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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: 1.704s | source
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qq99 ◴[20 Feb 25 05:00 UTC] No.43111299[source]▶
As 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-chic...

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MichaelRo ◴[20 Feb 25 09:13 UTC] No.43112681[source]▶
Definitely it's not about the cost and convenience.

And I haven't seen it discussed much, which tells a lot that the HN-ers are city dwellers with little experience in the countryside life. But the biggest, nastiest, deepest problem with anything animal is ... shit.

Animals produce shit and lots of animals produce loads of shit. And chickens don't have the notion of "this area is for eating, this one's for shitting", they will shit all over the place. So if you don't enclose them and can run to your porch, they'll shit it up so gotta be careful where you step or sit on. If you enclose them, better be prepared to wipe shit of your boots coze no way you can avoid it forever. Then the "pleasant" activity of cleaning up loads of shit from the chicken coop and dispose it somewhere.

Overall, having lived on a farm, my childhood memories of interaction with animals resume to "lots and lots of shit everywhere" :)

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1. KineticLensman ◴[20 Feb 25 10:29 UTC] No.43113132[source]▶
> But the biggest, nastiest, deepest problem with anything animal is ... shit.

Yes. I volunteered at a Raptor conservancy. Fantastic animals and being trusted to help fly them in a display was one of the best things I've ever done. It made up for all of the poop cleaning. At least owls have the courtesy to cough up pellets containing the little bones of their prey - it reduces the poop volume and the pellets dry into hard nuggets that easy to pick up (and fun to pull apart later). Black Kites were okay-ish - most of their poop ended up on easily cleanable wall sheets behind their (outward facing) perches. But vultures. yeech. They are fascinating from a social perspective and some were very playful - pulling on your bootlaces until they were knotted, for example, but their poop is gross and voluminous. They also can use defensive projectile vomiting if they feel threatened, which is as (un)pleasant as it sounds.

But overall, great animals to be around.

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2. technothrasher ◴[20 Feb 25 11:51 UTC] No.43113614[source]▶
> At least owls have the courtesy to cough up pellets containing the little bones of their prey

As soon as somebody showed me this as a kid, I would constantly be looking in pine groves for pellets. There was something fascinating about pulling them apart and finding the little mouse bones. Whenever I have a chance now, I point it out to kids. Some of them are fascinated like I was, some of them can't understand why I showed them something dirty and boring <shrug>.

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3. KineticLensman ◴[20 Feb 25 13:04 UTC] No.43114171[source]▶
> Some of them are fascinated like I was

At the Raptor place, we used owl pellets as part of kid-focussed activities. We'd give them a couple of pellets, a pair of tweezers and a chart of bone outlines, and say "see what animals you can identify". Tiny little jawbones were always popular.