God i love having chickens
this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2025
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Eventually it becomes cheaper to raise chickens.
Good! (Said with a condescending vegan tone.)
$4 a dozen in Kentucky.
I’m finding 18 for $9. Discount groceries. Not Walmart, that place is more expensive post 2020 than dedicated discount grocery stores.
Even so. Eggs priced like meat is going to cause a lot of protein malnutrition going forward.
Raw milk will fix that ;)
Time to start raising chickens.
Already started. We have a coop about ready, my wife has experience, we're semi-rural, about set. Only thing, I want them free range and I'm not sure about the wildlife.
Haven't seen a fox in ages. The local coyotes don't come in here, yet, but a massive new development is pushing them out of their comfort zone. Plenty of raptors it seems. But hell, I can afford everything but a ton of fencing, of any kind.
What to do? Just run out with the 20-gauge and start blasting at 3AM when shit goes sideways?!
I need to post on the chicken comm.
My primary plan is to hatch extra and expect some losses. Wildlife needs to eat, too, and I can’t fault it for doing so, even if it’s inconvenient for me.
However I’ll also employ roosters, which are annoying but do great protecting the flock (even sacrificing themselves to save their ladies). If you can’t/won’t have roosters for whatever reason, a couple geese will help as well, or you can add them to the roostered flock for extra protection, I believe.
Personally, the only way I’d ever shoot something going after my flock would be if it’s a threat to the enclosed run/coop where they stay at night and in bad weather. Or if they were habitual about raiding my flock.
But chickens should be in a coop at night so as long as you have one critters can’t get into, you probably won’t have too many losses.
Peacocks can chase off predators.
FYI eggs from backyard chickens have a higher level of lead in them. On account of cities being polluted with leaded gasoline for decades. Fun times.
Unleaded gas became standard in the 70s. If you live in a dense city that was built 40+ years ago and eat eggs daily and are a small child, you may reach the non-recomended intake amount, barely.
Most people with a backyard big enough for chickens don't live in the urban areas that had such dense lead exposure anyways
A few thoughts on that. Unleaded started in 1975. I'd like to know when it reached 50% of the vehicles but googling doesn't give me that. Assuming 20 years for the entire fleet to turn over, that would give 1985 for 50%. I think you want 25% or less leaded cars until you don't have too much lead in the air, so that goes to about 1990. The pollution didn't end immediately at the city limits, so the burbs that would be built on the next mile or so would still be on polluted land. So I think that gets you to houses built 1995+ to even 2000+ to get to uncontaminated land (depending on how fast your city was growing).
I know around here the houses with decent backyards were built in the 70s to 80s. In the 90s the yards were getting small, and nowadays they are almost nonexistent. So the best suburbs for chickens are 80s and earlier. Which is also the contaminated land.
Last thought is that they keep saying that there is no safe level of lead exposure.
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In Australia they're not available at all. This is at Woolworths supermarket:
they culled because of the bird flu too?
It appears to be multifactorial:
- Culling last year due to AI
- High demand during the festive season
- Ban on caged eggs in 2036
12.99 at my tourist town in CA
I am afraid to ask the price of the Vital Farms eggs.
PS: $6.49 in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.