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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: 0.001s | source
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Jgrubb ◴[19 Feb 25 23:18 UTC] No.43109033[source]▶
To 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.
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wakawaka28 ◴[19 Feb 25 23:47 UTC] No.43109316[source]▶
You're feeding them the wrong stuff. They can live off of cracked corn and whatever stale bread and vegetables you toss them, as well as bugs in their general vicinity. As for the initial buy, they can turn over a new generation in about 3 weeks. You can also eat the old chickens. You're looking at it wrong.
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Jgrubb ◴[19 Feb 25 23:55 UTC] No.43109389[source]▶
Because I'm not looking at it the way you look at it? Been at it for ten years and am perfectly happy with how it's been going.
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wakawaka28 ◴[20 Feb 25 03:06 UTC] No.43110636[source]▶
If you think you're spending too much on the eggs then you're not perfectly happy. I grew up with chickens and my family also grew up with them. I'm just saying, something is really wrong with the way you're doing it if you think it's not worth the money. There are ways to do it economically. What do you suppose the big farms feed the chickens to make it economical to not only grow the chickens but also package and ship the eggs profitably for all involved, cheaper than you can do it without packaging and shipping and paying middle men?
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1. Jgrubb ◴[21 Feb 25 14:10 UTC] No.43127621[source]▶
I never voiced an opinion other than "buying chickens ain't the way to save money on eggs". Do you always jump to conclusions and imagine peoples' motivations and mindset like this?, because you're making this whole thread up in your head.
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2. wakawaka28 ◴[22 Feb 25 04:27 UTC] No.43136113[source]▶
Hmmm the thread isn't all made up in my head. To recap:

You said your way wasn't saving money.

Then I said you're doing it wrong if you're not saving money.

Then you said you're happy doing it your way (which doesn't save money).

I then questioned whether you're really happy not saving money, because you've obviously done calculations to figure out if you're saving money. If you didn't care, would you really do that?

My comments aren't all for you. We've established that you don't care if you save money or not. My comments are for those who might be looking at raising chickens to save money, and would be discouraged by your failed attempts. As I said, the fact that chickens are raised for profit all over the world disproves your claim (at least, if you don't count your own labor; obviously you can't bill even a couple of hours on a programmer's salary toward raising a handful of chickens and still save money).