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Egg prices are soaring. Are backyard chickens the answer?

(civileats.com)
310 points greenie_beans | 2 comments | 19 Feb 25 21:46 UTC | HN request time: 0.439s | 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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pjerem ◴[20 Feb 25 13:03 UTC] No.43114166[source]▶
I do own two chickens since maybe 6 months for random reasons. Before that I thought they were pretty "stupid"/"uninteresting" animals but I was really wrong.

They are in fact very lovable little beings. They have interestingly complex relationships between them, they are very social and I do have a special bond with the first I got, especially because we hadn’t the necessary hardware to keep her hot enough for multiple days, we had to literally keep her warm between our hands.

Now she is a grown up chicken and she loves it when I go outside.

Also they are in fact pretty intelligent animals, and they are really curious about what happens around them.

I’d ever go as far as saying that they could be the perfect household pets if only the evolution gave them sphincters.

That was a nice personal discovery.

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adrian_b ◴[20 Feb 25 17:23 UTC] No.43117526[source]▶
As a small child, I used to spend a part of the summer vacations with my grandparents, who had some land cultivated with a variety of crops and trees and they also raised some animals, including chicken which roamed freely through a big garden.

I liked to play with the chicken, and by rewarding them with maize grains I have succeeded to train some of them to respond to a few simple commands, like coming to me when called and sitting down, waiting to be petted, and standing up upon commands. (Because those chicken were used to roam freely, they were shy of human contact. Normally it was difficult to catch any one of them.)

My grandparents and their neighbors were astonished, despite the fact that they have kept chicken for all their lives, because they believed that chicken are too dumb to act like this.

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PaulHoule ◴[20 Feb 25 17:26 UTC] No.43117557[source]▶
My understanding is that birds are about as intelligent as mammals.

Funny I know some people who grew up with chickens who think they are nasty, aggressive and disagreeable. Like little dragons.

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alwa ◴[20 Feb 25 17:58 UTC] No.43117958[source]▶
Depends how they’re raised… impressionable creatures. Though IME some roosters especially are just plumb mean.

A mean rooster has a surprisingly high terror-to-size ratio, and can easily draw blood with its spurs. And they carry grudges, and they’ll stalk you.

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1. lsaferite ◴[20 Feb 25 19:27 UTC] No.43119017[source]▶
Can confirm. We used to own a mean rooster and he would certainly stalk me when he was out of the run. Not sad that a fox ate him. Would have preferred the hens not also been eaten though. Our current rooster is pretty chill and just ignores me. He even consents (begrudgingly) to my young daughter picking him up and holding him.
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2. PaulHoule ◴[20 Feb 25 20:38 UTC] No.43119845[source]▶
We used to have one around the barnyard who hated me and hated my son (maybe 5 years old at the time) and hated it even more when I was carrying my son on my shoulders.

I learned from that, and other experience of hand-to-hand combat with birds, wildcrafting eggs [1], and such, to "never let a bird see your back". I like it how those little red-wing blackbirds like to sit on POSTED: NO TRESSPASSING signs because that is their attitude. They'll dive bomb you but also flap really hard up high at the sky to nip at the wings of hawks who are lazily cruising. You might not even notice they have a nest to protect if they weren't getting in your face about it.

[1] at least seven years ago, I think...