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> If you read this article, watch the video above, and answer one question below, I will donate—on your behalf via Heifer—a flock of chickens to a family in pov

• Etarip 10y ago
  Notice in the video how they're not feeding the chickens by letting them forage. They're always feeding them grain.
  • crpatino 10y ago
    Grain in bulk is still cheaper than poultry. However, you have a point. If poor urban families do not have access to fairly priced chicken feed, they will face the choice of feeding them pet food (at a net economic loss) or cutting their losses and eating all the chickens right away.
    • giarc 10y ago
      Please read the article written by Bill. One of the first lines is that chickens are easy to feed because they can make do with stuff they naturally find on the ground. Given grain will help them grow faster, but it's not imperative.
      • crpatino 10y ago
        Yes, as I mentioned in my edit to GP, I have now read the article. It still sounds strange to me. I mean, how is it that 3rd country rural people cannot not know about chickens? I assumed this would be about giving flocks to urban poor, where there is precious little area not covered by concrete and the chickens would likely forrage on half poisoned cockroaches or something like that.
        • giarc 10y ago
          You are assuming a few things here. 1. they are giving to urban poor 2. urban areas are covered in concrete. From the article and the video it seems like chicken farming is already quite prevalent (they state a figure of 5% of the population of Burkina Faso have chickens) and they are hoping to increase that to 30%. I imagine a great charity like the Gates Foundation have done their due diligence and determined that the local charity they are working with knows what they are doing.
        • rconti 10y ago
          Urban areas in Africa are hardly going to be "covered in concrete".
        • imjustsaying 10y ago
          >It still sounds strange to me. I mean, how is it that 3rd country rural people cannot not know about chickens? After a few years of living in places most people would consider third world, I have come to the conclusion that it is not safe to assume that people living in the third world have knowledge of any given topic. I think knowledge is one of the things that is lacking the most, which is why it's so sad to see the commies in Beijing only allowing Mickey Mouse state newspapers and breaking the internet to perpetually keep people on the plantation. Michael Jackson, however, has pretty good name recognition just about everywhere.
    • morgante 10y ago
      I'm fairly certain this program is not targeted at poor urban families.
  • fr0sty 10y ago
    This is at least in part an editorial choice. Woman throwing grain to flock of chickens running around her feet is a much more interesting visual that chickens walking around foraging...
  • cwbrandsma 10y ago
    Better visual than watching the women throw out handfuls of bugs and worms (which chickens LOVE). Actually, you can feed chickens nothing but grain, but it isn't good for them -- they need more protein.
• AlgorithmicTime 10y ago
  Feral flocks of chickens? Possibly, it costs more to feed the chickens than the chickens provide in economic benefit? Avian influenza spreads like wild through chicken populations and from thence to poor families?
  • CuriouslyC 10y ago
    Chickens aren't afraid of people and like to use human structures as coops, so they aren't likely to go completely feral. Even if they did, it is likely they would be fairly easy prey for hunters as domesticated chickens don't have the camouflage and skill at flight their wild progenitors had.
  • return0 10y ago
    > Feral flocks of chickens The expression "to chicken out" was not chosen at random :)
• crpatino 10y ago
  In order of severity: 1. Family ends up homeless because there is no legal framework to raise small anymals in urban environments, and the flock is framed as "unruly pets" by abusive landlord/neighbours. Family ends up worse than how they started without help. 2. Family receives the flock, but not any training/resources to tend them properly. Chickens die of illness, malnourishment, or get killed by urban predators (i.e. semi-feral cats). Purpose of the program is defeated. 3. Family just eats the chickens right away, which would be a relief from their situation, but still defeats the purpose of the program. [Edit: I posted this prior reading the article, and assumed this would be about helping the urban American poor, not the Global poor. I simply could not imagine rural poor people in 3rd world countries not knowing chickens are a good source of income/food. They may still forego the option if they lack other resources to raise the chickens. So, you may say I stand corrected. Thanks for your polite feedback]
  • bko 10y ago
    Regarding 1: Property rights and records are always a problem in the developing world. > Less than 5 percent of Haiti's land is officially accounted for in public land records, according to the United Nations, compounding the difficulty in establishing who owns what land. [0] Regarding 2: Another difficult problem as conditions unique to a market are often not known by outsiders. Outsiders have a different assessment of how to properly care for resources or best practices that may not be applicable to the local market or may even be counter-productive. Regarding 3: Always a possibility you underestimate their utility curve in regards to current and future consumption [0] http://reliefweb.int/report/haiti/unclear-land-rights-hinder-haitis-reconstruction http://reliefweb.int/report/haiti/unclear-land-rights-hinder...
  • giarc 10y ago
    Re: 1 - it seems from the video that raising chickens is quite common in sub-Sahara Africa and not likely an issue.
  • shostack 10y ago
    You forgot risk of salmonella and other diseases from not properly handling chicken products (meat, eggs, cleaning up after handling them, etc.), and subsequent lack of medical help because of lack of money and/or lack of insurance. That said, you have to break some eggs to make an omelette (ok, I guess the pun was intended). These are things you can help educate about in the process and shouldn't stop something like this from being rolled out.
• tonec_ 10y ago
  I wonder how the local guy or girl selling chickens will take to this idea. This way of 'helping' Africa is so outdated.
  • bko 10y ago
    I heard some criticisms of big charity in regards to uncertainty for local businesses. When Tom can show up at any time and dump hundreds of thousands of shoes in your market, it kind of hurts all the long term planning and investment you made into your shoe business.
  • NetStrikeForce 10y ago
    Unless they source the chickens locally, from that person selling chicken :)
• eloff 10y ago
  Bird flue is a big drawback - poultry and humans living in close contact, typically because they live in poverty is how the disease usually ends up jumping to humans (when it doesn't go the normal route via pigs first.)
• BillFranklin 10y ago
  They lock you at home like any pet, difficult to move house and also keep the chickens, need a big garden, unless you have a huge garden they prevent social use of it, don't reliably lay, people work long hours and don't have the time for cleaning out pens and ensuring water/food is available, cost of keeping them far outweighs the fiscal benefit, they attract rats, you can't be keen on gardening and have free range chickens as they eat flowers.
  • luckydude 10y ago
    Lock you at home? Get an automatic waterer and feeder, throw in some feed and go on vacation. I've got 25 hens and a rooster and they are good for a week or two on their own. Only problem is if nobody gathers eggs you'll have some broody hens. Don't lay? I get a dozen eggs/day. Use lay crumbles not lay pellets; doing so doubles the output. Enclosure? I used a horse stall for boxes/roosts and have big outside enclosure. Works great. Your comments make sense for a pet like a dog, those do tie you down, but they make no sense for chickens in my experience.
  • conorh 10y ago
    Some interesting reasons there for first world chicken raising, but I'd disagree with most of them from my experience: - lock you at home: with an automatic door on the coop (ours free range), waterer and multi day feeder, you can leave them for a week, possibly longer. If we moved we'd just give them away (or well, I'd probably eat them, but I'd be voted down) - huge garden and social use: We don't have a big garden. They happily co-exist in the garden with our kids and friends running around with them. - reliably lay: for their laying period chickens that are bred for laying are incredibly reliable. We have four chickens and get four eggs a day like clockwork. - don't have the time: I spend about an hour a week taking care of the chickens. Collect the eggs once a day and clean the coop on the weekend. - rats: They do attract rats if you keep their food easily accessible. This is definitely a problem. There are feeders that make this harder, we have one and it seems to work. - gardening: The gardening thing could be true I guess, but my wife is an avid gardener and she seems to make it work. I think you just change your gardening practices a little. She does like their manure for compost. - cost of keeping them vs fiscal benefit: this is an interesting one. I haven't done the numbers, but I know people who raise small flocks specifically to make money. I doubt I'm making money on them, but they seem incredibly cheap to raise to me.
• DanielStraight 10y ago
  This is a relevant question to ask. This stuff is hard and it takes a lot of oversight to make it work. But that doesn't mean that we should assume every charity is producing negative consequences which outweigh the good they do. That would be just as naive as assuming charities have no negative consequences. For what it's worth, Heifer International has released quite a few detailed reports on their projects which you can review here: (http://www.heifer.org/ending-hunger/our-impact/reports.html http://www.heifer.org/ending-hunger/our-impact/reports.html). If you're satisfied, maybe consider giving. If not, and you're qualified to offer a contrary explanation, please share it. But assuming a negative impact without reviewing their approach is a perfect example of what has come to be known as "middlebrow dismissal". "Charities can have negative consequences which outweigh their good, this is a charity, therefore it has negative consequences which outweigh its good" is not a valid argument. The propensity of charities to produce negative unintended consequences is a sign to be careful, but not sufficient proof to dismiss charities outright. Note that Charity Navigator gives Heifer International a nearly perfect score on Transparency and Accountability. (http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=3809 http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary...)
• jsprogrammer 10y ago
  Heifer generally does not perform a 1-to-1 action with your donations. That is, donating a flock of chickens through Heifer is actually making a monetary donation to the entire organization. It is unlikely that your donation will be directly linked to a specific flock donation to a particular family (if it results in any animal donation at all). According to the latest filing I have seen, less than half of a donation to Heifer will make it into a grant, or other assistance to an external entity (my guess is that salaries and benefits at these legally separate entities will consume a good chunk of those grants).
  • mcguire 10y ago
    Charity Navigator: http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=3809 http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary... ~75% of total expenses go to programs and services.
    • jsprogrammer 10y ago
      Form 990, FY 2015; Part IX, lines 1 & 3: http://9dc3f407a257cfd3f7ea-d14ef12e680aa00597bdffb57368cf92.r6.cf2.rackcdn.com/about/inside-heifer/financial/990-FY2015.pdf http://9dc3f407a257cfd3f7ea-d14ef12e680aa00597bdffb57368cf92... ~40% of programs and services go to salaries, benefits, travel, hotels, advertising, etc. The other ~60% is not broken out, but I believe goes to Heifer's Legally Separate Entities.
• nostromo 10y ago
  Unintended consequences are one thing to consider, another is opportunity cost. Gates should have two control groups: A) Gets a bunch of chickens B) Gets the money the chickens would cost (including all project overhead) C) Gets nothing My guess is that B would in-fact have the best outcomes for the simple reason that Africans probably know what they need to improve their lives better than do foreign central-planners.
  • TrainedMonkey 10y ago
    Option B is liable to cause inflation if not executed extremely carefully.
    • ghshephard 10y ago
      If you are handing out USD, there won't be any inflation. And I don't think there is anywhere in the developing world that USD isn't seen as good as local currency (if not better in many countries)
      • mcguire 10y ago
        What would prevent an influx of USD from causing (localized) inflation?
      • jimmywanger 10y ago
        How is the currency handed out gonna not cause inflation, no matter what it's denominated in? If you give out hundred dollar bills, local prices will rise for goods, which is the definition of inflation.
    • nandemo 10y ago
      Option A increases the supply of chickens, so other things being equal the price of a chicken decreases. But people (aid recipients) are better off since they can eat more chicken. Option B slightly increases the supply of money, so other things being equal prices of basic goods increase a little. But people are still better off since they can buy more stuff.
• notatoad 10y ago
  If i had to pick two charities that i trusted to understand the consequences of giving animals to impoverished african families, it would be Heifer International and the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation. That's not to say it won't have unintended consequences, but this is kind of what they do. I'm sure they've studied the ramifications of the programs they run more than any HN commenters have.
• return0 10y ago
  If you include a rooster, he can be real bossy and bites too! Maybe some traditions use the animals for magic or some weird religious function though? Also stealing them might lead to problems? Just speculating. Seriously though, chickens are very easy animal. The next step would be goats.
• Houshalter 10y ago
  >I can't help but be reminded of the many charitable programs that sound great but end up having very unusual unintended consequences that often defeat the purpose or make it worse. It might be that such stories are interesting and more likely to make the media/top of HN. I mean 100 charities could work just fine, and no one really cares. But a single story about unintended consequences is interesting and gets on the top of reddit and facebook etc.
• pimlottc 10y ago
  I just signed up today but I was sad to see the promotion has already finished. > Thank you Gates Notes Insiders! For our Coop Dreams giveaway, I partnered with Heifer International to donate more than 100,000 chickens on behalf of the Gates Notes Insider community. The campaign is now closed, but we may do something like it again.