post #534
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).

Hyperinflation is defined as a monthly inflation rate exceeding 50%. In the U.S., the latest CPI numbers from January indicate a monthly rate of 0.5%.

Probably not a good idea to rely on CPI, and engineered synthetic number intended to hide inflation.

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

#853

Post by marifjeren »

crocowhile wrote: post #847
marifjeren wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The egg price is due to the H5N1 epidemic No, it's not. But that's what the egg companies want you to believe. In truth the number of egg laying hens is only down about 5% total since the beginning of the epidemic.

Oh FFS the conspiracy of the egg companies it's a new low. 160M chickens were found affected so far. More culled. https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/situation-summary/data-map-comm... Most chicken in the USA are raised for meat. There are only 300 millions that are raised for eggs laying so those numbers are staggering.

The size of the EGG LAYING population of chickens is only down 5% since the beginning of the epidemic.

160M chickens with "more culled" is not correct. 115M of those affected have been culled.

Furthermore it doesn't make sense to talk about absolute numbers culled over the course of years when the rate of replenishment of the egg layers is on a shorter time horizon (chicks grow to egg laying maturity in just a few months, which is why we saw a total recovery from the 2015 avian flu in just eight months). That's why it makes more sense to do a year to year comparison of the size of the egg laying population.

If your theory is that the bird flu has decimated the egg laying hen population and therefore egg production is down a staggering amount, answer the following question and decide whether the number is staggering:

How many eggs were produced in Jan 2021? How many eggs were produced in Jan 2025?

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

#854

Post by crazygringo »

cluckindan wrote: post #850
crazygringo wrote: post #829

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chicken nuggets are primarily chicken muscle tissue, end of story. Yes they can include mechanically separated chicken, which is basically a fancy name for saying they scraped all the meat off the bones. But that isn't "mostly skin and cartilage", it's meat. There may be trace amounts of cartilage and small amounts of skin in it, but they are nowhere near the main components. If you're still not sure, just look at th…

https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/what-are-chicken-nuggets-... Seriously, do you think researchers are wrong on this?

Yes, actually. Completely wrong. That "study" looked at a sample size of... 2 nuggets. And they drew totally unwarranted conclusions. It was junk science that helped to propagate the entire urban legend.

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

#855

Post by Jgrubb »

wakawaka28 wrote: post #88
Jgrubb wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I'm not looking at it the way you look at it? Been at it for ten years and am perfectly happy with how it's been going.

If you think you're spending too much on the eggs then you're not perfectly happy. I grew up with chickens and my family also grew up with them. I'm just saying, something is really wrong with the way you're doing it if you think it's not worth the money. There are ways to do it economically. What do you suppose the big farms feed the chickens to make it economical to not only grow the chickens but also package and s…

I never voiced an opinion other than "buying chickens ain't the way to save money on eggs". Do you always jump to conclusions and imagine peoples' motivations and mindset like this?, because you're making this whole thread up in your head.

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

#857

Post by adrian_b »

tptacek wrote: post #583
NoGravitas wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot tell the difference between backyard eggs and fancy store bought (organic, free-range) eggs, but I can tell the difference between that set and industrial store bought eggs.

My expectation is that what you're tasting is the difference between a very fresh egg and an older egg; there's no doubt that's real (older eggs aren't even functionally the same as fresh eggs).

I doubt that there can be any difference in the egg whites, but the egg yolks certainly have a composition in fatty substances that varies with the kind of food used for the chicken, which should lead to noticeable differences.

While there are some taste differences in egg yolks, the taste difference in meat, between chicken that ate mostly what they had found themselves in a large area with abundant vegetation, insects and worms, and chicken that had been raised in industrial complexes, is huge.

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

#858

Post by cluckindan »

crazygringo wrote: post #854
cluckindan wrote: post #850

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/what-are-chicken-nuggets-... Seriously, do you think researchers are wrong on this?

Yes, actually. Completely wrong. That "study" looked at a sample size of... 2 nuggets. And they drew totally unwarranted conclusions. It was junk science that helped to propagate the entire urban legend.

Okay. Junk science. Explains everything and the experts are surely wrong.

Meanwhile, other studies show that inclusion of 40% mechanically separated meat does not change the appearance, taste or desirability of chicken nuggets. Do you really think the majority of producers are not going to turn that waste stream into more product and profit?

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

#859

Post by giantg2 »

lsaferite wrote: post #693
threetonesun wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Raising animals to eat for meat is a very different endeavor than raising them for milk/eggs. Especially if you eat meat daily (or more than once a day!), do some mental math on how many animals you'd need to sustain yourself.

Not to mention, raising meat chickens is sad. We've bread them to gorge themselves so they bulk up fast. That results in essentially morbidly obese chickens. We ended up with two on accident and they couldn't even climb the ramp into the coop after a few weeks. The just gorged and sat around in the dirt. It was very sad. Raising non-meat chickens takes a lot longer and the meat output is much lower.

There are such things as heritage and forager breeds, not to mention dual purpose breeds. The industrial meat birds are the only ones that really have the issues you describe. Look into Kosher Kings or Freedom Rangers and you'll see they don't have those problems. As others have mentioned, raising them yourself is much more humane than buying it in the store. The only reason it would be more sad is because the suffering of the birds in the store is hidden from you.

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

#860

Post by wakawaka28 »

s3krit wrote: post #350
wakawaka28 wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if you clipped their wings in such a way as they couldn't fly anymore, they're still short and covered in feathers which are probably not conductive. The electric fence wouldn't work for many reasons. If you're sure they can't fly, you also don't need it.

The electric fence is for keeping foxes out, not chickens in

That makes sense but idk how effective it is.
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