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Egg prices are soaring. Are backyard chickens the answer?
- whydoineedthis 2y agoRayts. They bring rats. Lots of them. Ok if your in the countryside with big land and farms, horrible home infestation s if not.
- ezekg 2y agoBuild vs buy. You can be me and build an in-house flock, pay $100/mo in feed, $500 for a livestock guard dog, $100/mo for dog food, $500 for a solar electric fence, and then $500 for a few coops, etc. It'll pay off before I'm dead, I think! -- right? Right?!
- tboyd47 2y agoLet's say you have 40 chickens that lay 1 egg per day. Egg prices are $5 a dozen. You tell me.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Blackthorn 2y agoIt depends. Is your name Gaston?
- alabastervlog 2y agoYou can do it a ton cheaper, depending on how pretty you want it to be. Like, you can scrounge up the materials for a coop damn near for free, and you shouldn’t need $100/m in feed if they’ve got an outdoor run with grass and you feed them kitchen scraps, unless you’ve got an absolute shitload of them. Most folks do get upside-down on it, but it’s because they want a cute instagram-ready coop or substitute money for effort. And they aren’t willing to butcher and eat them after a couple years when they stop laying consistently. Handle your chickens like country folk and you’ll do ok. Handle them like suburbanites, maybe not so much.
- kjellsbells 2y agoFor the HN crowd: treat them as cattle, not pets ;)
- circlefavshape 2y agoYou can do it cheaper, but it's work. I kept a few chickens for years, and it takes time to clean out the coop, to move the run when they've scratched up the grass. You've gotta be there in the morning to let them out, and in the evening to close them in. The eggs you get from them are much yellower, which is nice and probably better for you, but is it worth it? After 15 years I decided "not anymore" My Dad says "a hen always dies in debt"
- bcrosby95 2y agoThe nice thing about sitting on my ass all day for work is during playtime its nice to get up and do something rather than couch potato myself in to non-existence.
- alabastervlog 2y agoOh, I don’t want to do it because I know how much work it is and how gross and dumb the damn things are. But expensive? Only if you make it expensive.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- medellin 2y agoAs usual when the MBAs get involved the build price magically becomes 10x what the actual cost is.
- triceratops 2y agoThat's why you don't send your chickens to business school
- amatecha 2y agohahaha, thank you, I needed a laugh :)
- briandear 2y agoThe MBAs know how to value the actual costs. Most people for example, ignore the cost of their own labor and the opportunity costs of the whole affair.
- dgfitz 2y ago500/month for a dog? 500 for solar? Do you need a consultant?
- colechristensen 2y agoFor starters nobody uses an electric fence for chickens. You have them for cattle because they’re so big building a fence sturdy enough they can’t just push over is expensive.
- ezekg 2y agoYes they do: https://www.premier1supplies.com/poultry/fencing.php?fence_id=30 https://www.premier1supplies.com/poultry/fencing.php?fence_i...
- pests 2y agoAre we forgetting chickens can fly? Why are we using fences
- GJim 2y ago> For starters nobody uses an electric fence for chickens Good lord man! They're for keeping the foxes out, not the chickens in!
- eptcyka 2y agoNeed one? He must be one.
- ezekg 2y agoLivestock guard dogs are expensive, especially trained ones.
- dgfitz 2y agoNope, sure aren’t. Unless you want to buy a fully-trained dog, then sure. If you plan to raise chickens, but also plan to buy a 5k dog, you probably aren’t mentally prepared for raising livestock.
- darth_avocado 2y agoWhat’s missing from all the calculations so far is the worth of the time you put in. Maintaining chickens isn’t free on a daily you spend around half an hour, sometimes more to tend to your chickens. Even by minimum wage standards, you’re spending quite a bit more just in labor than buying a dozen eggs for $2 more than what it was 2 years ago.
- trod1234 2y agoFirst, you can't put a price on food security. When you can't get these things from the market because the shelves are bare, you will still have a source available. That's a big perk that can't be understated. Also, the shelves have been bare with eggs for quite awhile. Locally here we largely only see the large packs being sold. Its been 6 months since I've seen a dozen pack on the shelves. Its far more than $2, where I live a pack of eggs is competing for a pound of pork or choice beef. Last Saturday iirc it was 23.99 for 24 eggs, and there were only two packs on the shelf (both with broken eggs).
- darth_avocado 2y agoI would agree, except it’s not food security. Eggs not necessarily a mandatory food source. Like you said, if a pack of eggs is the same as choice beef or pork, then eat that? Both are nutritionally better options than eggs. If we really want food security, we’d each probably need at least a 10 acres of land per person in the household, grow our own vegetables and grains, raise chickens, have our own cows/pigs/goats, and more.
- trod1234 2y agoA nominal human diet requires a certain minimum amount of protein, and related essential amino acids, and vitamins. Eggs have until very recently been a cheap source of protein as an inferior good compared others. The problems in shortage are when the prices of all necessities are being driven up across the board to the point where you can't afford food, where government SNAP programs cannot keep up. This is the point where it becomes food security, and yes you can go further into bootstrapping your own dependency grid given more resources. At a bare minimum it provides goods you can trade for other goods which is more food security than you had when you were completely dependent on others and the currency retaining a stable store of value.
- b59831 2y ago[dead]
- wakawaka28 2y agoElectric fence? Chickens can fly, my man...
- GJim 2y agoUmmmm.... that is why you clip their wings. (Though clipping one wing is more fun, that way they flap about in circles).
- wakawaka28 2y agoEven 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.
- s3krit 2y agoThe electric fence is for keeping foxes out, not chickens in
- wakawaka28 2y agoThat makes sense but idk how effective it is.
- randdusing 2y agoEven without clipped wings, my chickens only try flying over the electric netting/fencing when my livestock guardian dog gets a bit too "playful".
- matwood 2y agoDid you factor in the cameras and 10g Ethernet you ran to the coop for ‘future proofing’? Hehe. It’s ok to have hobby, and if you get eggs out of it, even better.
- jimbohn 2y agoAnd you aren't even factoring in a keeper/guardian, that's a full-time wage.
- defrost 2y agoThat's what daughters and sheepdogs are for: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNO3VgE8rnI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNO3VgE8rnI
- bell-cot 2y agoIt would be interesting to know the actual economics and legalities of franchising "Farmer McEgg" setups, to rural folks who wanted a side gig. Once someone had (say) 150 chickens set up and going, what would be spread between their weekly operating expenses, and weekly gross sales? How many hours/day would that typically take? EDIT: Please read the article, especially the Feb. 19th update note at the beginning of it. Bird flu may not be so bad as it's been portrayed. And if the costs for comparatively tiny chicken farms were low enough, then their economics don't need to look good to Wall St. They're may-be-profitable little hobby farms which help local communities, while putting pressure on the greedy Big Egg oligopoly.
- XorNot 2y agoYou're missing the elephant in the room: egg prices are going up due to supply constraints due to flock culling due to the spread of bird flu. At the scale you're talking about...you have a bird flu susceptible flock. If backyard chickens became really common - like if every second person in a street had them - then bird flu spread would run wild (you'd also vastly increase the number of poultry-human contacts providing a vector for a species jump).
- sidewndr46 2y agothis is a good point. When you have mega flocks at factory farms, you at least have the option to sterilize the farm to stop the spread. If every lot has its own flock, that won't work at all
- ceejayoz 2y agoAnd inspections/testing/liability.
- throwaway5752 2y agoEggs are a cyclical commodity largely controlled by an oligopoly with far lower production costs than any individual could touch. This would be unlikely to succeed at scale. And as the sibling commenter notes, the reason for egg costs is avian influenza, and small producers will be unable to isolate their flocks from wild bird populations. In aggregate it might be more resilient but it would be a tough sell as a franchise.
- silisili 2y agoInterestingly(to me), for the first time in my life the local backyarders and farmers are selling eggs for less than grocery stores. Much better quality, too.
- sandboxdev 2y agono, bird flu can still infect your backyard flock
- cmrdporcupine 2y agoBut the culls are smaller, and so the impact lessened. The problem becomes more distributed. This is the chief reason why Canada's egg prices have remained sane while the US has exploded. It's not like we don't have bird flu here and we haven't had culls. We just have smaller flocks. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/egg-prices-avian-flu-canada-us-1.7450654 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/egg-prices-avian-flu-canada-u... Still, backyard chickens are a hobby, for if you like chickens. It will always cost more than an egg farm.
- abe_m 2y agoI think a lot of that is due to eggs being under government supply management. It is very difficult to get a new egg farm going, and it is very difficult to consolidate egg farms. So we have more smaller farms surviving as a result.
- cmrdporcupine 2y agoThat's definitely a part of it. There was some move some years ago here in Ontario to push for a small flock exemption to allow for egg & pooultry sales outside the quota system for flocks under 300 bird. And I don't mean roadside sales, but market sales. So there has been some accommodation for smaller market players. https://sustainontario.com/small-flock-exemptions/ https://sustainontario.com/small-flock-exemptions/
- abe_m 2y agoAll the quota systems in Ontario have troubles moving farms generation to generation. You pretty much have to inherit a farm as the quota costs are pretty well impossible to surmount in addition to land and equipment costs, as well as working capital for fuel, fertilizer, seed, etc. Dairy has recognized that and there is a certain portion of quota that needs to go to new producers when quota is bought and sold. I don't know if the chicken meat and egg systems do the same. From what I understand there is no path for the small flock program to get from 300 birds to full up full time. I'm sure 300 birds/year is still hobby farm. Nobody is earning a living on that.
- Jgrubb 2y agoTo save money? Absolutely not. I'm keeping a spreadsheet on our 20 chickens this year. They're young, so input is very high while output is still ramping but I'm guessing it's $7-8 dozen in food costs alone (the highest end organic feed tho), never mind the initial buyin.
- h0l0cube 2y ago> the highest end organic feed tho Maybe feed them your food scraps? Or bulk buy and prepare your own grains/pulses?
- Jgrubb 2y agoIt's a recent experiment, we were on the more reasonably priced organic feed until I discovered my local feed store had this stuff over the holidays, so we're trying it out. The quality of the eggs is absolutely miles above what I already considered really good eggs though. I'll probably get around to making our own someday, but I'm not there just yet.
- h0l0cube 2y agoI've seen someone just chuck a load of split peas in a plastic barrel and submerge with rain water. It naturally ferments with occasional agitation and this is supposed to be good for the chickens. So not so hard to do when you get to that point of wanting to try it.
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- bagels 2y agoWild birds will bring bird flu to your backyard flock too. It takes a lot of eggs to pay for even a $200 coop + bedding and buying the actual birds. I don't regret it 4 years in, but don't do it for the economics.
- generic92034 2y agoUnless you see it as hobby and have fun doing it, you also would have to factor in your work effort.
- cmrdporcupine 2y agoWe have raised a few hens at our hobby farm over the years. The eggs are nice and all, but they're actually quite fragile animals, and then you go and get attached to them and they get suddenly sick and slowly die on you in horrible ways. And veterinary care for backyard chickens is seriously problematic and difficult to get and expensive. My wife fell seriously in love with keeping chickens and it kind of emotionally broke her. Always tried so hard to do things right, and something has always gone wrong. I wouldn't advise it, personally, to most people. Ducks are apparently a bit more resilient though. And duck eggs are great.
- colechristensen 2y agoYes, raising animals requires the mindset of… raising animals. They’re not pets and life happens to them which most people are very disconnected from these days.
- cmrdporcupine 2y agoIt requires a level of detachment not everyone can accomplish. I brought them home, thinking that's how it would be. My wife fell in love with them, and basically stole them from me. And then it's been years of tears.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- s1artibartfast 2y agowhat are they dying of? I assume it isn't weather. I was shocked when my Wisconsin coworkers said their chickens handle -10F weather no problem in the winter.
- cmrdporcupine 2y agothere's just a pile of things. usually reproductive -- becoming egg bound, etc. there's parasites, viruses, bacterial infections. and being flock animals, they hide it, too. yeah some varieties of chicken are remarkably tough around cold which is crazy considering their original tropical origin.
- abeppu 2y agoThe letter from Farm Action, linked at the top of the article, is pretty compelling in making their case. A few highlights: > As a result of the smaller flock, egg production has dropped slightly from 8.1 billion eggs per month in 2021 to 7.75 billion eggs per month in December 2024. Importantly, however, per capita production of eggs in the U.S. has not dipped below per capita consumption of eggs in any year between 2022 and the present. Meanwhile, the total value of egg production has risen significantly, from $8.8 billion in 2021 to $19.4 billion in 2022 and $17.9 billion in 2023. Note the $17.9B 2023 figure obviously doesn't include the most recent price increases. > Instead of using the windfall profits they are earning from record egg prices to rebuild or expand their egg-laying flocks, the largest egg producers are using them to buy up smaller rivals and further consolidate market power. > Almost all shell eggs are marketed through contracts between producer firms and chain buyers where egg prices are based on weekly wholesale quotes published by Urner Barry, an industry consulting and data analytics firm. According to leading industry commentator Simon M. Shane, this convergence "on a single commercial price discovery system constitutes an impediment to a free market," with the benchmark prices released by Urner Barry potentially serving to amplify price swings led by the largest-volume producers and to prevent independent, competitive decision making by others.
- aqueueaqueue 2y ago> per capita production of eggs in the U.S. has not dipped below per capita consumption of eggs in any year between 2022 and the present Because people can't buy eggs that don't exist.
- remexre 2y agoImports?
- aqueueaqueue 2y agoGood point. I didn't imagine a lot of egg imports happened.
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- dec0dedab0de 2y agoKind of off topic, but instead of culling flocks infected with the flu, are there any farmers just seeing which chickens survive and then letting them breed?
- hollerith 2y agoMy guess is that that would increase the risk of a pandemic in humans.
- burningion 2y agoI spoke with a chicken farmer last week. The government comes in and takes over. You don’t get to decide, they kill all your chickens and cut you a check.
- voakbasda 2y agoI suspect most small/backyard flocks will be taking this approach, if only because of lack of testing.
- tastyfreeze 2y agoBeen raising chickens for years. You certainly can get eggs "for free" by selling excess eggs. But, on top of actually protecting and caring for your hens you will also need to cull unproductive hens. Failing to replace and cull unproductive hens older than 2 years will result paying to feed freeloaders without getting anything in return. I feed my chickens everything out of the kitchen. Their run space is filled with wood chips and is my primary source of compost for the garden. Garden waste goes to the chickens. Its is beautiful cycle. If I maintain my flock of 18 and get decent feed prices ($0.26/lb) my cost per dozen is ~$3.50 in the winter (2-6 eggs a day) and less than a dollar in the summer (8-15 eggs a day). If I free range them feed cost is even lower. I think everybody that can should have chickens. They need about 1/4 lb of food a day. A family can maintain a small flock on kitchen waste alone.
- nozzlegear 2y agoMy wife and I would love to have some backyard chickens, but ironically we live in a small farm town in Iowa where backyard chickens (both hens and roosters) are banned by town ordinance. A couple years ago a 5th grade student went before our city council to ask for an exception so she could raise chickens to show at the county fair for her 4H project; the council granted the exception, but not without raising concerns about creating a slippery slope! https://www.nwestiowa.com/news/sibley-makes-chicken-exception/article_8b19d36c-b75c-11ec-8ca4-07c3146b9c63.html https://www.nwestiowa.com/news/sibley-makes-chicken-exceptio...
- black6 2y agoI recently got fined for having backyard chickens within 100 feet of a neighboring residence. That's the ordinance, and I can't meet it in a low density neighborhood. Fuck the city. I still have chickens and will continue to have them.
- yazaddaruvala 2y agoOk, so maybe a controversial opinion: I've been buying local, pasture raised chickens for the last 10 years. I am very fortunate to have had the income to allow me to do so. I also don't eat that many eggs (roughly a dozen a month - so it hasn't been that expensive). The price of my eggs was always between $8-$12 / dozen (including this weekend when I easily found and bought another 2 dozen). I get that I was buying "already expensive eggs", because apparently other people were buying eggs $2 / dozen. However, to be frank, I'm not sure how people expect eggs to be so cheap. Taking into account the land, the water, the feed, the labor, the transportation all to create a dozen eggs, it must cost more than $2. Clearly paying a little more for the eggs has allowed me to support farms which are robust to large shocks like this (both in terms of input costs and in terms of health of chickens). I really hope as a society we can all move away from the unsustainable farms and improve the economics of sustainable farming so that everyone can afford locally grown, healthy eggs for centuries to come. In the meanwhile, there will be people who have to buy fewer eggs (either because of health regulations - or because reality checks will always exist like with market shocks right now). Hopefully, after this crisis, through graduated health regulation we can cause a controlled increase to the floor price of unsustainably grown eggs, while also (through technology and economies of scale) reducing the floor price of locally sourced, sustainably grown eggs.
- maxerickson 2y agoThe store is happy to lose a dollar on the eggs to get you to stop there, it's not just about the production.
- throwup238 2y agoFeed at a large scale operation is a lot cheaper than you’d think. The bulk of the food is soybean meal left over from oil production and distillers dried grains with solubles left over from ethanol production. The feed manufacturers make deals with those producers for their left over product for very cheap. They supplement the feed with some other stuff like oyster shells for calcium. Bone meal from meat producers, bakery meal from stale or expired bread, wheat middles from milling flour, and so on. None of them are expensive primary products but whatever the cheapest local sources are producing as waste in huge quantities. Some places will even give the stuff away because the cost of transporting is less than its worth in compost. Since the input ingredients are variable and the feed manufacturers have to plan for that, they offer the big farms steep discounts on long term contracts that fix their costs. A chicken lays a few hundred eggs per year so they’re very economically productive and you can house hundreds or thousands of them per coop somewhere the land, water, and labor are cheap. Although we’ve sacrificed animal welfare, sanitation, and quality to get those prices.
- RajT88 2y agoA bunch of my neighbors keep various birds (chickens, ducks, even geese!), and some sell their eggs. I haven't checked to see what they are charging these days, but I'm sure it's gone up. It used to be 5 bucks per dozen for the fancy green eggs.
- kdamica 2y agoI live in an urban area and have ten chickens. They are nice to have but it is a hobby and nowhere close to economical. And with bird flu I had to spend another decent chunk of money on a much larger & covered run, since we no longer let them roam our yard during the day. We bought nice Omlet coops so there are certainly ways to do it more cheaply than we did, but even so it will take most people years to break even, and chickens need at least weekly maintenance.
- wakawaka28 2y ago>And with bird flu I had to spend another decent chunk of money on a much larger & covered run, since we no longer let them roam our yard during the day. Bird flu never stopped our ancestors from keeping chickens outside. In fact if you let them go, they would be feral animals much like stray cats and dogs. They only "need" food and sanitation, due to their feces building up if they are kept in one place.
- kdamica 2y agoYes I suppose letting your chickens be wild animals is the cheapest option. I hadn't considered this. Thanks for your useful comment.
- wakawaka28 2y agoThere are some problems with it that I didn't mention. They scratch up vegetation, crap a lot, nest wherever, and fall victim to other animals like dogs and certain predatory birds. They sleep in trees at night, to avoid some predators, but that isn't perfect and it has downsides. However, I've seen them stay wild for years. They can do it as long as they have enough food and water and don't get eaten lol.
- oidar 2y agoDue to living in an HOA, our family is considering raising quail for their eggs instead of chickens. The HOA would likely still consider it a violation, but I don't see how we can get in much trouble other than having to get rid of the birds. I understand that they are nearly as productive as chickens, but don't make the noise that chickens make. The only thing stopping us is the summer heat in in a desert area. I'm not sure that 105 degree weather is humane for even birds to live outside in.
- cryptonector 2y agoIn Texas the HOA can fuck off because you have a statutory right to have up to six hens in your backyard.
- oidar 2y agoThat's great. Which statue is it?
- cryptonector 2y agoOh crap. I thought it had passed in the previous term, but apparently not.
- mnls 2y agoWow, no one is talking about the smell. Have you got any idea how terrible is the smell of a chicken coop? You do know that you have to get in there to clean it, right? This ain’t no fun activity. I prefer to get fewer eggs per month than to clean it myself (sometimes every day, it also depends on the weather too).
- slothtrop 2y agoI imagine this scales with size. By comparison, if you own a dog, you have to clean that too. And pick up it's excrement every day.
- mianos 2y agoI just let my chicken run about on the whole estate. She only goes back to the coop at dark. It hardly smells any different to the rest of the yard
- rekabis 2y agoBird Flu saunters into the chat, infecting millions and killing hundreds of thousands via backyard chickens that have zero health oversight Remember, the case fatality rate of Bird Flu is approximately 52%, and this is with modern medical assistance for those requiring hospitalization. Without modern medical assistance (once it collapses), that rate is a third again higher.
- ggm 2y agoBackyard chickens would increase the rate of cross species infection. Cats, dogs, wild animals, all would have increased access to viral load. And obviously humans. Most farms in australia with animals now post biohazard warnings, and instructions on how to be on the property (mostly, don't be on the property) I love backyard chooks, lived next door to them for a decade, had the benefit of chook-poo fertiliser for the garden. This is a terrible time to keep chickens, distributed into the community at large. This disease is hitting seal populations hard. This disease poses risks to endangered species in captive breeding programmes. This disease will be risky for immunocompromised people, small kids, pregnant women.
- qq99 2y agoAs someone who once built a large coop [1] then just bought a pre-built shed for the 2nd coop, it's definitely _not_ the _monetary_ solution. You will probably lose money overall for quite some time. I'm still probably underwater. BUT, there are definite upsides: - Chickens are very sweet animals, and are quite intelligent. You will grow to love all the silly things they do. You can pet them, they are super soft, and can become quite tame. They can purr. - I'm told the eggs taste way better, I don't really notice it because I really only eat my own eggs, but perhaps I just got used to them - It's fantastic to get ~8 free eggs per day (from 13, 3 are not laying this winter) - Morally/ethically, it seems like the best way to eat eggs if you're caring for them in a loving manner (compare to factory farms) Consider the downsides: - You may have to euthanize a chicken, likely by hand (literally) via cervical dislocation. It still ranks among the worst things I've ever had to do in my life. Imagine euthanizing your dog or cat by hand... - Predators, foxes and hawks, you need defenses - Veterinary services can be harder to find. Most vets don't want to deal with chickens. However, it also tends to be cheaper than a vet for a dog/cat. - Your wife may one day want a chicken to live inside the house. You may one day agree to this, and then miss it when the chicken is living outside the house again... - If you really like eating chicken, you may end up finding it difficult to eat them again in the future after you develop a bond with them. I think there are more upsides than downsides, but you should think about these downsides before taking the plunge. Don't let it dissuade you. Overall, they have enriched our lives immensely and I would recommend it to others! 1: https://www.anthonycameron.com/projects/cameron-acreage-chicken-coop https://www.anthonycameron.com/projects/cameron-acreage-chic...
- dcchambers 2y agoHow does one travel/vacation if they have chickens? Are they self-managing enough to be left alone for 1-2 weeks a couple times a year?
- sethammons 2y agoWith room, food, and water, we have left chickens on their own for 2wks. The challenge is keeping clean water and food and predators. We had 30 gallon buckets of water with nipples on the exterior, and food towers (home made). They had the entire interior of our barn. I wouldn't leave them in a small coupe without a run for that long.
- more_corn 2y agoThey’re certainly the answer if the question is “how can we all get bird flu.” We all really need to be avoiding exposure to h5n1. The more chances it gets the more likely it’ll evolve to transmit human to human.
- r0ckarong 2y agoLol, now you also get to raise livestock because you can't afford the food. Capitalism really is the "monarchy by money" speed run. Welcome back, peasant.
- slothtrop 2y agoHint: the answer to the headline is "no", which means it should not have been the headline, but that's clickbait for you. Growing your own food costs time and resources. People are attached to the (copious) amount of leisure time they have today.
- KingOfCoders 2y ago$7.99 https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/eggs-us https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/eggs-us
- Maken 2y agoWho is getting really rich from this?
- jonasdegendt 2y agoWhere can I buy call options on eggs?
- yourusername 2y agoYou can buy egg futures on commodity exchanges.
- AngryData 2y agoIf you build a pen out of anything other than otherwise garbage materials and a small roll of the cheapest fence, you are going to be spending even more money. Also whats with people buying like a dozen chickens? Do you eat an entire dozen eggs every single day? No? Then you don't need a dozen chickens. 2 chickens will often result in people giving away tons of eggs because they have too many. Maybe a few years down the line when they lay a few less eggs you can add another one or two. If you don't eat 90%+ of their eggs, you will once again be losing money. Also unless they are free roaming over a very large area, you do not want any roosters. Roosters in a small coop and/or yard often get aggressive and they will attack you. Yes you can cow them down if you are quick enough to grab them, sometimes mid-attack, but most people aren't because they don't want to get stabbed with their spurs. Also buying sexed chicks are not a 100% guarantee you won't get a rooster, ive gotten multiple roosters out of sexed chickens and often the only right choice is to kill them because you don't want a bunch of roosters fighting either each other or attacking people.
- wisty 2y agoChickens are social animals and require a pack. A dozen seems excessive though.
- burgerone 2y ago> dominant egg producers . . . have leveraged the crisis to raise prices, amass record profits, and consolidate market power Call me ignorsnt, but I'm surprised to see fewer cases of this kind of exploitative capitalism here in the EU. The only similar case that cones to mind is the gas and diesel price hike. Am I missing something or are Americans just more accepting of agressive capitalism like this? Something similar is Healthcare. Insulin for example is dirt cheap to produce but costs the buyer hundreds (iirc) of dollars.
- Swoerd 2y ago[dead]
- lioeters 2y agoI don't think Americans are more accepting of aggressive capitalism, they're victims of an exploitative system that has completely captured their government, media, education, and every aspect of life. Sure many of them are willing participants, or victims who aspire to join the all-powerful ruling class - but that's the result of generations of social engineering and brutal suppression of any viable alternatives.
- eleveriven 2y agoBackyard chickens are great if you have the space, time, and patience, but they're hardly a solution to systemic issues... The real fix is a more diversified, resilient supply chain... And not just pushing food production onto individuals
- kruffalon 2y agoWell, I agree with your premise of needing more diverse and resilient food production but I fail to see how backyard chickens (and homegrown vegetables) can't be a part of it. I say this while I'm also - on principle - extremely wary of pushing systemic change on individuals.
- derf_ 2y agoI am reminded of https://alphahistory.com/chineserevolution/great-leap-forward/#Backyard_furnaces https://alphahistory.com/chineserevolution/great-leap-forwar...
- sanp 2y ago[flagged]
- a3w 2y agoOld: Let them eat cake Newly voted in: ...stock up on luxury ice cream. ...indulge in caviar. I am out of ideas, so is Copilot.
- n3storm 2y agoTrumperor and Darth Musk
- bamboozled 2y agoThat’s why I almost thought this was satire. Didn’t people just vote for for lower grocery prices and emergency economic improvements ? Rather than doing democracy we’re now going back to farming for our own food during a bird flu pandemic ? “Weird”.
- pinoy420 2y agoIllegal in the UK now.
- jonatron 2y agoNot true.
- switch007 2y agoI'm guessing you actually mean "basically 'illegal' because of some regulations"?
- cr3ative 2y agoNo? You just fill in a form. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/register-as-a-keeper-of-less-than-50-poultry-or-other-captive-birds https://www.gov.uk/guidance/register-as-a-keeper-of-less-tha...
- pinoy420 2y agoAnd without the form…?
- niemandhier 2y agoBackyard chicken farming is a great hobby, and surprisingly tech heavy. My Coop controller, which is hand build by grumpy bearded East Germans, even has modules to integrate into a smart home system and supports remote monitoring via cellular network. https://jost-technik.de/PHB2.0-Klappensteller%20+%20Steuerung%20Beleuchtung,%20Heizung,%20L%C3%BCftung---105.html https://jost-technik.de/PHB2.0-Klappensteller%20+%20Steuerun...
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoIt's only tech heavy if you decide it should be though.
- niemandhier 2y agoI tried the low tech version first, and one night forgot to close the coop and brother fox killed all the chicken. Also chicken are not particularly smart, so switching on light to lure them in when it’s getting dark is very useful.
- arkey 2y agoUnless you have too many to do this, you just need to show them in the first couple of nights, and after that they pretty much help themselves.
- tiltowait 2y agoI just have a door that automatically opens/closes with sunrise/sunset. My chickens have never been caught outside. A couple of months ago, I had to replace the roof on their coop and locked the door so they couldn’t get in and get hurt (they are intensely curious whenever anyone is inside their coop). Construction ran into the evening, and the poor birds were visibly (and audibly) upset about not being able to go inside once it got dark. They’re smarter than people give them credit.
- DanielHB 2y agoJeez, it is scary how many people raise their own chickens here. Are all of these people some sort of startup exit move into the woods people?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- mschuster91 2y ago> “Instead, dominant egg producers . . . have leveraged the crisis to raise prices, amass record profits, and consolidate market power.” Who would have thought that not enforcing antitrust regulation will lead to corporations so large that they can just do whatever they want with impunity because there is no meaningful competition any more?
- helsinkiandrew 2y ago> Family-sized egg operations create resiliency This would probably create resiliency for egg supply, but given that a source of bird flu is wild birds and transfer to and from humans would increase mutations wouldn't it likely increase probability of more bird flu and more human cases?
- rscho 2y agoIt would likely much increase salmonella infections. Which currently appears as a far nastier problem.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoHow's that? I know American eggs get cleaned and bleached, but that doesn't happen in Europe yet salmonella is not a huge issue. (cleaning eggs also removes some of its natural barriers, making it mandatory to refrigerate them to keep them edible)
- rscho 2y agoIndustrial eggs are tightly controlled. Homemade eggs are far more susceptible to infection. AFAIK, scrubbing eggs like in the US is generally a bad idea, and results in the need to refrigerate them.
- jagged-chisel 2y agoThis doesn’t explain the lack of salmonella from eggs in Europe
- rscho 2y agoHuh ? Yes, it does. Same reason as in the US: industrial eggs are tightly controlled.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> Homemade eggs are far more susceptible to infection Source? I buy small-farm eggs all the time. The industrial ones need sanitisation because of the literally shit condition the birds are kept in.
- jokoon 2y agoWith the bird flu epidemic, that probably is the worst idea I have ever heard.
- slothtrop 2y agoWhy would it be, when you consider that countries with far less condensed supply chain (e.g. Canada) have not been impacted? If we blame commercial agricultural practices for exacerbating the risk then it makes no sense to frame backyard chickens as doing the same.
- forty 2y agoSadly, because the soil are too polluted by PFAS, it is adviced against to eat your own eggs (by medical authorities) where I live (larger paris aera) https://www.iledefrance.ars.sante.fr/polluants-organiques-persistants-lars-ile-de-france-maintient-et-precise-sa-recommandation-de-ne https://www.iledefrance.ars.sante.fr/polluants-organiques-pe...
- Kenji 2y ago[dead]
- cryptonym 2y agoThis adds costly pollution tests to the equation, if you want to eat eggs safely. Backyard chickens doesn't sound like a great solution.
- forty 2y agoI think in practice in their randomized tests, almost all samples were above the recommended threshold, so you can save the test money and assume it's not going to be good.
- throwup238 2y agoThere are ways to remediate your backyard enough to make it safe, but only if you really want chickens. You can do most (all?) of the labor yourself but the cost of materials will probably dwarf any savings from the eggs - especially since you probably already have better quality eggs available locally than what we Americans are used to, which I think is the real impetus for most people rearing chickens here. The first step is to dig up a decimeter or two of soil (the more the better) from the area you want to build your chicken run and dispose of it safely which your city government should be able to advise you on. Next you deposit a layer of clay, 4-5 centimeters thick, wet it and compact it so that any weeds or grass growing in the area can’t grow roots down into the contaminated soil, then cover it up with uncontaminated dirt that you truck in (that last bit is usually the expensive part). You can also use cement instead of the clay and you probably want raised borders so the roots can’t grow laterally either. My city provides mulch for free so I used that as most of the fill, compacted it, then just put cheap dirt over it. The big cost is testing afterwards to make sure it really is PFAS free but my family is paranoid and it’s a small price to pay for peace of mind.
- teekert 2y agoWe had them, then they found PFAS in many backyard eggs. Now most people I know are getting rid of them (in the Netherlands). It’s a shame but I have to say it’s easier to travel and not have to arrange care for the chickens.
- Swoerds 2y ago[dead]
- memsom 2y agoWow! I wondered about this article - US centric. I wondered because eggs are not expensive here. I just looked [1] [2]. I can get a dozen free range for about US$4 at the current conversion rate. They are a supermarket own brand, but even the "fancy" ones are something like that for 6, but some are actually still close to $4 for 12. The US chicken market (not necessarily eggs specifically) was in the Morgan Spurlock documentary follow up to "Supersize me", and it looked like the chicken "mafia" controlled the business.[3] [1] https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/search?query=eggs&inputType=free+text https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/search?query=eggs&inpu... [2] https://groceries.asda.com/search/eggs https://groceries.asda.com/search/eggs [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Size_Me_2:_Holy_Chicken https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Size_Me_2:_Holy_Chicken!
- zoky 2y agoHmm. After Spurlock lied through his teeth in his first film, why would anyone trust him ever again?
- portaouflop 2y agoSpurlock can be a fraud and the food market still be controlled by a cartel — both can be true at the same time. I’m no US citizen so I don’t really care but what I read about your potato market was wild, so I wouldn’t be surprised if eggs are also controlled by a cartel.
- zoky 2y agoThat’s as may be, but if Spurlock is a fraud then you need to provide more substantial evidence than whatever Spurlock says. That’s kind of the point I was making, actually. Supporting your thesis with evidence from a known and provable liar pretty much undermines your thesis in its entirety. So, maybe don’t do that?
- jahnu 2y agoWell he’s dead now so I guess they never will.
- 2y ago
- aurareturn 2y agoSo, how is it possible for the virus to get into a high-tech barn? Simple: the birds still need to breathe, which requires a ventilation system of some kind, which allows an entry point for the virus. Phillip Clauer, a professor emeritus of poultry science at Penn State, explains: “In the Midwest, they are working the fields in the fall, and you’ll see dust coming up from the fields, and the geese will land there to glean the extra corn, and they crap in the field. The dust goes aerosol, and that dust travels a long distance. We had one infected layer house in Pennsylvania, and they could tell you exactly what air vent the virus came in from. And then it spread through the whole flock.” Why not use HEPA filters in the ventilation system?
- n3storm 2y agoI read heading and thought jumped: How are they gonna test eggs for phentanyl?
- apwell23 2y agomy mother in law brings us two dozen eggs every week. I laugh at her for raising chickens and giving them names. Who's laughing now?
- megadata 2y ago"The Trump administration’s efforts to impose its will on the federal workforce through mass firings, funding freezes and communication blackouts is hampering the ability of public health professionals to respond to the growing threat of avian flu. As egg prices continue to rise and more cases are detected, state and local health officials say there is no clear plan of action from the administration." https://thehill.com/homenews/5154415-trump-moves-hamper-bird-flu-response-as-egg-prices-spike/ https://thehill.com/homenews/5154415-trump-moves-hamper-bird...
- amanaplanacanal 2y agoPlus our new HHS secretary is an anti-vaxxer! I'm sure nothing will go wrong.
- insane_dreamer 2y agoI heard Trump was voted in because people were angry about the high price of eggs (among other things) which Trump promised to fix "on day 1". Trump cultists will find a way to excuse this and blame it on DEI/woke/immigrants/Marxists, but those who voted for him because they thought he would bring prices down are in for a rude awakening when they discover they were misled (though I can't feel sorry for them, there were so many signs).
- 6510 2y agoI couldn't find anything online about it but some old guy in a youtube video talked about them using chickens to heat houses long ago. They build the chicken coop against the house with a very thin wall between it and the living room. Chickens have 41-42°C body temperature. (105-107°F) With a bit of help from fermenting poop they sit very close together and heat up the coop until it gets to hot. One chicken will go outside and walk around in the snow. The otherwise isolated living room acts like a buffer, they gradually heat it up and it helps stabilize the coop. I've never seen this thing in action but the old man said it worked really well. I also have no idea how many chickens were used. It would require a breed that does well in cold climate. Today people put electric heaters in the chicken coop. If it really works that well, combined with the eggs, it could make it profitable.
- t-3 2y agoSounds like Bill Mollison's chicken greenhouse idea.
- wappieslurkz 2y agoNo. The answer is to stop consuming eggs. Better for yourself, the animals and the planet.
- alecco 2y agoVegan diets are only OK if very, very well calibrated for macro and micro nutrients.
- wezdog1 2y agoThis rhetoric is old. You can thrive on a vegan diet very easily without this careful calibration you speak of. The same could be said for common western diets with poor nutrition.
- wappieslurkz 2y agoIt’s true that you can’t just go plant based by just ditching the animal based components: you have to substitute them. But that’s an increasingly easy thing to do these days. From my perspective, your point can be regarded as a myth. But even if it wasn’t mostly a myth: I rather spend a little more effort on balanced nutrition than contributing to the immensely violent system that animal agriculture is.
- switch007 2y agoWhat is nutritionally wrong with eggs?
- wappieslurkz 2y agoWith “it’s better for yourself” I’m not just referring to nutrition. Animal agriculture is devastating for the world, including the environment around you. Also I think for most (dare I say ‘well informed’) people it would be an ethical relieve to stop consuming eggs and other animal products. And yes: there are (nutritional) concerns around eggs; for example concerning salmonella, cholesterol and saturated fats. Although I should mention science is not unanimous regarding all of those subjects. But science is clear about one thing: bird flu is not to take lightly.
- greenie_beans 2y agoi didn't realize keeping backyard chickens for food security would be so controversial when i posted this
- staticelf 2y agoAs a european that until recently owned 20+ chickens I can tell you no, it is not the answer unless you really want your own chickens. Owning your own chickens has a bunch of downsides: - They get sick / get parasites and may require expensive medication or massive amounts of work. - They require warmth if you live in a cold place like me, and heating costs money. - They eat a lot and unless you buy in large quantities, it is expensive. And if you buy in large quantities, you must protect the grain from mold and mice which can be hard. - They require a lot of maintenance since they are pretty stupid and dirty animals that poop in their own water supply, food etc. - You will get a lot more mice on your property and possibly, in your house. - You are worried about bird flu, so you need to cover the coop with a roof. Building a roof is expensive, I spent ~$1300 for materials. That is a lot of eggs. That said, you can get colorful nice eggs from animals you know have a good life and are healthy. Where I am from, that is largely possible in regular stores however but in some areas of the world I assume animal care is a lot worse. I think more people should have their own animals, but they do require time and effort, more than most people can spare I would believe. We sold all of them due to this reason. We did not profit from having them, but rather lost both time and money but it is (mostly) a fun experience at least. And our waste was heavily reduced since you can feed them your food even if that is illegal where I live if you want to sell your eggs (you can buy a carrot, put it in your bed and sleep with it a week but if you lay it on a plate where you eat your food, it becomes illegal to give them it if you intend to sell the eggs).
- bilsbie 2y agoI think if I raised chickens I’d also raise insects to feed them. Wouldn’t that make the eggs way tastier and healthier? And you’d save on feed? Or do they tend to find lots of insects in their own?
- hahamrfunnyguy 2y agoI've been considering getting a few hens for a while. The cost of setup, feed and the work involved for "free eggs" are quite a bit. However, it's more worth the cost now than it's ever been, especially considering the increased self-reliance. There are ways to offset the feed costs by growing your own feed or tapping into waste streams like food/produce scraps.
- margalabargala 2y agoIf you get a few hens, don't do it for financial reasons. There are a lot of reasons to do it, but money isn't one. The financial breakeven will take many years to decades.
- ajdude 2y agoMy grandmother would tell me stories about how when she was growing up, they had backyard chickens. Unfortunately my state has laws preventing anyone from even having a hen unless you have over an acre of land.
- conductr 2y agoMy family must be odd, we probably consume about 4 dozen of raw eggs per year. What is everyone else eating that requires so many eggs? Do you cook eggs daily?
- gadflyinyoureye 2y agoYep. 5 eggs a day between my wife and I. Then there are uses for food prep.
- coldpie 2y agoYeah man, eggs are great. My wife and I cook almost all of our meals, and we go through about two dozen a month. Have one for breakfast a few times a week, cook a quiche once or twice a month, stir one or two into fried rice, use them for battering fried foods, many baked goods call for an egg or two.
- slothtrop 2y ago1 a day
- asah 2y agoEggs are also an ingredient in lots of things, especially baked goods.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago>Do you cook eggs daily? Yes. This is very common. Most days breakfast is sunny side eggs. Egg drop soup, ramens, and steamed egg dishes also consume a lot. weekly shopping list is a dozen eggs and 2 roast chickens.
- moonlet 2y agoNot if your HOA strictly forbids livestock or you live in an apartment, lol.
- switch007 2y agoEat fewer eggs, watch prices drop.
- phendrenad2 2y agoPrices "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).
- bufordtwain 2y agoWhere is the evidence that we're in hyperinflation?
- pstjean 2y agoHyperinflation 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%.
- phendrenad2 2y agoProbably not a good idea to rely on CPI, and engineered synthetic number intended to hide inflation.
- redcobra762 2y agoI 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 paid a year ago.
- qoez 2y agoPeople who work out a lot eat way way more than $5 in eggs per month; maybe $5 per day is more accurate (it's not only the rich who want to work out).
- fullstick 2y agoI work out every day, sometimes multiple times per day, and never eat eggs.
- tomjakubowski 2y agoOP was talking about a $3-$5 per month increase, not a $3-$5 monthly total spend. This isn't the first comment in the first thread to miss that though so maybe OP could have worded it more clearly.
- atlgator 2y agoEgg prices are artificially inflated from the massive culling of chickens by producers due to bird flu. Nevertheless, egg prices are being pushed as a negative economic indicator for political reasons.
- maelito 2y agoThe difference between Wall Street's numbers and the real daily life of citizens of the United Stats is astonishing.
- cudgy 2y agoHow many eggs do most people even buy? Almost every story is talking about eggs and how much of a burden it is on the public, but what are we talking about here? I can buy 18 fancy Vital Farms pasture raised eggs for $12. How is such a small purchase so important in the financial press? The whole thing is just completely silly. The focus should be on the true cost drivers like healthcare, insurance, child care, and housing.
- IshKebab 2y agoI agree. I doubt eggs are a significant outlay for many people. I think it's probably because it's a stereotypical staple, like bread, milk and cheese. It's a kind of representative of food prices in general. But yeah it doesn't make any sense to care much about it in isolation, unless you run a mousse business or something.
- bee_rider 2y agoIt was an election thing, right? It was not really plausible for Republicans to say they are going to do something about healthcare or insurance (I mean, hopefully that isn’t controversial—it isn’t like they are lying about that, healthcare just isn’t part of their platform). It was a folksy way to complain about the economy under Biden without complaining about capitalism. Now it is a folksy way for Democrats to complain about the economy, that doesn’t require bringing up the fact that there was some inflation under Biden. And it has some vague healthcare relevance (since bird flu might jump to humans). The way stuff gets talked about in America now is intense focus on extremely niche stuff. Our legislative branch is not really functional anymore, so we can’t talk seriously about solving big problems. So, let’s put a on our blinders and talk about eggs. The eggs represent our whole system, it is dumb as hell.
- cudgy 2y agoThis is a reasonable take on the nonsense. “Look at the awful burden of spending $10 more a month on eggs is doing to the average family!” … meanwhile huge landlord conglomerates are colluding on rent prices (via third party apps of course), raising rents, and gobbling up housing in the hottest growth areas.
- upghost 2y ago> - Your wife may one day want a chicken to live inside the house. You may one day agree to this, and then miss it when the chicken is living outside the house again... Please, PLEASE tell us this story!!
- nbaugh1 2y agoIf the question is, how can increase my chances of coming into contact with a Bird Flu infected animal, yes backyard chickens are the answer
- Gormo 2y agoIf you're afraid of exposure to harmful microbes, it's generally a bad idea to live on Earth.
- aj_icracked 2y agoBackyard chickens FTW! I sold my last company iCracked (W12) and have been automating my coop for fun for the last 15 years. I have always wanted to build a company at the intersection of smart home / AI meets backyard agriculture with the end goal of building the world's largest decentralized food production system. So we started Coop with the goal of making backyard chickens approachable to anyone with a backyard. We built camera systems that do crazy cool deep computer vision and have gotten to the point where we can tell our customers, "Hey AJ, there's 2 raccoons detected outside the coop, the automatic door is closed, all 6 of your hens are safe, and you have 5 eggs that can be collected. We've trained our model on 25m videos from customers and are pushing new models every week. We built this for the family that has always wanted chickens, but doesnt know where to start. We also include 6 chickens with every coop, which I think is hilarious. The plan is to vertically integrate everything from the supply chain (feed, treats, supplements, vet visits, etc) and make it SUPER easy to have a backyard flock. It's been a fascinating and fun company to build - If you want to see some of the stuff we're doing on the tech side feel free to check out www.Coop.Farm - Also one of the things that we track where we think our thesis is playing out is how many people use us that haven't raised chickens before and we're at 71% of our customers are new to backyard ag. Also, we make standalone cameras for existing flocks and other animals and I have been super surprised to see the amount of people using our predator detection and remote health monitoring models for rabbits, goats, pigs, ducks, etc. Super fun company to build.
- xandrius 2y agoLong winded advertisement here. No thanks, I'll check out my hens in the morning.
- freedomben 2y agoYou should really preface it disclaimer your comment so that the reader knows you are pitching your startup up front. If you did that, I think your comment would be pretty interesting. As it stands now it leaves the reader feeling deceived and misled when they realize you're doing a sales pitch rather than a friendly conversation.
- blakeburch 2y ago
- crocowhile 2y agoThe 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.
- Johnny555 2y agoIs H5N1 the cause of current egg prices, or an excuse? From the article: Egg prices may be impacted for reasons beyond the scarcity of laying hens due to bird flu. Farm Action, a farmer-led advocacy group, has written to the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice, requesting an investigation into “potential monopolization and anticompetitive coordination” by the egg industry. “While avian flu has been cited as the primary driver of skyrocketing egg prices, its actual impact on production has been minimal,” the group wrote. “Instead, dominant egg producers . . . have leveraged the crisis to raise prices, amass record profits, and consolidate market power.
- xboxnolifes 2y ago10% of all egg laying chickens in the US have been lost due to H5N1. And people will still pay $8 for a dozen eggs instead of eating something else for a few months, so of course there are record profits.
- marifjeren 2y ago> 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.
- unglaublich 2y agoYou don't know the elasticity of the market. I can imagine restaurants, food producers and consumers are very eager to get their weekly box of eggs. So even a 5% drop can cause a price jump that's way more.
- i_love_retros 2y agoTofu is cheap and high in protein and is great scrambled with some mushrooms and spices. You don't Need eggs!
- cryptonector 2y agoSoy has estrogen emulators. Not good for males.
- colonial 2y agoI enjoy some well-prepared tofu - I just had some last night, actually - but for most people, it is absolutely not an adequate substitute for eggs without seriously compromising on flavor and utility (i.e. baking.)
- hombre_fatal 2y agoA good tofu scramble tastes more like eggs than eggs thanks to black salt. And it's more flavorful than your normal egg+butter fry because it has an array of spices. Recipe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc5pZ-PY-H8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc5pZ-PY-H8 The compromise is mainly having to introduce a new food to your diet and change your habits.
- sgalbincea 2y agoI loved having our 6 chickens, but they do take some work to take care of. Alternatively, we could ensure that government policy doesn't do this in the first place.
- chickenman379 2y agoThe first egg from my flock cost me well over $1000. Now that was a golden egg!
- anonu 2y agoHaving grown up with chickens, they are also a great way to get rid of food scraps. Chickens especially love watermelon rinds.
- genewitch 2y agoI am going today to buy 6 chicks, as i was told all 4 hatcheries in my area were producing chicks for sale this week. I was told they would be $5-$12 depending on the breed. I was concerned because of the culling last year (over 130,000,000 fowl culled in 2024, before the election, even! weird!) that it might be hard to get new chicks, but as i was told > Chickens lay a lot of eggs in the US farm to table is 60-90 days for eggs, that's why we wash them and refrigerate them. Yard eggs you don't wash, and only keep "cool" like room temp, until you're ready to use them then you wash them with a foodsafe sanitizer (or dawn if you're making boiled eggs) and prepare. 130 million chickens et al killed prior to november of 2024, and 90 days to the home? looks like this will let up around mardi gras. I wonder who will take credit? because, here's the secret: It's the chickens.
- svantana 2y agoDon't you also need to add to that the time it takes for chickens to get to egg-laying age? Which seems to be 4-5 months.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- genewitch 2y agoyes; and i did take it into account. I'm unwilling to share my methodology at this time, but the very little mainstream coverage of the cull last year was enough to piece together a timeline, and i'm sure a few people have, maybe even someone who isn't a complete nutterbutter. In my estimation, the slaughter of chickens for disposal slowed down during the summer. Any reason why would be speculation i am unwilling to back up at this time. Wash your hands if you handle livestock, people. and if you're around LOTS and cleaning up their poo, wear a respirator and eye protection. It's got what plants crave, but not humans!
- genewitch 2y agonote: i bought six americauna female chicks for $33 with tax, 2 hours ago with no issue. Some person in front of me bought like 60 birds.
- jjtheblunt 2y agoEgg prices are normal in Arizona in the US. (I wonder how transient the perturbation in prices was elsewhere.)
- novasism 2y agojust dont eat eggs
- TheRealPomax 2y agoSince the title is a question: no, no it's not. Because the primary driver is bird flu, so the odds have never been higher of you buying birds only to have to cull them the next week. Now is the worst time to get your chickens, and the best time to just go "whatever, it's not like we need eggs, we'll start buying them again when we actually have enough chickens in this country to lower prices again".
- lvl155 2y agoWhat always amazed me about Chickens from raising them first hand is how much nutrients they produce from so little. They’re so efficient. I think this is more of a lifestyle choice because raising them is not cost effective even at these prices.
- bloomingkales 2y agoThe answer is get the fuck over eggs.
- nashashmi 2y agoGuys please for the love of God. Dont eat so many eggs. We have cut down our egg consumption to 4 per week between the two of us. And I don’t think about the cost. I can afford it. I think about the supply. Please please reduce your egg consumption. If you have people who are unhealthy and in need of nutrition, get as many eggs for them as you can. And leave it for them only. But if you are healthy, leave it for others.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- insane_dreamer 2y ago> Are backyard chickens the answer? No. Trump is the answer (and DOGE!). Once we get rid of all the DEI/woke/Marxists in government, egg prices will fall. Have faith. Praise Trump!
- rpmisms 2y agoMy backyard chickens drastically lower my grocery bill, barely require feed, and their eggs sell to friends for $6/dozen. They also replenish their numbers when I eat them. Get chickens.
- joering2 2y agoI spent quite some time on farms and while chickens are adorable, the amount of poop you have to deal with is going to be a killer to most people. So in the spirit of HN, and if this upward trend of eggs' price continues, I have 2 business ideas: - Uber for eggs. One household in the hood does all the chicken chores and sale eggs very locally to only some small ZIP code. Of course considering cost on a small home scale, eggs would be most likely at 15% price of shelf ones. Also bigger farmer could not just come and order thousands at such low price because the owner would not have capacity. - diapers for chicks. If you can invent cheap diaper for chickens then 90% of chicks pollution is gone. you still have to deal with food, water, etc, BUT the major turn off will always be amount of excrement they produce. Considering the price of eggs today, if nothing gets changed and flus will prevail, these are a billion dollar ideas :) Edit: unless of course someone is doing that already :) I haven't checked.
- marifjeren 2y agoFarm Action letter Figure 2 description: > Biologically, it takes between 3 and 5 months to grow replacement lawyers, from their hatching to their productive stages. Impressive growth rate for lawyers. Editors take much longer to grow unfortunately
- raffraffraff 2y agoAre egg prices soaring? Where?
- kouru225 2y agoI’d say I can’t do it cause I live in NYC, but theres a very famous “Chicken House” in Bedstuy that disproves that. They got a whole chicken coup in their front yard. I got know idea how they keep away stray cats and rats etc, but somehow they’ve been doing it for at least a decade. So maybe I could
- miiiiiike 2y agoShould I cohabitate with and routinely handle disease vectors that I have no prior experience caring for?
- schainks 2y ago::shakes magic 8 ball:: Signs point to yes!
- Spivak 2y agoThis is true of all animal husbandry but unless you're buying chicks from huge sellers you'll be fine.
- groos 2y agoYou almost never have to handle chickens if you build your coop right. We didn't even have a permanent coop, merely a mobile one, but chickens are really good at coming back home to roost. There are books and plenty of info on the internet on how to do it right.
- miiiiiike 2y agoForgot that comments like these lose their meaning over text. Answer: No. Do not raise chickens because you think you're going save a few nickels eggs.
- seandavidfisher 2y agoDo you have children?
- miiiiiike 2y agoHa! Good one.
- racl101 2y agoSo glad I got a good rapport with the Hutterites (they are like Canadian version of Amish but this is, admittedly, an over-simplistic a definition). Been a loyal customer. I get a good deal on their eggs, honey and pies.
- cryptonector 2y agoTexas has a law that you're allowed to have up to 6 hens and 2 beehives in your backyard. Hens are fine because they're not roosters (though usually one hen will take on some of the role of a rooster). I'm not sure about the wisdom of keeping beehives in a suburban backyard though because when your neighbor mows their lawn nearby they can get irritated and attack -- the hives really need to be 20ft or more away from the fence.
- romperstomper 2y agoThis all reminds me this "The Mitchell and Webb Situation - Farming" sketch :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pDTiFkXgEE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pDTiFkXgEE
- ein0p 2y agoFeed costs money. Unless you live in an area where feed is very cheap, or grow your own feed, this isn't going to be economically viable. Having said that, some people enjoy keeping chickens as pets, and in that case economic viability takes a back seat. Plus there's a certain psychological satisfaction akin to tending to your own (also not economically viable) garden, which should not be underestimated. When I had a garden my every morning started with tending to it, and that was basically the most psychologically enjoyable thing I'd done in the last 30 years, especially when there's something to harvest. Plus, when AI neo-feudalism takes over, I won't starve. :-)
- tiltowait 2y agoYour break-even point will be years away, so no, backyard chickens aren’t the answer for high egg prices. That said, chickens are fun animals, and mine bring me a lot of joy even though I don’t like/eat eggs (the chickens came with my house; I give the eggs away).
- philco 2y agoThis 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 infected chicken to a human is an opportunity for the virus to jump host, and adapt to better transmit amongst humans. The mutation (mammalian adaptation of the virus) can happen in the chicken before it jumps to a passing by human, or in the human once infected with the virus. We are only a few minor adaptations away from this thing being BOTH extremely deadly AND extremely transmissible between humans. Worst case scenario. The latest strands found in Canada and now Nevada are extremely deadly, and just need the Human to Human adaptation. With enough at bats, it will have it. The idea of dramatically increasing the number of humans exposed to sick flocks by having people start their own backyard chicken coops feels suicidal, for humanity. The latest hospitalized patient in Georgia was exposed through a backyard flock, by the way.
- bagels 2y agoThe biosecurity protocols are nonexistent with most backyard coops.
- dyauspitr 2y agoWe have a backyard flock where the run and coop are completely enclosed. So in theory they should be more protected given that no birds or critters can get into that space to give my chickens bird flu. That being said, I have no faith in the Trump government to do the right things required to stop the spread of this and I feel like we are pretty screwed either ways.
- backyardflock 2y ago[flagged]
- michpoch 2y ago> Last week, the average price of a dozen eggs hit $4.95 per dozen That sounds.. pretty cheap? Here (Switzerland), 10 eggs (instead of 12), cost at least 4.20 CHF (almost 5 USD): https://www.coop.ch/de/lebensmittel/milchprodukte-eier/eier/eier-roh/schweizer-eier-bodenhaltung-53g-10-stueck/p/3080143?context=search https://www.coop.ch/de/lebensmittel/milchprodukte-eier/eier/... These are the lowest quality eggs available. Regular eggs are around $1 each and it's been like this for at least a decade now.
- jeffrapp 2y agoPrior to the price spikes, it was relatively easy to find a dozen eggs for around or below $2.
- michpoch 2y agoIn what conditions are these eggs being produced? Are these also codes 0 - 3, similar to the European ones, with different classes of the chickens living conditions? $2 per dozen eggs is cheaper than in the poorest countries in Europe.
- jeffrapp 2y agoHonestly, terrible conditions. Factory-farmed style eggs. The “better” eggs were already at the $3-7+ price point depending on the feature set you’re looking for. Organic pasture raised eggs? Closer to the $7+. Plain brown organic eggs were closer to the $3 mark. The egg industry in the US is a mess of marketing words that aren’t really regulated. Words like free-range, cage free, “access to the outdoors” often have little impact on the well-being of the chickens.
- kelnos 2y agoA friend of mine has kept chickens in his backyard for years (not for egg-cost reasons). He said he did the math recently, and given just the cost of feed (not including the up-front cost of building the coop, or ongoing costs to maintain it), eggs would have to go up to ~$11/dozen for it to break even. While I have seen eggs that high recently (at a small convenience-store type place in a relatively HCoL area), that's certainly still not common.
- slowhadoken 2y agoI haven't made an omelet in months and I'm still eating like a king. Why are people so obsessed with eggs? Are they a linchpin to the American diet or something?
- neuralRiot 2y agoAnyone with enough critical thinking should be eating on a plant-based diet. I won’t explain all the points as they’re widely explained around the web and just a search away. 1)Ethics 2)Health 3)Environment 4)Politics
- smm11 2y ago"Are" soaring? Avian flu has been going on since 2022. One of the reasons we are where we are is because many think this started last fall.
- mianos 2y agoI have a hen and get an egg once every few days. I had two for a while, but I have had this one for years. I live in an urban area, but I don’t even lock her up. She just wanders about. Sometimes she goes out the front gate, and people knock on my door and ask if I’ve lost a chicken. She always seems to go back to her coop out the back to sleep and lay. Occasionally, she starts laying in some random place. When I notice there are no eggs for a week, I go hunting. When I take the eggs, she seems to go back to laying in the coop. The biggest issue I have is if I leave the door open and don’t put a little bit of wood that she can’t jump over, she comes into the house. They poop every now and then no matter where they are, so it’s a minor issue but still annoying. She knows the cat food is in the laundry and raids it if she gets in. If I leave the front door open and she can see it from the back, she will rush around the side of the house and run in through the front door.
- analog31 2y agoMy mental model of backyard chickens is that the owners will behave like pet owners. A sobering thought. Granted, most pet owners behave responsibly, and most chicken owners will too.
- LinuxBender 2y agoI recommend listening to Patara's advice on chickens. [1] She mentions some of the things discussed in this thread and more. All practical advice. Just listen in the background. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbIGEK2q_VA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbIGEK2q_VA [video][22 mins]
- retrocryptid 2y agono.
- Snoozus 2y agoSoon on HN: Aluminium prices are soaring. Are backyard smelters the answer?