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> it's way more profitable to raise chickens than, say, cows. You need to have a bigger barn for cows, you need to do all the hay thing, which is very time cons

> it's way more profitable to raise chickens than, say, cows. You need to have a bigger barn for cows, you need to do all the hay thing, which is very time consuming and demands a lot of extra work just for feeding said cows, you need to pay someone to take care of the cows when they go out to eat in the summer on the communal field. This is surprising to me. Of course a cow should be more work to raise than a chicken. But it has so many times more meat on it than a chicken, and is more energy efficient per calorie consumed too. Similarly with beans and cabbage. They might be easier to grow, but in terms of calories they seem much less efficient than, say, potatoes. If this was addressed in the article, sorry. It's just a blank page on my browser.

thevardanian 10y ago
I highly doubt that Beef is a more efficient if source of meat than Chicken. I think Chicken meat is a lot more efficient. A little quick googling and I found: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio
- Houshalter 10y ago
  Why would you think that? Larger animals are usually much more energy efficient for various reasons - less surface area to radiate heat, and economies of scale with larger organs.
  - ane 10y ago
    No, beef and lamb are the most energy consuming sources of meat. (A dairy producing cow is different.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio For cattle, a FCR range from less than 5 to more than 20 kg feed dry matter per kg gain may be encountered.[ Whereas for chickens: Poultry has a feed conversion ratio of 2 to 1.
    - baddox 10y ago
      Again, that's simple mass efficiency. We can also talk about other efficiencies, like cost of feed versus cost of meat.
    - Houshalter 10y ago
      I believe you, but I'm very surprised. That has larger animals almost universally less efficient than smaller animals, which is the exact opposite of the expected efficiency due to Kleiber's law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleiber%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleiber%27s_law >a cat, having a mass 100 times that of a mouse, will have a metabolism roughly 32 times greater than that of a mouse. And yet this is saying that a mice sized animal should be expected to have the same, or perhaps even better Feed conversion ratio than a cat sized animal. Again, I believe you, but it makes no sense.
      - mapt 10y ago
        The larger livestock will usually have a much longer lifespan. It has to keep its flesh heated above ambient for that entire lifespan. If Mouse A lives 100x longer and puts on the same weight and achieves the same stature as Mouse B, it's spent ~100x as much energy getting to the same physiological place as Mouse B.
  - thevardanian 10y ago
    Not really. There's a basic thermodynamic inefficiency as organisms get larger, and consume farther away from the energy source, in this that being the sun.
    - Houshalter 10y ago
      How are cattle consuming farther away from the energy source than chickens?
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - g8oz 10y ago
    They are not more efficient in terms of how many acres are required to produce a given amount of calories.
  - shalmanese 10y ago
    Cows are slaughtered at 80 weeks while chickens are slaughtered at 6 - 8 weeks. That extra order of magnitude of basal metabolic rate is where the energy gets consumed.
- tmerc 10y ago
  Chicken, being leaner, may be a more efficient protein source. For raw calories, I think beef would be more efficient. Plus fat is a better calorie source than protein.
  - thevardanian 10y ago
    I edited my comment, but I think there are other factors, however in general Beef is very inefficient, even if per pound it is more efficient in providing energy, it's inefficient in producing that energy. That is while Beef, pound for pound, might be more efficient for humans to consume, it isn't as efficient in producing that amount of amount in the first place, and requires more energy input than chicken meat.
- skvale 10y ago
  The conversion ratio would hold if they ate the same things. Cows can survive on grass, which is often plentiful. Chickens more so on grains, which are harder to come by.
  - mentat 10y ago
    Plentiful if you have the land. The relative availability and cost of land is not guaranteed.
  - Maultasche 10y ago
    Having raised chickens when I was a kid, I can tell you that chickens will survive on almost anything organic. They're like little organic waste disposal units. There is a reason that no plants grow where chickens are kept in pens: they eat anything that grows. They'll eat any bugs they can find. I've also seen them eat other chickens that had died of some natural cause. Chickens usually get fed grain because grain is cheap and plentiful and easy to dispense, but if you give them enough room to roam and vegetation to eat, they will eat it. We used to throw all our food scraps (bit of bread, fruit, vegetable peelings) in a container and throw it to the chickens at the end of the day. They loved it, and would eat it all. We'd also collect rotting fruit from under the fruit trees and throw it to them. It would all get eaten. I found that pretty much the only thing chickens wouldn't eat were peach pits. Peach pits are way too hard, I guess. In winter when we didn't have as much of a garden, we'd also let the chickens out of their pen. They'd happily roam around the yard, eating grass and whatever tasty bugs they can find. In the evening, they'd return to their chicken house in their pen and go to sleep. Very convenient. I've come to the conclusion that chickens would happily eat us if they were large enough. I believe that chickens are very efficient to raise. If you have enough vegetation around, you don't need to feed them at all.
    - goshx 10y ago
      ^ can confirm.
    - 205guy 10y ago
      I've always thought that chickens, the free ranging kind, make insect protein palatable to humans.
paganel 10y ago
> They might be easier to grow, but in terms of calories they seem much less efficient than, say, potatoes I agree about potatoes, but that only works for relatively cooler climates, i.e. places like Poland or Ireland. It can easily get to 35-37 degrees Celsius in the summer at the place where my parents live (not to mention places like the Indian subcontinent or Africa), at which point storing potatoes becomes a challenge. > But it has so many times more meat on it than a chicken, and is more energy efficient per calorie consumed too. It's all about the return on investment. Raising cows only becomes financially viable once you pass a certain number threshold (meaning big farms), otherwise you're pretty much doing voluntary work. It's a lot of work in order to feed a cow, I mean, lots and lots of work, and said work is pretty effective in burning calories. A lot of farmers in the European Union who are in the cow-raising business (I'd say most) wouldn't make it without financial help from the EU and from their governments. I'd say that goats are a lot better option if you really need meat. They feed practically on everything (cows are a lot more picky) and they're smaller, so they're easier to "store" and protect at night. This is why I think they're so widespread in the poorer regions of the world.
- bromuro 10y ago
  > I agree about potatoes, but that only works for relatively cooler climates, i.e. places like Poland or Ireland. It can easily get to 35-37 degrees Celsius in the summer at the place where my parents live (not to mention places like the Indian subcontinent or Africa), at which point storing potatoes becomes a challenge. Is it? Here in South Italy we successfully grow potatoes and we have such hot summers.
  - pm 10y ago
    Judging from the parent comment, I don't think growing potatoes is the problem, but storing them.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  The classic solution to storing potatoes is the root cellar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_cellar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_cellar In the US they were used to keep vegetables warmer in the winter (while below household temps), but they should also work for cooling.
developer2 10y ago
I'm going to provide an entirely uneducated guess regarding cows. I would bet that the average person without any training or resources is capable of raising chickens, whereas the average person would have their cows die before maturing. I'm not commenting on the "average African". I'm talking about my own first-world Caucasian self. I bet you I could raise chickens with very few resources. I also bet I couldn't do the same with cows, which seem to be resource hogs and in need of more maintenance. It's like having a dog vs. a cat as a pet. A cat just needs to be fed and given a box where they can place their waste. A dog needs to be walked, socialized with other dogs, etc. Do you need to travel for a 2-day weekend? With a cat, while not ideal, you can get away with leaving behind plenty of food and water along with an extra litter box. You simply cannot abandon a dog on its own for 2 days.
- rsync 10y ago
  "I'm going to provide an entirely uneducated guess regarding cows. I would bet that the average person without any training or resources is capable of raising chickens, whereas the average person would have their cows die before maturing. I'm not commenting on the "average African". I'm talking about my own first-world Caucasian self. I bet you I could raise chickens with very few resources" Your instincts are incorrect - at least in a rural, or semi rural setting. Your chickens may be very safe and easy to raise in an urban environment that is free of small and medium sized predators, but outside of that environment there are many, many things that will very quickly dispose of all of your chickens - sometimes in just one night. Raccoons, weasels, foxes, coyotes, large birds (vultures, hawks, owls), bobcats ... In our rural area (west marin county, california) we need to be on our A game to keep the chickens alive ... raccoon traps set, elevated coop, hens locked up nightly, wings clipped so they can't get out of the run, high fence, three hot electric wires, etc., etc. A cow on the other hand is too big for most of those animals (a hawk can't carry away a calf) and the mother (and other mothers) are nearby. They're big.
  - x0x0 10y ago
    OTOH, hay is hard to make and expensive to store, because you absolutely cannot let it get wet. If it even becomes damp it can give cows the heaves (and will give horses), and it can give farmers farmer's lung. Plus an untimely rain after you cut it can ruin a growing season's entire yield. If you get it wet, you'll burn your barn down because it composts.
justhw 10y ago
Disable Ghostery (white-list the site) if you're seeing a blank page. It fixed it for me.
- exolymph 10y ago
  Whitelisting every site disabled by Ghostery (or whatever tracker-blocker someone uses) kinda defeats the purpose of having it in the first place.
stinkytaco 10y ago
In addition to the other points people have made, with beef you have the problem of preservation. Unless you coordinate so everyone slaughters their cows at a different time and you can share the meat (which presents problems as well), you end up with a glut of meat for a short period of time, rather than the continuing output of a chicken.
goshx 10y ago
It is important to remember that if you kill a chicken, you can consume it entirely in the same day with no need for refrigeration and electricity. Also, chickens reproduce, grow faster and lay eggs that you can also consume. I grew up in my grandma's backyard (literally) with chickens, cows and porks. Cows were mostly used for milk than meat.
Hyperborian 10y ago
> ...and is more energy efficient per calorie consumed too. I've read studies in the past that found entirely the opposite, and by a very large margin. If I remember correctly, I believe that raising chickens for meat was many times more efficient, and among common meat livestock cows were the worst. Are you sure you've got it right?
- herdrick 10y ago
  Cows can graze and put on weight on land that practically nothing other than deer can survive on. Think of the sagebrush semi-arid land of the American Great Basin (ex. northern Nevada, eastern Oregon). Chickens and goats can't.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
sampo 10y ago
> Of course a cow should be more work to raise than a chicken. But it has so many times more meat on it than a chicken, and is more energy efficient per calorie consumed too. Wikipedia says quite the opposite: "Two kilograms of grain must be fed to poultry to produce 1 kg of weight gain, much less than that required for pork or beef." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poultry_farming#Efficiency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poultry_farming#Efficiency
- dagw 10y ago
  Is the ratio of edible-calories-to-body-weight roughly the same chickens and cows?
puranjay 10y ago
Raising cows for meat is not an option in a very large part of the developing world - India - because of religious reasons. (And it is also illegal in most of the states here in India)
csomar 10y ago
I think it relates to risk, growth and capital. You only need $10-20 to get started with chickens, and from there you can grow quickly to $500-1000 in a matter of few months. To get started with a cow, you'll need a huge capital (thousands) and take a big risk (cow dies).
pajaroide 10y ago
This a list of edible protein that can be grown per unit of land, soybeans and other legumes top the list along with hemp seeds, animal sources are the less efficient. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edible_protein_per_unit_area_of_land?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edible_protein_per_unit_area_o...

thevardanian 10y ago

I highly doubt that Beef is a more efficient if source of meat than Chicken. I think Chicken meat is a lot more efficient. A little quick googling and I found: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio

Houshalter 10y ago
Why would you think that? Larger animals are usually much more energy efficient for various reasons - less surface area to radiate heat, and economies of scale with larger organs.
- ane 10y ago
  No, beef and lamb are the most energy consuming sources of meat. (A dairy producing cow is different.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio For cattle, a FCR range from less than 5 to more than 20 kg feed dry matter per kg gain may be encountered.[ Whereas for chickens: Poultry has a feed conversion ratio of 2 to 1.
  - baddox 10y ago
    Again, that's simple mass efficiency. We can also talk about other efficiencies, like cost of feed versus cost of meat.
  - Houshalter 10y ago
    I believe you, but I'm very surprised. That has larger animals almost universally less efficient than smaller animals, which is the exact opposite of the expected efficiency due to Kleiber's law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleiber%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleiber%27s_law >a cat, having a mass 100 times that of a mouse, will have a metabolism roughly 32 times greater than that of a mouse. And yet this is saying that a mice sized animal should be expected to have the same, or perhaps even better Feed conversion ratio than a cat sized animal. Again, I believe you, but it makes no sense.
    - mapt 10y ago
      The larger livestock will usually have a much longer lifespan. It has to keep its flesh heated above ambient for that entire lifespan. If Mouse A lives 100x longer and puts on the same weight and achieves the same stature as Mouse B, it's spent ~100x as much energy getting to the same physiological place as Mouse B.
- thevardanian 10y ago
  Not really. There's a basic thermodynamic inefficiency as organisms get larger, and consume farther away from the energy source, in this that being the sun.
  - Houshalter 10y ago
    How are cattle consuming farther away from the energy source than chickens?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- g8oz 10y ago
  They are not more efficient in terms of how many acres are required to produce a given amount of calories.
- shalmanese 10y ago
  Cows are slaughtered at 80 weeks while chickens are slaughtered at 6 - 8 weeks. That extra order of magnitude of basal metabolic rate is where the energy gets consumed.
tmerc 10y ago
Chicken, being leaner, may be a more efficient protein source. For raw calories, I think beef would be more efficient. Plus fat is a better calorie source than protein.
- thevardanian 10y ago
  I edited my comment, but I think there are other factors, however in general Beef is very inefficient, even if per pound it is more efficient in providing energy, it's inefficient in producing that energy. That is while Beef, pound for pound, might be more efficient for humans to consume, it isn't as efficient in producing that amount of amount in the first place, and requires more energy input than chicken meat.
skvale 10y ago
The conversion ratio would hold if they ate the same things. Cows can survive on grass, which is often plentiful. Chickens more so on grains, which are harder to come by.
- mentat 10y ago
  Plentiful if you have the land. The relative availability and cost of land is not guaranteed.
- Maultasche 10y ago
  Having raised chickens when I was a kid, I can tell you that chickens will survive on almost anything organic. They're like little organic waste disposal units. There is a reason that no plants grow where chickens are kept in pens: they eat anything that grows. They'll eat any bugs they can find. I've also seen them eat other chickens that had died of some natural cause. Chickens usually get fed grain because grain is cheap and plentiful and easy to dispense, but if you give them enough room to roam and vegetation to eat, they will eat it. We used to throw all our food scraps (bit of bread, fruit, vegetable peelings) in a container and throw it to the chickens at the end of the day. They loved it, and would eat it all. We'd also collect rotting fruit from under the fruit trees and throw it to them. It would all get eaten. I found that pretty much the only thing chickens wouldn't eat were peach pits. Peach pits are way too hard, I guess. In winter when we didn't have as much of a garden, we'd also let the chickens out of their pen. They'd happily roam around the yard, eating grass and whatever tasty bugs they can find. In the evening, they'd return to their chicken house in their pen and go to sleep. Very convenient. I've come to the conclusion that chickens would happily eat us if they were large enough. I believe that chickens are very efficient to raise. If you have enough vegetation around, you don't need to feed them at all.
  - goshx 10y ago
    ^ can confirm.
  - 205guy 10y ago
    I've always thought that chickens, the free ranging kind, make insect protein palatable to humans.

paganel 10y ago

> They might be easier to grow, but in terms of calories they seem much less efficient than, say, potatoes I agree about potatoes, but that only works for relatively cooler climates, i.e. places like Poland or Ireland. It can easily get to 35-37 degrees Celsius in the summer at the place where my parents live (not to mention places like the Indian subcontinent or Africa), at which point storing potatoes becomes a challenge. > But it has so many times more meat on it than a chicken, and is more energy efficient per calorie consumed too. It's all about the return on investment. Raising cows only becomes financially viable once you pass a certain number threshold (meaning big farms), otherwise you're pretty much doing voluntary work. It's a lot of work in order to feed a cow, I mean, lots and lots of work, and said work is pretty effective in burning calories. A lot of farmers in the European Union who are in the cow-raising business (I'd say most) wouldn't make it without financial help from the EU and from their governments. I'd say that goats are a lot better option if you really need meat. They feed practically on everything (cows are a lot more picky) and they're smaller, so they're easier to "store" and protect at night. This is why I think they're so widespread in the poorer regions of the world.

bromuro 10y ago
> I agree about potatoes, but that only works for relatively cooler climates, i.e. places like Poland or Ireland. It can easily get to 35-37 degrees Celsius in the summer at the place where my parents live (not to mention places like the Indian subcontinent or Africa), at which point storing potatoes becomes a challenge. Is it? Here in South Italy we successfully grow potatoes and we have such hot summers.
- pm 10y ago
  Judging from the parent comment, I don't think growing potatoes is the problem, but storing them.
maxerickson 10y ago
The classic solution to storing potatoes is the root cellar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_cellar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_cellar In the US they were used to keep vegetables warmer in the winter (while below household temps), but they should also work for cooling.

developer2 10y ago

I'm going to provide an entirely uneducated guess regarding cows. I would bet that the average person without any training or resources is capable of raising chickens, whereas the average person would have their cows die before maturing. I'm not commenting on the "average African". I'm talking about my own first-world Caucasian self. I bet you I could raise chickens with very few resources. I also bet I couldn't do the same with cows, which seem to be resource hogs and in need of more maintenance. It's like having a dog vs. a cat as a pet. A cat just needs to be fed and given a box where they can place their waste. A dog needs to be walked, socialized with other dogs, etc. Do you need to travel for a 2-day weekend? With a cat, while not ideal, you can get away with leaving behind plenty of food and water along with an extra litter box. You simply cannot abandon a dog on its own for 2 days.

rsync 10y ago
"I'm going to provide an entirely uneducated guess regarding cows. I would bet that the average person without any training or resources is capable of raising chickens, whereas the average person would have their cows die before maturing. I'm not commenting on the "average African". I'm talking about my own first-world Caucasian self. I bet you I could raise chickens with very few resources" Your instincts are incorrect - at least in a rural, or semi rural setting. Your chickens may be very safe and easy to raise in an urban environment that is free of small and medium sized predators, but outside of that environment there are many, many things that will very quickly dispose of all of your chickens - sometimes in just one night. Raccoons, weasels, foxes, coyotes, large birds (vultures, hawks, owls), bobcats ... In our rural area (west marin county, california) we need to be on our A game to keep the chickens alive ... raccoon traps set, elevated coop, hens locked up nightly, wings clipped so they can't get out of the run, high fence, three hot electric wires, etc., etc. A cow on the other hand is too big for most of those animals (a hawk can't carry away a calf) and the mother (and other mothers) are nearby. They're big.
- x0x0 10y ago
  OTOH, hay is hard to make and expensive to store, because you absolutely cannot let it get wet. If it even becomes damp it can give cows the heaves (and will give horses), and it can give farmers farmer's lung. Plus an untimely rain after you cut it can ruin a growing season's entire yield. If you get it wet, you'll burn your barn down because it composts.

justhw 10y ago

Disable Ghostery (white-list the site) if you're seeing a blank page. It fixed it for me.

exolymph 10y ago
Whitelisting every site disabled by Ghostery (or whatever tracker-blocker someone uses) kinda defeats the purpose of having it in the first place.

stinkytaco 10y ago

In addition to the other points people have made, with beef you have the problem of preservation. Unless you coordinate so everyone slaughters their cows at a different time and you can share the meat (which presents problems as well), you end up with a glut of meat for a short period of time, rather than the continuing output of a chicken.

goshx 10y ago

It is important to remember that if you kill a chicken, you can consume it entirely in the same day with no need for refrigeration and electricity. Also, chickens reproduce, grow faster and lay eggs that you can also consume. I grew up in my grandma's backyard (literally) with chickens, cows and porks. Cows were mostly used for milk than meat.

Hyperborian 10y ago

> ...and is more energy efficient per calorie consumed too. I've read studies in the past that found entirely the opposite, and by a very large margin. If I remember correctly, I believe that raising chickens for meat was many times more efficient, and among common meat livestock cows were the worst. Are you sure you've got it right?

herdrick 10y ago
Cows can graze and put on weight on land that practically nothing other than deer can survive on. Think of the sagebrush semi-arid land of the American Great Basin (ex. northern Nevada, eastern Oregon). Chickens and goats can't.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

sampo 10y ago

> Of course a cow should be more work to raise than a chicken. But it has so many times more meat on it than a chicken, and is more energy efficient per calorie consumed too. Wikipedia says quite the opposite: "Two kilograms of grain must be fed to poultry to produce 1 kg of weight gain, much less than that required for pork or beef." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poultry_farming#Efficiency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poultry_farming#Efficiency

dagw 10y ago
Is the ratio of edible-calories-to-body-weight roughly the same chickens and cows?

puranjay 10y ago

Raising cows for meat is not an option in a very large part of the developing world - India - because of religious reasons. (And it is also illegal in most of the states here in India)

csomar 10y ago

I think it relates to risk, growth and capital. You only need $10-20 to get started with chickens, and from there you can grow quickly to $500-1000 in a matter of few months. To get started with a cow, you'll need a huge capital (thousands) and take a big risk (cow dies).

pajaroide 10y ago

This a list of edible protein that can be grown per unit of land, soybeans and other legumes top the list along with hemp seeds, animal sources are the less efficient. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edible_protein_per_unit_area_of_land?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edible_protein_per_unit_area_o...