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Genuine question. Does this mean that the average person can start a chicken farm today and earn massive profits? What is stopping an enterprising person from g

Genuine question. Does this mean that the average person can start a chicken farm today and earn massive profits? What is stopping an enterprising person from grabbing those profits?

User23 4y ago
The same thing that created the shortage in the first place: USDA regulations. If you want laying hens for personal use, no problem. As soon as you go commercial you have to follow all the rules. Edit: The takeaway is answering the post I'm replying to as to why anyone can't just start selling eggs. Edit edit: Child's axe-grinding notwithstanding, I really am just pointing out that USDA regulations are why the average person can't just start selling eggs. That's merely a descriptive statement, and in no way implies "all regulations are bad," which is, frankly, a level of discourse posters here should aim higher than.
- mint2 4y ago
  USDA regulations caused bird flu? Also, Unregulated eggs are not a solution. What is the takeaway from your comment, it’s unclear. Edit: OP replied to this comment as an edit to their original, that makes it very awkward to actually respond to their reply. The reply also didn’t address the points because it amounted to saying “the take away is that I replied to someone”. That comment appears to be an “all regulations are by definition bad!” viewpoint. Please explain What usda regulation caused the shortage? Was it new? If not, why did it not cause the shortage previously. Those clarifying details should be easy to provide presuming it wasn’t a knee jerk comment.
  - amalgamated_inc 4y ago
    Irrespective of the content of any given regulation, it will slow down, cost money to adapt to, and therefore cause problems with supply. You have to hire a lawer who follows these things, interprets them. Then you have to craft new changes in the way you do things (no matter what things you do or how) to adapt, and you have to also signal that so you won't get audited/inspected (which is a huge cost in time & resources even if there are 0 violations). And that's before the cost of the actual regulation.
    - mint2 4y ago
      So is that to say all regulations are bad?
      - amalgamated_inc 4y ago
        Yes
        mint2 4y ago
        I like how regulations got rid of lead paint, got rid of LA’s pea soup smog, stopped rivers from being so polluted they’d catch fire, and brought back the American eagle. Just a few examples. a reactionary “all regulation bad” view is too simplistic and doesn’t make for good discourses. but what do I know, I must be biased because I’m not a fan of asbestos.
        amalgamated_inc 4y ago
        If you hate freedom so much, why don't you move to North Korea? I hear their government is real good at regulations.
        mint2 4y ago
        Actually thats not correct. even if they have environmental regs on paper countries like that don’t have them in practice due to lack of enforcement. What is the purpose of those comments?
        User23 4y ago
        I assume it was to make me laugh, which it did. Nobody actually thinks "regulations are bad." The point that is being humorously made is that these things have significant trade-offs and you're pretending not to get it. And I have to compliment you on playing the straight man in the exchange, it wouldn't have been nearly so funny without your participation! We saw the same thing in early LAN engineering when Ethernet fought it out with Token Ring. Oversimplifying a bit: Token Ring provided a highly regulated guaranteed delivery protocol with lots of complexity and overhead and Ethernet just spurted packets out onto the wire and let the nodes figure out collisions. Can you guess which one is considerably more performant and easier to implement? Even so, Ethernet still has plenty of rules and complexity, just considerably less than Token Ring.
- commandlinefan 4y ago
  > If you want laying hens for personal use, no problem Actually, even then, you'll have a problem - not from the USDA, but from your local zoning board/HOA/anybody in the government your neighbors can get in touch with.
TSiege 4y ago
who would you sell to and do you know how much work (and stink) chickens are?
- schwoll 4y ago
  Yea poster above you clearly hasn't driven by a chicken farm. God the smell goes for MILES. It's pretty bad. I'd rather do just about anything else.
deleted 4y ago
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version_five 4y ago
This would only really be implied if the price increase was just because the current egg producers have increased their price to take more profit. If the price increase come because producer's costs have risen, there's no reason to believe a new entrant would be more profitable. Of course you know the joke about two economists walking through a busy train station. One points out a $20 bill on the ground, the other says it's obviously fake, because if it wasn't someone would have picked it up already
topkai22 4y ago
The entire worldwide industry is dealing with a pathogen (bird flu). There is a large upfront capital capital cost to acquire industrial scale chicken raising equipment and facilities, plus time to raise the new chickens (6 months from hatchling to maturity). In that time we could very well go from scarcity to glut with current producers as bird flu works itself out and they regain capacity. And it’s not like you wouldn’t be subject to your flock(?) of chickens getting the disease. That’s not too say there isn’t opportunity here (there might be) or that people aren’t reacting to it (my brother in law just repopulated his home coop), but in general agriculture is a highly competitive business with low margin’s and “obvious” profit opportunities are riskier than they appear.
user22 4y ago
because building the infrastructure takes N period of time and X cost. possible the infrastructure won't be complete before prices go down. possible that prices will go down before you recoup the costs. On the other hand, depending where you live and local rules, it is easy to have a few layer chickens for eggs. Having 4 or 5 chickens can mean 3 eggs a day which can keep you supplied. Costs would be a coop, food, water, and chicks. Layer feed where I live is 18 bucks for 50 lbs which can last for quite a while with that small number of chickens.
jerf 4y ago
Chickens grow relatively quickly. By the time you brought your new farm online, the existing ones would have recovered. Chickens grow exponentially, infrastructure grows linearly (if that) in money invested.
rexreed 4y ago
The average person doesn't have room for a sufficient sized chicken coop. The average person doesn't have the wherewithal to get eggs to market. The average person can't efficiently produce eggs in any sort of quantity to satisfy market demand. The average person hasn't invested in quality control nor in packaging. Simply put, the average person can't do much to take advantage of any short-term pricing issues. In the long term this will settle, so any short-term investments that the average person will make will not be recooped (see what I did there).
tmn 4y ago
Good luck with that regulation
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

Genuine question. Does this mean that the average person can start a chicken farm today and earn massive profits? What is stopping an enterprising person from grabbing those profits?

User23 4y ago

The same thing that created the shortage in the first place: USDA regulations. If you want laying hens for personal use, no problem. As soon as you go commercial you have to follow all the rules. Edit: The takeaway is answering the post I'm replying to as to why anyone can't just start selling eggs. Edit edit: Child's axe-grinding notwithstanding, I really am just pointing out that USDA regulations are why the average person can't just start selling eggs. That's merely a descriptive statement, and in no way implies "all regulations are bad," which is, frankly, a level of discourse posters here should aim higher than.

mint2 4y ago
USDA regulations caused bird flu? Also, Unregulated eggs are not a solution. What is the takeaway from your comment, it’s unclear. Edit: OP replied to this comment as an edit to their original, that makes it very awkward to actually respond to their reply. The reply also didn’t address the points because it amounted to saying “the take away is that I replied to someone”. That comment appears to be an “all regulations are by definition bad!” viewpoint. Please explain What usda regulation caused the shortage? Was it new? If not, why did it not cause the shortage previously. Those clarifying details should be easy to provide presuming it wasn’t a knee jerk comment.
- amalgamated_inc 4y ago
  Irrespective of the content of any given regulation, it will slow down, cost money to adapt to, and therefore cause problems with supply. You have to hire a lawer who follows these things, interprets them. Then you have to craft new changes in the way you do things (no matter what things you do or how) to adapt, and you have to also signal that so you won't get audited/inspected (which is a huge cost in time & resources even if there are 0 violations). And that's before the cost of the actual regulation.
  - mint2 4y ago
    So is that to say all regulations are bad?
    - amalgamated_inc 4y ago
      Yes
      - mint2 4y ago
        I like how regulations got rid of lead paint, got rid of LA’s pea soup smog, stopped rivers from being so polluted they’d catch fire, and brought back the American eagle. Just a few examples. a reactionary “all regulation bad” view is too simplistic and doesn’t make for good discourses. but what do I know, I must be biased because I’m not a fan of asbestos.
        amalgamated_inc 4y ago
        If you hate freedom so much, why don't you move to North Korea? I hear their government is real good at regulations.
        mint2 4y ago
        Actually thats not correct. even if they have environmental regs on paper countries like that don’t have them in practice due to lack of enforcement. What is the purpose of those comments?
        User23 4y ago
        I assume it was to make me laugh, which it did. Nobody actually thinks "regulations are bad." The point that is being humorously made is that these things have significant trade-offs and you're pretending not to get it. And I have to compliment you on playing the straight man in the exchange, it wouldn't have been nearly so funny without your participation! We saw the same thing in early LAN engineering when Ethernet fought it out with Token Ring. Oversimplifying a bit: Token Ring provided a highly regulated guaranteed delivery protocol with lots of complexity and overhead and Ethernet just spurted packets out onto the wire and let the nodes figure out collisions. Can you guess which one is considerably more performant and easier to implement? Even so, Ethernet still has plenty of rules and complexity, just considerably less than Token Ring.
commandlinefan 4y ago
> If you want laying hens for personal use, no problem Actually, even then, you'll have a problem - not from the USDA, but from your local zoning board/HOA/anybody in the government your neighbors can get in touch with.

TSiege 4y ago

who would you sell to and do you know how much work (and stink) chickens are?

schwoll 4y ago
Yea poster above you clearly hasn't driven by a chicken farm. God the smell goes for MILES. It's pretty bad. I'd rather do just about anything else.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

version_five 4y ago

This would only really be implied if the price increase was just because the current egg producers have increased their price to take more profit. If the price increase come because producer's costs have risen, there's no reason to believe a new entrant would be more profitable. Of course you know the joke about two economists walking through a busy train station. One points out a $20 bill on the ground, the other says it's obviously fake, because if it wasn't someone would have picked it up already

topkai22 4y ago

The entire worldwide industry is dealing with a pathogen (bird flu). There is a large upfront capital capital cost to acquire industrial scale chicken raising equipment and facilities, plus time to raise the new chickens (6 months from hatchling to maturity). In that time we could very well go from scarcity to glut with current producers as bird flu works itself out and they regain capacity. And it’s not like you wouldn’t be subject to your flock(?) of chickens getting the disease. That’s not too say there isn’t opportunity here (there might be) or that people aren’t reacting to it (my brother in law just repopulated his home coop), but in general agriculture is a highly competitive business with low margin’s and “obvious” profit opportunities are riskier than they appear.

user22 4y ago

because building the infrastructure takes N period of time and X cost. possible the infrastructure won't be complete before prices go down. possible that prices will go down before you recoup the costs. On the other hand, depending where you live and local rules, it is easy to have a few layer chickens for eggs. Having 4 or 5 chickens can mean 3 eggs a day which can keep you supplied. Costs would be a coop, food, water, and chicks. Layer feed where I live is 18 bucks for 50 lbs which can last for quite a while with that small number of chickens.

jerf 4y ago

Chickens grow relatively quickly. By the time you brought your new farm online, the existing ones would have recovered. Chickens grow exponentially, infrastructure grows linearly (if that) in money invested.

rexreed 4y ago

The average person doesn't have room for a sufficient sized chicken coop. The average person doesn't have the wherewithal to get eggs to market. The average person can't efficiently produce eggs in any sort of quantity to satisfy market demand. The average person hasn't invested in quality control nor in packaging. Simply put, the average person can't do much to take advantage of any short-term pricing issues. In the long term this will settle, so any short-term investments that the average person will make will not be recooped (see what I did there).

tmn 4y ago

Good luck with that regulation

deleted 4y ago

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