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Egg prices are soaring. Are backyard chickens the answer?

(civileats.com)
310 points greenie_beans | 3 comments | 19 Feb 25 21:46 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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sandboxdev ◴[19 Feb 25 23:16 UTC] No.43109018[source]▶
no, bird flu can still infect your backyard flock
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cmrdporcupine ◴[19 Feb 25 23:19 UTC] No.43109041[source]▶
But 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-u...

Still, backyard chickens are a hobby, for if you like chickens. It will always cost more than an egg farm.

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trog ◴[20 Feb 25 00:48 UTC] No.43109780[source]▶
> But the culls are smaller, and so the impact lessened. The problem becomes more distributed.

Presumably the risk of spread of bird flu to humans increases though, due to the increased amount of contact. And then the increased risk of mutation leading to human to human transmission.

Bit wild to me that we don't seem to be taking this very seriously other than "o no my eggs" given we just had a pandemic a few years ago.

replies(1): >>43109821 #
1. cmrdporcupine ◴[20 Feb 25 00:54 UTC] No.43109821[source]▶
Arguably all the awful and crazy politics around COVID-19 has led directly to the scenario of people really not willing to take new pandemics seriously.
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2. captainbland ◴[20 Feb 25 10:30 UTC] No.43113139[source]▶
I think the way to think about H5N1 at the current time, for the hyper individualist types who don't care about no pandemic, is that it's like ebola. You really, really don't want to get it (~50% mortality) but you have to do quite specific things to put yourself at risk. One of those things is interacting with outdoor birds on a regular basis. Even in the absence of a pandemic it's just good sense not to expose yourself to that for the sake of questionably cheaper eggs.
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3. trog ◴[21 Feb 25 00:16 UTC] No.43122411[source]▶
This is true as long as we don't end up with a mutation that can go from people to people.

I saw this morning that we now have the first cases of rats with H5N1, so... things are going great