Egg prices are soaring. Are backyard chickens the answer?

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...

> 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 used the believe the same, but as I found out on HN, there are a lot of people who won't bat an eye killing animals raised on their own land. Maybe they just never develop a bond with these animals.

But then the question should be is it just the "bond" which is holding someone back from killing animals? Why can't we just not kill without relying on bonds?

Past generations of my family used to name animals that they raised for meat after dishes they could end up in. There are practices people can engage in to distance themselves from the animals they interact with.

But also some people who raise animald for meat hire a person to collect them for slaughter in part because of the emotional toll involved.

As to your last question.. I think you might be confused? People don't like to kill in general. Go outside and ask people how they felt getting their first kill on a hunt as a kid, you're going to realize that a unifying element is learning to deal with harming another animal.

Bonus: being vegetarian doesn't exclude you from the necessity of killing in order to live. You're just killing forms of life that you emphasize with less, which is very reasonable and rational but also not materially different.

> People don't like to kill in general.

I used to believe this.

Then I came up with a twisted question to ask people (I am fun at parties)

The question is something like, if you had to come up with a name for someone to kill within twenty four hours can you do so? The conditions are you get a full and unconditional pardon. It won't be held against you at all. If need be, we will even arrange it such that the person can't protest. However, once you agree, you must come up with a name and you must follow through. You must kill this person no matter what within a short time frame (make something up like a month).

I expected people to answer no. You can't come up with a name in a day! However, over half the people I have asked have said they have a name right now.

But why? You can easily come up with a whole list. I’d ask for a week to perform research on more names I wasn’t aware of. There’s so many bastards in this world I’d specifically choose a less sharp weapon for and skip the can’t protest part. The only thing I’d worry about is getting physically exhausted and mentally unstable after such marathon, but it has to be done.

Kinda disagree on the latter part. If there's no chance to toss them in prison, but other opportunities, do whatever is necessary to prevent further suffering.

But then there's the question on whether you could trust your own judgement.

E.g. I wonder how many people would choose Kim Jong Un without realizing how EXTREMELY progressive the guy is on the scale of the hell hole that is North Korea.

Allowing just anyone who wants access to the countrwide intranet with some curated and heavily censored information from the outside and ending the crackdown on user generated content? Blasphemy! Allowing a selected few foreign restaurants to open up? Witchcraft! Building semi-normal housing in the prison camps you toss entire families together with their children, grand-children and elders in? Cracking down on systematic rape and arbitrary mass executions in those camps? He's going to come for our (prison) children next! Trying to shut down the practice of high ranking officials forcing young girls into sex slavery squads? And even after inflicting an "undisclosed physical ailment" on him, he still only barely agreed to restart the squad, controls the selection of girls himself instead of allowing us to force anyone we like into it, requires parental consent, makes us wait until the girls receive an education and doesn't recruit anyone under 14 anymore? SCREW HIM!

And many other things that seem absurd to us and the Juche system for exactly opposite reasons. Like allowing other countries but China and Russia to offer work in their special economic zones, agreeing to a meeting with the US President at the border inside NK, considering negotiations with South Korea and allowing very limited cultural exchange, giving some priority to increasing living conditions for anyone but those who have the priviledge of living in the capital, turning a blind eye to tiny private markets selling some less controversial contraband, ....

The guy is just barely holding on in a system that completely vaporized anyone with even but a tiny bit less than utmost loyality to the Juche ideology. For several generations. All institutions, government bodies, civic organizations, education and corporations are under complete control of Juche extremists. And then there's this one basketball obsessed fatty raised in Switzerland.

His greatest achievement so far is probably opening up their intranet to about a quarter of their population (less than 1% were allowed to use it before him) and slowly expanding the group of people who have access to the outside internet. At this point more people have access to smartphones than to television or radio. And now social media and chatrooms are apparently being reopened after the previous government took those from the 0.1% elite who had access to the intranet back then in 2005, because they organized a spontaneous sport event with a few hundred people.

And not long ago the NK government became very worried about people accessing the global internet through their intranet enabled devices, extending the application used to connect to the intranet with spyware trying to detect foreign network accesses. So it seems VERY likely to me someone hard to stop is currently hooking their intranet to the global internet in the background. And the NK establishment is not very happy about it.

Maybe the life of North Koreans will become much better within one or two generations.