Why I Would Raise Chickens | Hacker News Reader

Why I Would Raise Chickens

gatesnotes.com

347 pointskuusisto262 comments

My parents live in a village in Eastern Europe with less than $2 a day (I also chip in to financially help them), and they do indeed raise chickens, they've being doing that for the last 15 years or so, since they moved out to the countryside.

Bill Gates is correct in his assessment, it's way more profitable to raise chickens than, say, cows. You need to have a bigger barn for cows, you need to do all the hay thing, which is very time consuming and demands a lot of extra work just for feeding said cows, you need to pay someone to take care of the cows when they go out to eat in the summer on the communal field. It's easier to just barter your chickens' eggs for some milk or cheese, that's at least what my mom does.

It's also quite profitable to grow beans and cabbage. They preserve well over winter well into spring and you can also use them for bartering.

> it's way more profitable to raise chickens than, say, cows. You need to have a bigger barn for cows, you need to do all the hay thing, which is very time consuming and demands a lot of extra work just for feeding said cows, you need to pay someone to take care of the cows when they go out to eat in the summer on the communal field.

This is surprising to me. Of course a cow should be more work to raise than a chicken. But it has so many times more meat on it than a chicken, and is more energy efficient per calorie consumed too.

Similarly with beans and cabbage. They might be easier to grow, but in terms of calories they seem much less efficient than, say, potatoes.

If this was addressed in the article, sorry. It's just a blank page on my browser.

I highly doubt that Beef is a more efficient if source of meat than Chicken. I think Chicken meat is a lot more efficient.

A little quick googling and I found: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio

Why would you think that? Larger animals are usually much more energy efficient for various reasons - less surface area to radiate heat, and economies of scale with larger organs.

No, beef and lamb are the most energy consuming sources of meat. (A dairy producing cow is different.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio

    For cattle, a FCR range from less than 5 to more than 20 kg feed dry matter per kg gain may be encountered.[

Whereas for chickens:

    Poultry has a feed conversion ratio of 2 to 1.

Again, that's simple mass efficiency. We can also talk about other efficiencies, like cost of feed versus cost of meat.

I believe you, but I'm very surprised. That has larger animals almost universally less efficient than smaller animals, which is the exact opposite of the expected efficiency due to Kleiber's law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleiber%27s_law

>a cat, having a mass 100 times that of a mouse, will have a metabolism roughly 32 times greater than that of a mouse.

And yet this is saying that a mice sized animal should be expected to have the same, or perhaps even better Feed conversion ratio than a cat sized animal.

Again, I believe you, but it makes no sense.

The larger livestock will usually have a much longer lifespan. It has to keep its flesh heated above ambient for that entire lifespan. If Mouse A lives 100x longer and puts on the same weight and achieves the same stature as Mouse B, it's spent ~100x as much energy getting to the same physiological place as Mouse B.

Not really. There's a basic thermodynamic inefficiency as organisms get larger, and consume farther away from the energy source, in this that being the sun.

How are cattle consuming farther away from the energy source than chickens?

They are not more efficient in terms of how many acres are required to produce a given amount of calories.

Cows are slaughtered at 80 weeks while chickens are slaughtered at 6 - 8 weeks. That extra order of magnitude of basal metabolic rate is where the energy gets consumed.

Chicken, being leaner, may be a more efficient protein source. For raw calories, I think beef would be more efficient. Plus fat is a better calorie source than protein.

I edited my comment, but I think there are other factors, however in general Beef is very inefficient, even if per pound it is more efficient in providing energy, it's inefficient in producing that energy.

That is while Beef, pound for pound, might be more efficient for humans to consume, it isn't as efficient in producing that amount of amount in the first place, and requires more energy input than chicken meat.

The conversion ratio would hold if they ate the same things. Cows can survive on grass, which is often plentiful. Chickens more so on grains, which are harder to come by.

Plentiful if you have the land. The relative availability and cost of land is not guaranteed.

Having raised chickens when I was a kid, I can tell you that chickens will survive on almost anything organic. They're like little organic waste disposal units. There is a reason that no plants grow where chickens are kept in pens: they eat anything that grows. They'll eat any bugs they can find. I've also seen them eat other chickens that had died of some natural cause.

Chickens usually get fed grain because grain is cheap and plentiful and easy to dispense, but if you give them enough room to roam and vegetation to eat, they will eat it.

We used to throw all our food scraps (bit of bread, fruit, vegetable peelings) in a container and throw it to the chickens at the end of the day. They loved it, and would eat it all. We'd also collect rotting fruit from under the fruit trees and throw it to them. It would all get eaten. I found that pretty much the only thing chickens wouldn't eat were peach pits. Peach pits are way too hard, I guess.

In winter when we didn't have as much of a garden, we'd also let the chickens out of their pen. They'd happily roam around the yard, eating grass and whatever tasty bugs they can find. In the evening, they'd return to their chicken house in their pen and go to sleep. Very convenient.

I've come to the conclusion that chickens would happily eat us if they were large enough.

I believe that chickens are very efficient to raise. If you have enough vegetation around, you don't need to feed them at all.

^ can confirm.

I've always thought that chickens, the free ranging kind, make insect protein palatable to humans.

> I've always thought that chickens, the free ranging kind, make insect protein palatable to humans.

In many parts of the world, certain insect protein is already palatable. To mention a few palatable insects I know of: the caterpillar stage of a specific moth species (Gonimbrasia belina)[1], locusts, termites[2] and - believe it or not - stinkbugs![3]

1. Also known as mopane worms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonimbrasia_belina

2. capturing soldier termites is a fun, albeit occasionally painful experience for kids. Those giant mandibles can cut skin, and once closed, they never open

3. http://www.thestandard.co.zw/2013/09/08/bikita-villagers-sel...

> I found that pretty much the only thing chickens wouldn't eat were peach pits.

Peach seeds (also apricot, cherry, apple seeds) contain cyanide and are poisonous. Maybe chicken are clever enough not to try and eat them.

"We used to throw all our food scraps (bit of bread, fruit, vegetable peelings) in a container and throw it to the chickens at the end of the day. They loved it, and would eat it all."

This cannot be overemphasized. You can very efficiently dispose of all of your kitchen waste (minus banana peels) by throwing them at the chickens who will turn them into eggs.

In fact, years ago when we first started keeping chickens, there was a period where I would see food waste at cafes and restaurants and be seriously tempted to pack it up and take it home because, after all, I could turn this into eggs.

>In the evening, they'd return to their chicken house in their pen and go to sleep.

>If you have enough vegetation around, you don't need to feed them at all.

These two things are why you frequently see free roaming chickens in villages in poor parts of the world. They don't need feeding and minimal care or supervision is required.

In a rural setting whether there is plenty of vegetation available and few predators chickens are very close to being free egg and meat producing machines as there is virtually zero time or money required from their owners.

These two claims you make were addressed in both the original article and the comments higher up in this thread:

> Many breeds can eat whatever they find on the ground (although it’s better if you can feed them, because they’ll grow faster).

> ...for cows, you need to do all the hay thing, which is very time consuming and demands a lot of extra work just for feeding said cows

> They might be easier to grow, but in terms of calories they seem much less efficient than, say, potatoes

I agree about potatoes, but that only works for relatively cooler climates, i.e. places like Poland or Ireland. It can easily get to 35-37 degrees Celsius in the summer at the place where my parents live (not to mention places like the Indian subcontinent or Africa), at which point storing potatoes becomes a challenge.

> But it has so many times more meat on it than a chicken, and is more energy efficient per calorie consumed too.

It's all about the return on investment. Raising cows only becomes financially viable once you pass a certain number threshold (meaning big farms), otherwise you're pretty much doing voluntary work. It's a lot of work in order to feed a cow, I mean, lots and lots of work, and said work is pretty effective in burning calories. A lot of farmers in the European Union who are in the cow-raising business (I'd say most) wouldn't make it without financial help from the EU and from their governments.

I'd say that goats are a lot better option if you really need meat. They feed practically on everything (cows are a lot more picky) and they're smaller, so they're easier to "store" and protect at night. This is why I think they're so widespread in the poorer regions of the world.

> I agree about potatoes, but that only works for relatively cooler climates, i.e. places like Poland or Ireland. It can easily get to 35-37 degrees Celsius in the summer at the place where my parents live (not to mention places like the Indian subcontinent or Africa), at which point storing potatoes becomes a challenge.

Is it? Here in South Italy we successfully grow potatoes and we have such hot summers.

Judging from the parent comment, I don't think growing potatoes is the problem, but storing them.

The classic solution to storing potatoes is the root cellar:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_cellar

In the US they were used to keep vegetables warmer in the winter (while below household temps), but they should also work for cooling.

That's how my grandparents did it. Here in Sweden, we can have some warm summer months, and freezing winters. Their cellar let them store potatoes the whole year.

Goat are great ... funnily enough was just at a small sheep/goat farm yesterday. The goat's milk is salty (great for keto) and my lactose-intolerant gut can stand a glass or two. Plus the cheese is way tastier, milk has more fat etc.

http://www.self-reliance.com/2015/12/why-not-add-a-dairy-goa...

Why is salty milk better for keto?

I think in keto, the kidneys flush sodium instead of retains it. If you're interested, The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance by Volek and Phinney is a good read.

Thanks for the recommendation!

> They feed practically on everything (cows are a lot more picky)

While technically true, if they don't get their preferred foods they are a lot more prone to parasites which decreases the amount of goats you can hold on the same plot.

> A lot of farmers in the European Union who are in the cow-raising business (I'd say most) wouldn't make it without financial help from the EU and from their governments.

And heavy mechanization to automate a lot of the labour.

Which, as you might expect, is even more up-front cost.

I'm going to provide an entirely uneducated guess regarding cows. I would bet that the average person without any training or resources is capable of raising chickens, whereas the average person would have their cows die before maturing. I'm not commenting on the "average African". I'm talking about my own first-world Caucasian self. I bet you I could raise chickens with very few resources. I also bet I couldn't do the same with cows, which seem to be resource hogs and in need of more maintenance.

It's like having a dog vs. a cat as a pet. A cat just needs to be fed and given a box where they can place their waste. A dog needs to be walked, socialized with other dogs, etc. Do you need to travel for a 2-day weekend? With a cat, while not ideal, you can get away with leaving behind plenty of food and water along with an extra litter box. You simply cannot abandon a dog on its own for 2 days.

"I'm going to provide an entirely uneducated guess regarding cows. I would bet that the average person without any training or resources is capable of raising chickens, whereas the average person would have their cows die before maturing. I'm not commenting on the "average African". I'm talking about my own first-world Caucasian self. I bet you I could raise chickens with very few resources"

Your instincts are incorrect - at least in a rural, or semi rural setting.

Your chickens may be very safe and easy to raise in an urban environment that is free of small and medium sized predators, but outside of that environment there are many, many things that will very quickly dispose of all of your chickens - sometimes in just one night.

Raccoons, weasels, foxes, coyotes, large birds (vultures, hawks, owls), bobcats ...

In our rural area (west marin county, california) we need to be on our A game to keep the chickens alive ... raccoon traps set, elevated coop, hens locked up nightly, wings clipped so they can't get out of the run, high fence, three hot electric wires, etc., etc.

A cow on the other hand is too big for most of those animals (a hawk can't carry away a calf) and the mother (and other mothers) are nearby. They're big.

OTOH, hay is hard to make and expensive to store, because you absolutely cannot let it get wet. If it even becomes damp it can give cows the heaves (and will give horses), and it can give farmers farmer's lung. Plus an untimely rain after you cut it can ruin a growing season's entire yield.

If you get it wet, you'll burn your barn down because it composts.

Disable Ghostery (white-list the site) if you're seeing a blank page. It fixed it for me.

Whitelisting every site disabled by Ghostery (or whatever tracker-blocker someone uses) kinda defeats the purpose of having it in the first place.

In addition to the other points people have made, with beef you have the problem of preservation. Unless you coordinate so everyone slaughters their cows at a different time and you can share the meat (which presents problems as well), you end up with a glut of meat for a short period of time, rather than the continuing output of a chicken.

It is important to remember that if you kill a chicken, you can consume it entirely in the same day with no need for refrigeration and electricity. Also, chickens reproduce, grow faster and lay eggs that you can also consume.

I grew up in my grandma's backyard (literally) with chickens, cows and porks. Cows were mostly used for milk than meat.

> ...and is more energy efficient per calorie consumed too.

I've read studies in the past that found entirely the opposite, and by a very large margin. If I remember correctly, I believe that raising chickens for meat was many times more efficient, and among common meat livestock cows were the worst.

Are you sure you've got it right?

Cows can graze and put on weight on land that practically nothing other than deer can survive on. Think of the sagebrush semi-arid land of the American Great Basin (ex. northern Nevada, eastern Oregon). Chickens and goats can't.

> Of course a cow should be more work to raise than a chicken. But it has so many times more meat on it than a chicken, and is more energy efficient per calorie consumed too.

Wikipedia says quite the opposite:

"Two kilograms of grain must be fed to poultry to produce 1 kg of weight gain, much less than that required for pork or beef."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poultry_farming#Efficiency

Is the ratio of edible-calories-to-body-weight roughly the same chickens and cows?

Raising cows for meat is not an option in a very large part of the developing world - India - because of religious reasons.

(And it is also illegal in most of the states here in India)

I think it relates to risk, growth and capital.

You only need $10-20 to get started with chickens, and from there you can grow quickly to $500-1000 in a matter of few months.

To get started with a cow, you'll need a huge capital (thousands) and take a big risk (cow dies).

This a list of edible protein that can be grown per unit of land, soybeans and other legumes top the list along with hemp seeds, animal sources are the less efficient. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edible_protein_per_unit_area_o...

As a bonus, chicken meat is also usually considered healthier :D

>it's way more profitable to raise chickens than, say, cows

But you are pretty much comparing to the worst possible option there with cattle. Almost everything else is easier and has a better feed conversion ratio: chickens, turkeys, ducks, rabbits, pigs, goats, sheep, etc.

This immediately makes me think that, as the supply of chickens goes up, their value goes down. You won't be able to sell a chicken for $5 anymore if everybody has enough. But the point is taken that they produce a lot of food for how little upkeep they require.

On the other hand, they also have a pretty clear floor on their sale value, because if the price drops too low, the farmer could just eat the meat/eggs themselves.

You might think so, but the Commerce clause has been interpreted to mean that raising food for your own consumption is restraint of trade between the several states:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn

"An Ohio farmer, Roscoe Filburn, was growing wheat for use to feed animals on his own farm. The U.S. government had established limits on wheat production based on acreage owned by a farmer, in order to stabilize wheat prices and supplies. In 1941 Filburn grew more than the limits permitted and he was ordered to pay a penalty of $117.11. "

After all, that food you raised for yourself prevented you from needing to buy food from another state, and so, well....

There is no Commerce Clause in Africa.

Yet.

To be more clear: The commerce clause was interpreted such as to allow the federal government to impose limits on agricultural production even when the food is being used to feed your own animals.

We already have numerous such restrictions (e.g., brewing beer).

A key point in this, in fact, was that it doesn't matter if it's being produced for your own (animals) consumption vs. for sale.

But that has nothing to do with whether the pure act of raising your own food is restraint of trade, absent restrictions on production. If you were raising the food in a way that it was legal to sell it, you're raising it in a way that's legal for your own animals to eat as well.

you should read deeper into Wickard. SCOTUS decalred washing your dishes to be considered commerce. For more information on the extent of the Commerce Clause into your life, I'd suggest looking at Clarence Thomas' dissent in Raich v. Gonzalez. it's an eye-opener.

Oh, absolutely. (I've read wickard, but not the dissent you mention). I was trying to clarify that the issue was not that it is somehow illegal to eat your own food. The issue was that there was a federal limit that was being violated, and - as you note - the commerce clause was used to justify why even a seemingly local use was subject to federal regulation.

This is why the whole bureaucratic nightmare that is the EU Common Agricultural Policy exists: your profits as a farmer are dependent on a number of random factors including how many other people are doing well in your industry.

It's very easy for an agricultural industry to go through cycles of overproduction which drive people into bankruptcy (and sometimes suicide), then shortage resulting in high prices.

Having poor transport links (often the case in rural Africa) makes the problem worse, as this instability plays out in each little isolated market.

I've read multiple investment thesis refer to that as the "chicken cycle", happening every 2-3 years. Here's of of those analysis if you're interested: https://www.dropbox.com/s/m91vexlccplfsje/Project%20Chicken%... (Page 7)

>You need to have a bigger barn for cows, you need to do all the hay thing, which is very time consuming and demands a lot of extra work just for feeding said cows, you need to pay someone to take care of the cows when they go out to eat in the summer on the communal field

Depends where you are, of course. Some places you just leave your cows out eating grass for years until it's time to slaughter them, then you hire some dudes with helicopters to round 'em all up.

And a barn? For 150,000 cows?

That only works in places like the US or Australia, where land is cheap and safe. In Europe you wouldn't find enough land for that, and in many other places you couldn't keep cows unsupervised for a day.

The context is 2$/day, it's not exactly fair to suggest people hire some dudes with helicopters.

What country in europe? Are they $2/day because they don't have jobs, or because they work but they only make $2/day?

The poorer parts of Romania.

> Are they $2/day because they don't have jobs, or because they work but they only make $2

It was, let's say difficult, for them to find a steady job in their early 50s after the steel works factory that was feeding my hometown and where they had worked for almost all their life closed down. They had to sell the city apartment (because bills have a nasty habit of showing up at your door each and every month) and moved out to the country-house, where at least they were able to put some food on their table.

I shared these personal details because I think that my parents' story happened to a lot of people in Eastern Europe in the '90s-early 2000s (Russia saw its average life expectancy actually go down in the '90s), I'm talking about people who fell hard through the social safety net's very large holes. Things are better now, of course, but there are entire generations who saw their entire life's work go to nothing. I think a similar thing is now happening in places like Greece.

Re: many people wondering why this hasn't happened organically, it is easy to underestimate how much cultural attitudes can affect common practice.

As an anecdote, when I visited rural China a couple of years back I asked my friends who grew up there why, if most people had one chicken, they didn't simply grow a few more?

The response was "you don't know what it was like back then. In the Mao attitude people would say ... 'who are you to have two chickens when everyone else only has one' " ... which was enough social pressure to keep everyone to one chicken, no matter how much that contributed to malnourishment.

I'm not proposing the same social attitudes are at play in these regions, but there may be other non-obvious contexts discouraging people from getting started with a flock.

For some scenarios I could imagine an initiative like this helping to break through inertia and change norms.

This seems very accurate. When I was younger it was a social taboo for middle class families in rural area to raise animals in out country. Then the government started blasting propaganda about how farming fish and raising chickens/goats was a noble "entrepreneur" like thing, and now it does not seem like that much of a taboo any more.

There is a campaign in West Africa right now to grow 'grasscutter', aka greater cane rat, as an entrepreneurial alternative to bush meat and as a noble poverty reduction measure.

The biggest argument for micro livestock in extreme poverty areas is the barrier to entry. You can run a large chicken, rabbit, cuy, or grasscutter farm for less than it costs to own a single pair of cattle, and nobody in the area has high amounts of saved wealth.

http://www.nap.edu/read/1831/chapter/1#xv is an attempt to explore the options for getting the world's subsistence farmers (mostly growing crops that have already been heavily automated) into livestock production (which still require lots of human care).

> If you read this article, watch the video above, and answer one question below, I will donate—on your behalf via Heifer—a flock of chickens to a family in poverty.

Giving a flock of chickens to desperately poor families sounds like a great idea that will pay dividends for many years. However, I can't help but be reminded of the many charitable programs that sound great but end up having very unusual unintended consequences that often defeat the purpose or make it worse. Anyone care to speculate as to some unintended consequences this project may have?

Notice in the video how they're not feeding the chickens by letting them forage. They're always feeding them grain.

Grain in bulk is still cheaper than poultry.

However, you have a point. If poor urban families do not have access to fairly priced chicken feed, they will face the choice of feeding them pet food (at a net economic loss) or cutting their losses and eating all the chickens right away.

Please read the article written by Bill. One of the first lines is that chickens are easy to feed because they can make do with stuff they naturally find on the ground. Given grain will help them grow faster, but it's not imperative.

Yes, as I mentioned in my edit to GP, I have now read the article.

It still sounds strange to me. I mean, how is it that 3rd country rural people cannot not know about chickens? I assumed this would be about giving flocks to urban poor, where there is precious little area not covered by concrete and the chickens would likely forrage on half poisoned cockroaches or something like that.

You are assuming a few things here.

1. they are giving to urban poor

2. urban areas are covered in concrete.

From the article and the video it seems like chicken farming is already quite prevalent (they state a figure of 5% of the population of Burkina Faso have chickens) and they are hoping to increase that to 30%. I imagine a great charity like the Gates Foundation have done their due diligence and determined that the local charity they are working with knows what they are doing.

Urban areas in Africa are hardly going to be "covered in concrete".

>It still sounds strange to me. I mean, how is it that 3rd country rural people cannot not know about chickens?

After a few years of living in places most people would consider third world, I have come to the conclusion that it is not safe to assume that people living in the third world have knowledge of any given topic.

I think knowledge is one of the things that is lacking the most, which is why it's so sad to see the commies in Beijing only allowing Mickey Mouse state newspapers and breaking the internet to perpetually keep people on the plantation.

Michael Jackson, however, has pretty good name recognition just about everywhere.

I'm fairly certain this program is not targeted at poor urban families.

This is at least in part an editorial choice. Woman throwing grain to flock of chickens running around her feet is a much more interesting visual that chickens walking around foraging...

Better visual than watching the women throw out handfuls of bugs and worms (which chickens LOVE). Actually, you can feed chickens nothing but grain, but it isn't good for them -- they need more protein.

Feral flocks of chickens?

Possibly, it costs more to feed the chickens than the chickens provide in economic benefit?

Avian influenza spreads like wild through chicken populations and from thence to poor families?

Chickens aren't afraid of people and like to use human structures as coops, so they aren't likely to go completely feral. Even if they did, it is likely they would be fairly easy prey for hunters as domesticated chickens don't have the camouflage and skill at flight their wild progenitors had.

> Feral flocks of chickens

The expression "to chicken out" was not chosen at random :)

In order of severity:

1. Family ends up homeless because there is no legal framework to raise small anymals in urban environments, and the flock is framed as "unruly pets" by abusive landlord/neighbours. Family ends up worse than how they started without help.

2. Family receives the flock, but not any training/resources to tend them properly. Chickens die of illness, malnourishment, or get killed by urban predators (i.e. semi-feral cats). Purpose of the program is defeated.

3. Family just eats the chickens right away, which would be a relief from their situation, but still defeats the purpose of the program.

[Edit: I posted this prior reading the article, and assumed this would be about helping the urban American poor, not the Global poor. I simply could not imagine rural poor people in 3rd world countries not knowing chickens are a good source of income/food. They may still forego the option if they lack other resources to raise the chickens.

So, you may say I stand corrected. Thanks for your polite feedback]

Regarding 1: Property rights and records are always a problem in the developing world.

> Less than 5 percent of Haiti's land is officially accounted for in public land records, according to the United Nations, compounding the difficulty in establishing who owns what land. [0]

Regarding 2: Another difficult problem as conditions unique to a market are often not known by outsiders. Outsiders have a different assessment of how to properly care for resources or best practices that may not be applicable to the local market or may even be counter-productive.

Regarding 3: Always a possibility you underestimate their utility curve in regards to current and future consumption

[0] http://reliefweb.int/report/haiti/unclear-land-rights-hinder...

Re: 1 - it seems from the video that raising chickens is quite common in sub-Sahara Africa and not likely an issue.

You forgot risk of salmonella and other diseases from not properly handling chicken products (meat, eggs, cleaning up after handling them, etc.), and subsequent lack of medical help because of lack of money and/or lack of insurance.

That said, you have to break some eggs to make an omelette (ok, I guess the pun was intended). These are things you can help educate about in the process and shouldn't stop something like this from being rolled out.

Especially a problem if chickens are kept (or allowed) inside the house.

Based on watching the video chickens being everywhere is not really going to cause bigger problems here.

If anything, if this program is wildly successful you see the price of a chicken drop to something lower than $5 instead which lowers the overall value of chickens in the market.

Let's just get these people some dang chickens. Heiffer Project has been doing amazing for a long time and it's awesome to see this kind of backing go into it.

As I understand it, salmonella and other food-borne illnesses are quite rare in non-factory-farmed chickens. The biggest contributor in the US is water chilling (as opposed to air chilling), which causes one infected carcass to infect the rest.

Read modernist cuisine. You have to try really hard to be able to get salmonella in home conditions. Chances are 1/10000 for the eggs. And cooking off the meat properly is not hard.

http://www.foodsafetymagazine.com/magazine-archive1/february...

Salmonella grows best in places that are kept very close to sterilized, like in fully stainless steel kitchens. The environment in many of these third world locations would be hostile to the salmonella or e. coli that kills us.

Regarding #3, I've heard that one reason cows were made sacred in hinduism is so that people wouldn't slaughter all the dairy cows for meat during times of famine. Not sure how accurate that is though.

My family has raised chickens in the backyard for decades.

Getting them killed by predators isn't difficult but I wouldn't worry too much about a cat - it is unlikely to take more than one or two adults and the young chickens would likely be more secure/with an adult hen and they are quite good at keeping their young safe. Regarding malnurisment, you can literally just let the chickens walk around and eat grass, insects and whatever you throw in your compost - chickens have been eating that for centuries.

Chickens are some of the easiest animals to raise and they provide both eggs and meat. I think this is a great idea.

I live in typical suburbia in Virginia USA. My youngest has a chinese friend whose family raises chickens in their yard. I'm pretty sure this is against zoning. They share their chicken and some wonderful vegetables from their gardens with the closest neighbors. So far, so good. I expect this will not persist.

> I'm pretty sure this is against zoning.

Perhaps, but you might be surprised. Years ago I kept chickens and checked the zoning here (suburbs of Phoenix). No problem with a flock of hens. Roosters have restrictions. Many places are similar.

It's almost certainly about being a nuisance to your neighbors. Roosters crow super obnoxiously. Like.. wow. If you've ever tried to sleep with one nearby you know what I'm talking about. Just handle that edge case (e.g. don't keep a rooster around) and NO ONE will care if you have chickens that don't bother anyone :) Especially if you're into sharing the eggs!

So what do you do when roosters are born...kill them?

Just keeping roosters away from the hens will prevent that from being a problem. The eggs won't be fertile.

Commercial chicken hatching operations separate chickens by sex and destroy the males, yes. Backyard operations rarely hatch their own chicks but rather buy them from suppliers (who deliver via USPS, surprisingly enough).

You only need one rooster to ten-fourteen chickens anyway, but they are 50% of the chicks, you do the math.

Anyway most don't hatch their own chickens, because without a machine you will have trouble finding a hen that can do it - but I assume this is a western thing, as it is a fairly recent development (ie 100 years ago it would have been no trouble).

A nitpick: roosters are hatched, not born :)

they are quite tasty.

@sjs7007

Where do you think a lot of the chicken you may eat comes from?

It turns out that it is permitted unless the neighborhood has restrictions. I think she is not in that sort of neighborhood. +1 for freedom to raise chickens.

Sec. 24-11. - Principal uses permitted. https://henrico.us/pdfs/countyattorney/Chpt024Zoning.pdf

I was wrong and am pleasantly surprised.

How many chickens? In city of Seattle, 4 chickens per house are allowed. (No roosters)

You obviously come from a 1st world country if your main worry is n.1

It's not an issue. Especially as in the video it is seen it is pretty common

There might be some "official concerns" (read: someone looking for a bribe) but that's quickly taken care of

I would assume risk of theft might be an issue too when one family/person has significantly more chickens/wealth than others.

4. "Free chickens from Gates" puts local chicken breeders out of business.

Fast forward a few years and their are fewer chickens, not more, in targeted areas.

What if Gates bought the chickens he gives away from local breeders?

He's buying them from somewhere, not creating them out of thin air.

I wonder how the local guy or girl selling chickens will take to this idea. This way of 'helping' Africa is so outdated.

I heard some criticisms of big charity in regards to uncertainty for local businesses. When Tom can show up at any time and dump hundreds of thousands of shoes in your market, it kind of hurts all the long term planning and investment you made into your shoe business.

Unless they source the chickens locally, from that person selling chicken :)

Bird flue is a big drawback - poultry and humans living in close contact, typically because they live in poverty is how the disease usually ends up jumping to humans (when it doesn't go the normal route via pigs first.)

They lock you at home like any pet, difficult to move house and also keep the chickens, need a big garden, unless you have a huge garden they prevent social use of it, don't reliably lay, people work long hours and don't have the time for cleaning out pens and ensuring water/food is available, cost of keeping them far outweighs the fiscal benefit, they attract rats, you can't be keen on gardening and have free range chickens as they eat flowers.

Lock you at home? Get an automatic waterer and feeder, throw in some feed and go on vacation. I've got 25 hens and a rooster and they are good for a week or two on their own. Only problem is if nobody gathers eggs you'll have some broody hens.

Don't lay? I get a dozen eggs/day. Use lay crumbles not lay pellets; doing so doubles the output.

Enclosure? I used a horse stall for boxes/roosts and have big outside enclosure. Works great.

Your comments make sense for a pet like a dog, those do tie you down, but they make no sense for chickens in my experience.

Some interesting reasons there for first world chicken raising, but I'd disagree with most of them from my experience:

- lock you at home: with an automatic door on the coop (ours free range), waterer and multi day feeder, you can leave them for a week, possibly longer. If we moved we'd just give them away (or well, I'd probably eat them, but I'd be voted down)

- huge garden and social use: We don't have a big garden. They happily co-exist in the garden with our kids and friends running around with them.

- reliably lay: for their laying period chickens that are bred for laying are incredibly reliable. We have four chickens and get four eggs a day like clockwork.

- don't have the time: I spend about an hour a week taking care of the chickens. Collect the eggs once a day and clean the coop on the weekend.

- rats: They do attract rats if you keep their food easily accessible. This is definitely a problem. There are feeders that make this harder, we have one and it seems to work.

- gardening: The gardening thing could be true I guess, but my wife is an avid gardener and she seems to make it work. I think you just change your gardening practices a little. She does like their manure for compost.

- cost of keeping them vs fiscal benefit: this is an interesting one. I haven't done the numbers, but I know people who raise small flocks specifically to make money. I doubt I'm making money on them, but they seem incredibly cheap to raise to me.

This is a relevant question to ask. This stuff is hard and it takes a lot of oversight to make it work. But that doesn't mean that we should assume every charity is producing negative consequences which outweigh the good they do. That would be just as naive as assuming charities have no negative consequences.

For what it's worth, Heifer International has released quite a few detailed reports on their projects which you can review here: (http://www.heifer.org/ending-hunger/our-impact/reports.html). If you're satisfied, maybe consider giving. If not, and you're qualified to offer a contrary explanation, please share it.

But assuming a negative impact without reviewing their approach is a perfect example of what has come to be known as "middlebrow dismissal". "Charities can have negative consequences which outweigh their good, this is a charity, therefore it has negative consequences which outweigh its good" is not a valid argument. The propensity of charities to produce negative unintended consequences is a sign to be careful, but not sufficient proof to dismiss charities outright.

Note that Charity Navigator gives Heifer International a nearly perfect score on Transparency and Accountability. (http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary...)

Heifer generally does not perform a 1-to-1 action with your donations.

That is, donating a flock of chickens through Heifer is actually making a monetary donation to the entire organization. It is unlikely that your donation will be directly linked to a specific flock donation to a particular family (if it results in any animal donation at all).

According to the latest filing I have seen, less than half of a donation to Heifer will make it into a grant, or other assistance to an external entity (my guess is that salaries and benefits at these legally separate entities will consume a good chunk of those grants).

Charity Navigator:

http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary...

~75% of total expenses go to programs and services.

Form 990, FY 2015; Part IX, lines 1 & 3:

http://9dc3f407a257cfd3f7ea-d14ef12e680aa00597bdffb57368cf92...

~40% of programs and services go to salaries, benefits, travel, hotels, advertising, etc. The other ~60% is not broken out, but I believe goes to Heifer's Legally Separate Entities.

Unintended consequences are one thing to consider, another is opportunity cost. Gates should have two control groups:

A) Gets a bunch of chickens

B) Gets the money the chickens would cost (including all project overhead)

C) Gets nothing

My guess is that B would in-fact have the best outcomes for the simple reason that Africans probably know what they need to improve their lives better than do foreign central-planners.

Option B is liable to cause inflation if not executed extremely carefully.

If you are handing out USD, there won't be any inflation. And I don't think there is anywhere in the developing world that USD isn't seen as good as local currency (if not better in many countries)

What would prevent an influx of USD from causing (localized) inflation?

How is the currency handed out gonna not cause inflation, no matter what it's denominated in?

If you give out hundred dollar bills, local prices will rise for goods, which is the definition of inflation.

Option A increases the supply of chickens, so other things being equal the price of a chicken decreases. But people (aid recipients) are better off since they can eat more chicken.

Option B slightly increases the supply of money, so other things being equal prices of basic goods increase a little. But people are still better off since they can buy more stuff.

Option B is also good because if (in their opinion) the superior case is A, they can use the money to implement A themselves. And if A was inferior for some reason (eg, need medicine now or die before said chickens mature) then the recipient could choose an alternate path .

IMO this is why cash is the ultimate form of aid, it allows the recipient to do your "great idea" or whatever else is optimal in their case.

If i had to pick two charities that i trusted to understand the consequences of giving animals to impoverished african families, it would be Heifer International and the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation.

That's not to say it won't have unintended consequences, but this is kind of what they do. I'm sure they've studied the ramifications of the programs they run more than any HN commenters have.

If you include a rooster, he can be real bossy and bites too! Maybe some traditions use the animals for magic or some weird religious function though? Also stealing them might lead to problems? Just speculating.

Seriously though, chickens are very easy animal. The next step would be goats.

>I can't help but be reminded of the many charitable programs that sound great but end up having very unusual unintended consequences that often defeat the purpose or make it worse.

It might be that such stories are interesting and more likely to make the media/top of HN. I mean 100 charities could work just fine, and no one really cares. But a single story about unintended consequences is interesting and gets on the top of reddit and facebook etc.

I just signed up today but I was sad to see the promotion has already finished.

> Thank you Gates Notes Insiders! For our Coop Dreams giveaway, I partnered with Heifer International to donate more than 100,000 chickens on behalf of the Gates Notes Insider community. The campaign is now closed, but we may do something like it again.

Anybody else surprised by how much a chicken costs in Africa?

$5 is £3.45[1] and I can buy a (dead, plucked, gutted, packaged, delivered to my door) chicken in the UK for £2.95[2].

I realise the local supply's much lower because my Sainsbury's chicken is grown in a cage in a factory somewhere, but nonetheless, I didn't expect that.

[1] I presume USD is the currency in the video, since 5 of the local currency is £0.006

[2] http://www.sainsburys.co.uk/shop/gb/groceries/chicken/sainsb...

edit: looks like I left the page open for longer than I thought - this discussion happened elsewhere hours ago. Apologies.

There's also the famously cheap Costco $4.99 Rotisserie Chicken. But it seems it's a bit of a loss-leader for them[1].

[1] - http://time.com/money/3901655/costco-rotisserie-chickens-hot...

Chickens weren't sold that way until pretty recently in history in rich countries.

Like cows, chickens provide ongoing sustenance. That $5 chicken may yield $50 in eggs. When the bird gets old, you make some soup.

$5 seems to be the price for a carcass. In the video, dead chickens are tied together and draped over a bike for transport to wherever they are being sold.

I'm pretty sure the chickens tied together on the bike are alive. I imagine it's just a lot easier to transport a bunch of them with a bike when they're tied together like that.

https://youtu.be/MwZxBPYqiLg?t=17s

Yeah, giving it a second look, you are right.

one of the funny things foreigners notice when they come to my country(Kenya) is that there's chicken & chips shops EVERYWHERE. People absolutely adore chicken over here and are willing to pay over the odds for it, so the supply has adjusted their prices accordingly.

I started raising chickens 2 years ago. A few things I have learned: If you have a yard that they can run free in, they don't need a coop. Chickens will happily roost in the trees. I live in southern Arizona, so the winters are mild, but I know of people that do the same thing in much colder climates. Chickens are tough. An added benefit is they are actually safer, if they are locked in a coop, and a predator gets in, it's going to kill them all. Outside, they can hide (good luck finding a scared chicken, they are really good at bolting to a hideaway) or fight. Chickens make all kinds of commotion if there's a predator around. They will make their nests in secluded shady spots and unlike a coop, they do not poop in their nests so the eggs are very clean. I supplement their foraging with chicken feed, but it's not necessary, there's enough critters and plants, they often just ignore the feed. What they really want is your compost, no need to separate out what they eat and don't eat, they do that. The rest attracts their favourite food of all: bugs. Going coop-less also removes the chore of cleaning the coop. In AZ their poop dries up very quickly and if they are free range it's not really noticeable since it's so spread out.

They need lots of water and shade, so make a continuous drip somewhere in the shade.

Domestic cats don't mess with full grown chickens, and in my experience they leave the chicks alone too if they are fully feathered and about pigeon size. The cats eat pigons on a regular basis, but they let the chicks run around and seem to enjoy them. In the daytime it's common to see the cats and chickens laying around in the shade within a foot of each other. Racoons like chicken, and they are good climbers, but the chickens just make lots of noise and fly off if one gets too close. By then I have my paintball gun out and the Racoons learn quickly to get dinner elsewhere. I'm constantly surprised about how smart they are, if they know they are not allowed in a spot they will wait for you to go away and then rush over. If you catch them in the act, they freak out and run off back to their allotted area. I find small firecrackers a good way to tell them "stay away". They learn quickly.

Most of my chickens are good flyers, they can easily jump up to a perch 5ft above the ground and then into a tree from there. They could also easily fly over my fence and exit the yard, but they _never_ do.

I wish I had started years ago, the eggs are fantastic.

I have seen a similar setting in Brazil with small Bantam chickens.

Some breeds are more self-sufficient l than others. What chicken breed do you raise?

I have 2 Yellow Brahma (big bids, very nice temperament, cant fly far so they need a way to get to their perch, one is still too young to lay), 1 New Hampshire Red (she's the alpha, pretty good at flying too), 2 Leghorn (well one might be a Blue Maran), one grey/blue one white (smaller, really fast, great flyers, practically impossible to catch), 1 New Hampshire (still growing and not laying yet, super sweet temperament) and 1 Belgian Bantam (also not laying yet). They hang out in groups by age.

The Bantam/Leghorn/Maran hens have a celebration every time they lay an egg which can be a bit annoying if it's 7am, but usually it's mid morning.

Other random tips, to pick them up, especially fast chicks, place your hand under their belly and let the legs hang down, don't come at them from behind or above or too fast. Laying chickens often will assume a mating pose if you go to pick them up which makes it easier and you can just grab them with 2 hands around the folded wings. They like being pet under their chins, but generally not on top of the head. Be sure to wash your hands even though they look perfectly clean.

They are all pretty spoiled, if it was a harsher situation I would stick to the small fast breeds.

Also, I give them the eggshells back, they love em and need the calcium anyway. Some folks say that encourages them to eat the eggs but I have never seen that. It's only when one gets broken by accident.

Our cat is a pretty good hunter - normally one dead mouse/baby rabbit/vole/bird per day and he leaves the chickens alone.

He did pounce on one once by jumping on it off the bonnet of my wife's car, but soon got off it. I think it was more for fun than a serious attempt.

Ha. Yep, I had a similar experience. Tossed a chick (they love getting air and get all excited when they land) at my most friendly cat once without thinking and he instinctively reached out and caught it, but immediately let go and gave me the "oops sorry" look. I suspect the domestic cat/chicken/human triangle goes way back.

You might have a point. We frequently incubate chicks from eggs, and although they are caged, our cat (Marvin) never makes any serious attempts to get to them.

I don't get it. As mentioned in the article, chickens are incredibly easy to bootstrap (ie, it's not like they require a huge capital outlay to get started, and they literally pay dividends in further chickens), and have been present in the area for centuries. What has been the obstacle that has kept them from already being common enough to drive the expected benefit of further investment to ~0? And how is that obstacle going to be overcome?

They're giving away vaccinated chicks. I suspect that the vaccines are the main problem they're addressing. It's certainly possible that it's easier and cheaper to give away vaccinated chicks than it is to give away vaccinations.

The author mentioned the low cost of vaccines (the one that prevents the deadly Newcastle disease costs less than 20 cents). I suspect the reason that this is not already being done by the locals is that there are some other costs or factors that are specific to the local market that outsiders have no way of assessing.

It sounds like in order to get money you need to be raising and selling on the order of 100-300 chickens per year. So we're talking $20-40 year. To put that in perspective for a contract software developer making $100k+/year, that's like spending $20k/year on software licenses.

$.20 cost of vaccination per $5.00 chicken is 4 percent cost. You're quoting 20 percent cost comparison. Am I missing something?

I was comparing against the farmers' current income estimated at $2/day, not the income post-chickens. Though presumably their income is substantially less than $5/chicken.

$5 is for the full grown chicken. The chicks must sell for a lot less or there would be no profit in raising them...

Gates is very addictive with vaccine stuff, I think you are right. This could be the trigger. But could be cultural and educational stuff too, maybe people must learn how great breed a chicken could be.

I'm completely speculating, but based on the article it could have something to do with chickens being a "women's animal". Perhaps women aren't confident or allowed to show entrepreneurial spirit to start a flock. The men in the community are saving up for cows and goats.

Varies by culture considerably. Consider cockfighting - very male oriented, involves a lot of chicken raising, can be a side gig for your egg or meat producers

I know a older couple that have spent the last year or so traveling around Africa doing 'chicken projects' where they help build chicken coops and teach poor families how to raise chickens (pretty simple to do, actually, but there are little strategies one can use to increase profits- hardest part is keeping predators from eating them!) Cool stuff, glad to see Bill Gates onboard!

Sounds cool! Do they have a webpage/fb page where they are sharing their journey?

The wife posts on her personal facebook page periodically, but nothing generally public :(

Some idiot in my neighborhood tried raising chickens, and they got loose. Some days I've had 16 chickens in my front yard. There are at least two roosters, so the flock is self-sustaining. They hide in the creek gully where they're hard to catch. This has been going on for two years now.

> Some idiot in my neighborhood tried raising chickens, and they got loose.

Sounds like some philanthropist has kindly provided you with all the chicken you can eat — if you catch it.

It is not specified what they mean by "chicken" (age and breed and sex) but $5 seems like really expensive.

I know that you can buy baby chicks from an incubator for egg laying purposes for like 3 euro or less in rural western Europe. Breeds meant to be harvested for their meat cost even less.

I get the impression that's for a fully grown chicken sold for meat. I have no idea how big those chickens are. In North America live chickens sell for between 30 and 50 cents a pound. The chickens in the video look like small roasters, definitely under 10 pounds.

I see decreasing price of chicken/eggs as a good thing. If a fully grown chicken costs upwards of $5, why is it not a good idea to use better facilities? Wouldn't it be cheaper to keep the birds caged up? I guess it depends on our goal here.

Is the idea to give a sense of "ownership" so the program partners feel empowered and can make decisions individually on whether to keep, raise, sell, or eat chicken and eggs?

If it is not that, then I think we should explore industrial farming and some central planning. Five dollars for a small live chicken sounds like a problem which this project can help solve but I think we should welcome bringing down the cost (and keeping it stable at the lower sticker price) of nutrition be it animal-based or plant-based should be welcome.

tl;dr I don't mean to say don't do this but rather we need to do more.

how am I able to buy a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store for $5?

seems like I've getting pretty much everything that's economically viable from the chicken, plus a fair amount of labor put into the chicken

Well, the rotisserie chicken is very likely grown on a massively capital-intensive assembly line, and quite possibly delivered frozen.

Those options are likely not available to the people this is trying to help.

Also: fresh, free-range, "organic" chicken costs more like $3.00-$5.00 per pound in most areas.

Rotisserie chickens are often a loss leader for grocery stores[0].

0- http://debtblag.com/why-rotisserie-chickens-so-cheap/

A rotisserie chicken is usually ~2 pounds.

US agriculture is extremely efficient. Agriculture in underdeveloped nations is, usually, inefficient. The retail price typically only costs less because there are less steps between producer and buyer.

For example, in the US, only about 25% of the cost of bread is for the bread itself (wheat, baking, etc). IIRC, in egypt, about 50% of the retail price of bread is materials/production. Thus bread there costs 1/2 what it costs in the US. But egypt is an outlier in agriculture with an extremely high wheat yields for a nation at their economic situation. Probably due to the fertility of the nile.

If the number of people raising chickens gets anywhere near that 30% goal, it seems very likely the price of chickens will drop much lower.

Depends on the breed. Some are as low as $2 here in the States, others are $15 to $20.

Raising chicken is a recession-proof investment which made robust by 'cloning' <- you put initial capital, got divident of its type; type can be money, chicken, plant, whatever; multiply base by cloning.

I plant kangkong. Initial capital is 1usd, about 300 stems. harvesting biweekly, i get 2600% roi. That's divident part.

I can clone the kangkong by cutting and replant cut stems. It's multiplying the capital part.

Similarly with chicken, one can eat dividend (eggs) and multiplying base (breeding/'cloning')

with cash only, i cannot get good dividend (say, by buying bond); much less luck with cloning cash legally.

Extrapolating to basic income, observe that poverty is lifted fast if the cash is invested in high roi activities (like entrepreneurship) that grow and scale fast.

It's the type of activity that matters more than the cash.

If you want to raise backyard chicks, double check your local chicken ordinances! Unfortunately, even when they are allowed, it can be the source of tension between neighbors:

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/nov/27/nation/la-na-nn-back...

But once you do check them, I recommend trying it. Raising chickens can be rewarding.

We have 6 in our backyard and you hardly notice them. They are generally very quiet. The only times ours makes noise is if one chases another.

The birds in the tree make a lot more noise.

I find the same thing. My neighbors and I have chickens on ~5000 sq ft fenced lots and you barely notice them, especially when compared with the local bird and insect population. My neighbor has a rooster and even that isn't a large bother.

Ours only make noise when they are laying eggs. We have 4 in our pretty small yard and ours make quite a lot of noise when they are laying, but that only lasts a few minutes usually.

In the UK, the 1950 Allotments Act trumps all other covenants and local ordinances, provided you're only keeping hens and they are not a nuisance (and despite the name, the Act in this instance applies to keeping hens anywhere).

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo6/14/31

Could you just confirm that for me - a deed of covenant is unable to restrict the keeping of hens in UK law?

I ask because I'm pretty sure out deed of covenant says 'no chickens'. It might also be 'no sheep'. Don't suppose the Allotments Act covers sheep though.

Well you can read the Act, it's quite short and written in reasonably plain English.

The relevant section is S12.1 (S12.2 has been repealed). It only applies to hens (female chickens) and rabbits, not to any other species. It appears to supersede any covenants. As far as I know this aspect of the Act has never been tested in court.

Pretty much all research has shown that the best way to improve poverty is to give people money, and not some sort of good that you've decided is better (goats, chickens, cows, whatever). Unfortunately, giving away money just doesn't sell. :(

I'm not sure that it's as cut and dried as you describe.

If I understand correctly, GiveDirectly is uncertain about the effectiveness of their programs outside of their current "pilot" countries.

[there are lots of factors: the poor in Kenya & Uganda are very poor - and the marginal dollar to them is very effective, replacing thatched roofs, etc; Kenya has good support for transferring money]

Besides, it's a good thing to experiment to see how effective different methods are. It seems naive to settle on one method and decide all other methods are "stupid," especially when contributing to one doesn't necessarily detract from the other [the Gates foundation has enough money to saturate any one charity].

It's always so surprising to me to see people unhappy about the good work others are doing.

If six times as many people raise chickens, won't the sale price of chickens go down and negate (part of) the effect of providing all the chickens in the first place?

Shouldn't the number of people raising chickens have already reached a market equilibrium?

Yes, more chicken mean cheaper eggs/chicken...

Probably not because:

1) Farming chickens requires capital investment that might not be available to poorer families. Equilibrium can only be reached if the would-be-chicken-farmers have easy access to credit.

2) Chickens have inherent value; you can consume the eggs yourself as a substitute for other goods you were going to buy, and the meat as well.

Perhaps. That is a good question that Bill should address in the analysis.

If the price goes down then the farmers eat more eggs (and chickens, if they want), which is still a good outcome.

That was a concern of mine too. It seems hard to guess how that might play out in practice though without a lot more information. For example, I wonder how localized the market effects might be. That is, how much do local populations sell chickens to one another, and how much does that affect market equilibrium.

Only in the universe with perfectly rational actors where markets always clear. As there is stiction in mechanical systems, markets may not converge on perfect equilibria.

Yes and no.

Owning the chickens means owning capital, not being a waged consumer. Chickens also have inherent value, being able to lay eggs and have more chickens. Also many suggestions in the article about empowering women, which compounds the impact of capital ownership. Mainly marxist interpretation.

Owning chickens means a surplus of chickens, and therefore there will be no more grain. Malthus.

Price of grain/feed will change, but assuming chickens eat grain + anything, it might not change that much. Added benefits of immunized chickens. Unknown effect of price of chickens, perhaps deflationary pressure on price of other goods. Ricardo, perhaps.

The network effects will be interesting. Every house with a couple of chickens is very worthy selfsustainment.

A form of basic income.

Any threat that by increasing the # of chickens around humans' living quarters in the third world we might be increasing the chances of developing avian diseases that jump onto surrounding humans, creating new epidemics?

I am not poor, but did recently raise chickens for about a year, and did the math on how they fared as an investment. I would disagree they are "easy and inexpensive", though in a 3rd world setting with some luck it may vary. Here's a rough summary from my experience:

-1 x Coop (self-made from scavenged wood, home store bought wood, wire, and hinges) ~$400 -5 x laying chickens ~$100 (Chicks are cheaper, but you pay to feed them for N months before they lay, and they need special care. Even then, some died or got sick and quit laying)

So let's call it a $500 initial investment. Mine laid roughly 12 eggs a week. Near me, we pay $5 for a dozen farm-fresh eggs. So it would take ~100 weeks to pay off my investment, not taking into account the ~20/mo for feed, bedding(hay), wormer, and time spent fooling with them. Time-wise, in addition to building the coop, etc. I had to let them in/out daily and feed and water them.

They were fun. I like fresh eggs and I'll probably do it again sometime. But a good investment they were not.

so most of your cost was the coop. You could just put any old fence in a corner of your garden and you'd be fine. And you can feed them all the leftovers of the day.

Then the raccoons and cats would get them and I'd never make my money back.

I think this is way out of line. (I also keep chickens, though not with the tractor I'm about to list):

Here's a $300 chicken tractor, complete package: https://www.aosom.com/pawhut-96-wooden-backyard-hen-house-ch...

Depending on your situation, you might not need much of a coop. I would expect you could get away with $100 in supplies, in the US--not using scavenged wood--if you didn't need an enclosure etc, and just a small coop with nesting boxes.

Chicks are $2 and less, so it seems absurd to pay $20 for a laying hen. In my area I think hens are worth about $6-$8.

Your 12 eggs/week (for 5 hens) was a bit low, but of course that can vary greatly by variety. Many hens can lay for 4-5 years, though, and slow down as they go. I'd expect near the end you'd get 12/week. FWIW I had 9 chickens and was getting 3doz+/week. If it was winter, you might have needed a light in the coop to extend 'daylight' hours. They lay more slowly in the winter.

My feed runs about $12/month in the winter, $3/month right now. I seriously can't see how you could feed 5 chickens $20/month worth of feed. Around here 50lb bags of layer pellets go for $10-$12. Plus I throw them scraps from the table, which would be waste anyway. I bought one thing of straw that is going to last about 2 years for $12 at TSC. I don't count my time--and actually, these days my six year old does nearly all of the work to take care of the chickens (releasing, feeding, locking up at night). The straw need not be purchased, though--plenty of substitutes could be had for free or cheap. Shredded newspaper would probably work.

For your $500 + $20/month I think you should have been able to handle about 15-20 hens and therefore triple your production, or make your money back in about 30 weeks. Even at 100 weeks, it's not a bad investment, IMO, given that it just generates money forever after that.

Yeah thats pretty silly, 100 week break even means a roughly 50% annual ROI for a low skill venture. That's an absolutely killer return in general. And as you say, it's pessimistic. More sensibly it'd be break even in 25 weeks.

Not a bad deal in countries where salaries are low, such that time has a low opportunity cost.

Re selling chickens, that means a rooster, who when I had one ate a ton (and laid not one egg ;). Then the hens don't always get "broody", so you buy an incubator...shots for the chicks... I'm sure in 3rd world they make it work, but the cost is non-0.

I have no doubt my coop was over engineered and way more expensive than it should be.(I'm a software developer ;) The biggest cost was wire, and also includes wire fence for a run, feeder/waterer hay bedding (we changed every week to keep down disease!?), etc.

I'm sure there were other wastes in my operation that could have made things more efficient. But learning those things takes time, money, and effort too. I'm sure if my life depended on it it would be different.

I'm a developer, too! I probably have a smaller coop than you.

In truth, mine was already on the property, but I've looked at a lot of them. I dislike the one I have and want to rebuild it. Someday.

I'm also blessed with a small creek for watering them, and they have plenty of room to range and therefore mostly feed themselves.

I chose breeds that are known to be broody, and I typically have at least one broody hen at all times. Right now, I have two. I'm not letting them hatch anything out, though. In truth it seems to be just two particular hens that get broody off and on, so perhaps I was just lucky. I'm fairly new to this game, myself.

The article mentions that they make most of their money by raising and selling the chickens, not selling eggs. If you could sell your chickens for $5 a piece, as is common in West Africa, you could easily make a profit.

Not to mention $400 for a chicken coop is on the expensive side. You can buy a ready made 4 chicken coop for less than $300, and a friend of mine built a fairly sizeable coop for $200.

> They empower women. Because chickens are small and typically stay close to home, many cultures regard them as a woman’s animal, in contrast to larger livestock like goats or cows. Women who sell chickens are likely to reinvest the profits in their families.

Uh... this is empowering???

EDIT:

> If you read this article, watch the video above, and answer one question below, I will donate—on your behalf via Heifer—a flock of chickens to a family in poverty.

OMG, it's finally happened for real. Anyone remember this?

"Hello everybody,

My name is Bill Gates. I have just written up an e-mail tracing program that traces everyone to whom this message is forwarded to. I am experimenting with this and I need your help. Forward this to everyone you know and if it reaches 1000 people everyone on the list will receive $1000 at my expense. Enjoy.

Your friend, Bill Gates"

In cultures where it is "considered woman's animal" the chickens provided by Heifer will most likely be raised by them. These woman will help bring in money for their families. That is what is empowering.

I get what the words say. What I am remarking on is that engaging in domestic, socially-acceptable and conventionally female work around the household for the economic benefit of ones family (as opposed to oneself) is a highly strained interpretation of "empowering."

Yes, if the alternative is wallowing in penury and being completely economically dependent, it is certainly better. But empowering?

Why is it not empowering to give women more economic independence, in way that's sustainable in their societies?

Suffragettes in Europe had to fight for more economic rights for fifty years after getting the right to vote, and it was messy, protracted battle. (Until the 1970s, German husbands could dictate whether their wife were allowed to work or not, and kept control over their earnings for even longer.)

It's "empowering" in that sense for anyone to get more money. It's "empowering women" to give them opportunities, including economic opportunities, which they don't already have or to which there are barriers.

What I'm saying is that chickens are not "empowering women" in societies where it is and always has been acceptable, status quo, and already conventional for women to raise chickens; a "woman's animal," small and "close to home," for domestic purposes. They already have that opportunity!

Empowering would be raising goats and challenging the notion of a "woman's animal." Or maybe, you know, getting some education and having a life beyond subsistence farming.

I used to spend majority of my Summer each year (when I was a pre-teen) in a very poor South Indian village where my extended family lived. Our family owned a large flock of chicken. I enjoyed feeding the chicken, feed like rice, maize, wheat, etc., though for the most part, the chicken did not expect to be fed anything. They would just graze on whatever they found. Now that I look back, interestingly, every family (even the poorest) in that village owned a flock of chicken. It was as though the flock of chicken was one common thread that ran through every household in the village. At the time though I didn't have the sagacity to realize the economic incentives of owning a flock of chicken.

> A farmer who sells 250 chickens a year can bring in $1,250, versus the extreme-poverty line of about $700 a year.

(That's the comment when you answer the quiz correctly.)

What a simplification. I'm all for the chickens, but the quiz and this quiz-answer-comment make it seem a little too easy.

If you want to sell 250 chickens a year you a) need quite a few more than that, b) you need SPACE - and it should provide plenty of free food for hundreds of chickens (so, LOTS of space), and c) the more chickens the higher the risk of disease, and several hundred chickens is <i>a lot</i> of chickens for a poor guy, d) if you don't have LOTS of space you will need to get food from somewhere (and pay for it?).

250 chickens a year wouldn't be that hard. 8-12 weeks from birth to butchering weight would mean you need a substantially smaller flock than 250 birds. If they scrounging for most of their diet, it may take a bit longer to get to butcher weight. Also, if they are scrounging you need more space- and your success will depend on keeping predators out. But you won't need 'several hundred' chickens at any one time to reach that goal.

Joel Salatin of Polyface farms might be an interesting read. He also has a lot of videos on youtube. Here is one [1] but I recall seeing an interesting video where he runs larger ruminants (cows) and then chickens (coop on wheels) and then plants the area (the chickens aerate the soil). He also wrote an article "Everything I want to do is illegal" and has several books on the mess of agricultural bureaucracy.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdQ5y5_0dRc

"Watch the video to get +100 Pts"

What is this, some sort of gamification to get people to read and watch more content on the gates website?

Might be a strategy to get the public to become more active on social issues. I know I'd use gamification as one method if it were up to me.

Meta: Almost 10,000 lines of code for that web page (I have NoScript on by default, I check source to see what I am missing when I get blank pages).

But back to the main point: When my wife and I moved up to this very rural area of coastal Northern California, we took over dad's chickens. He had been keeping them penned, but we let them out, and the eggs became drastically better tasting. More protein, I assume.

It has also taught me that chicken-based epithets carry some weight, they are not the brightest of creatures.

We are considering adding a few more this year, we have avoided roosters, so we do not have the risk of fertilized eggs. The trade off is we pay for the odd hen or two, once every couple of years or so.

We now enjoy more traditional recipes that use uncooked eggs or lightly cooked - I hadn't realized what I had been missing.

I have definitely learned quite a bit, but so much more to go.

According to this table, raising ducks is more interesting than growing chickens:

https://www.tyrantfarms.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/duck-...

if you have a lake in your backyard?

My neighbour keeps suggesting I add some ducks, seems like a good excuse to make one of these natural pools. Also, in town where I am, you cant have a rooster (thank god), but male ducks are aok.

Impractical to raise chickens in cities where it's illegal to butcher them. The egg laying tapers off at 3 years, but they'll live to ~10 years. That's a pet, or a freeloading chicken you have to feed but don't get eggs from. So...? Yeah, not terribly practical unfortunately.

You can eat it after 3 years.

Not if you are unable to butcher them.

Of the many problems 3rd world countries have, this is not one of them.

The inability to butcher the animal is definitely a problem. I'm not well versed in this area, is it typical to butcher a chicken after the egg laying tapers off, or does it typically happen before/much after?

If you're doing this for convenience, it may be worth making a trip out of the city to have someone butcher them when the time is right. If you're doing this to save money, it's likely you don't have an easy means of transportation for something like that.

If it's a male, typically butchered young, 40-50ish days. You only need so many roosters, and they're loud once they get old enough to crow. In most U.S. cities, crowing roosters are illegal, but mainly that's because it pisses off the neighbors.

Butchering elsewhere might work. Seems like a pain. And seems like there could be a limit on how many you can butcher rather than making it illegal. E.g. Denver, I think you can only have eight chickens at a time anyway.

Age wise, eating chickens are always young, less than 50 days. Some people might butcher the egg laying chicken at first molt when it'll stop laying eggs for 1-3 months. Others do it at 2-3 years when it tapers off. These are tougher meat chickens but they stew fine.

I would raise iguanas

https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/ar/magazine-articles...

This isn't the first program of this type, so he's not going into it blind. See this for one example: http://www.cityfarmer.info/2013/11/15/gaza-urban-rabbit-rais...

I also remember reading about a rabbit raising program in the Philippines several years back, but I can't find a reference to it.

If they're so great, why do they need to be promoted?

Same reason condoms and vaccines do. It's hard to change behaviors.

Because the families in greatest need cannot afford the chickens in the first place.

This sounds like a fantastic idea.

However, if he really gives a flock of chickens to a bunch of families in need, won't that reduce their monetary value over time?

If every family has chickens, the monetary incentive isn't there for others to purchase them, or the higher supply will squash demand and drive the price down.

There's still the health benefit and it's obviously a great initiative.

I find it a bit odd that he doesn't mention actually eating the chicken itself at any point. He mentions selling the chickens for more nutritious food than just eggs... But isn't chicken meat alone pretty nutritious?

A touch of humor, a clip from Harmony Korine's brilliant Mister Lonely:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2B4q1yWk2U

I wish a local person could give us their perspective on this initiative.

What is the ratio of female hens to male roosters? Quick googling tells me 10 to 1 but I'm not sure if that is correct.

Is there any other species that has a similar extremely lopsided number of one sex?

The natural sex ratio of chickens is 50/50. Chicks are sexed when a few days old and excess males are disposed of.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick_sexing

There is strong evolutionary pressure that keep sex ratios at close to 50/50 in the vast majority of species. Some species (e.g. clown fish) have environments and traits which push this equilibrium away from 50/50. Fisher's explanation for this phenomenon is widely accepted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher%27s_principle

Right, and just in case anyone is in doubt, the ratio for cattle is also 50/50. There is no sexing that I am aware of, but if someone is a vegetarian and drinks milk, they are still supporting the schnitzel industry.

Obviously the natural ratio is 50/50. I was wondering more if it s bad that we skew it so much unnaturally to one side.

That's not the natural ratio at birth, that may be what some people like to keep their flock at by eating the males.

Please note Bill's address to the community about his charitable donations contingent upon our participation. I like how he is engaging the community to spread a good idea.

maybe I'm missing something, what will the chickens eat? "whatever they find on the ground" is not exactly a strategy for growth, especially if everybody is raising chickens, you can pretty much expect the availability of edible stuff to reach zero in villages. not saying this doesnt work, but it's still an energy in/out problem right, where is the new source of energy?

Chickens can eat bugs, plants and food waste that people wouldn't touch. This would work fine assuming at least a temperate climate (ideally tropical) and small villages with a fairly low density.

If chicken can freely walk around, there immediately occurs the problem of people stealing others' chicken. I grew up in a Soviet village and it happened a lot, so I'd imagine it would be even worse in poorer countries.

Don't worry, the next charity can donate guns to protect your chickens. /s

So Charity is really hard to do right. Bill Gates seems to try to do it right. Hopefully he has thought of this already?

In a larger, more populated village, this is definitely a potential concern. In the smaller, less dense villages where this program is likely targeted, everyone knows everyone, and chickens usually have sufficiently distinct markings that if you have a small flock you could probably identify your stolen bird without too much trouble.

Just for reference, I've seen roaming chickens in small villages in the Philippines/Caribbean, it is very common. I even saw it in some decently sized towns, though it was less common. In cities everyone kept their chickens in pens, so I never saw them (though they woke me up every damned day, so I know there were plenty of them).

As the other poster said, chickens will eat all kinds of stuff, including food waste. I've even heard you can let them loose in your garden for a limited time and they'll eat all the insects. (However you want to limit their garden time or else they'll eat your crops after finishing off the bugs.)

They will gladly start with your crops and ignore the bugs, depending on what you are growing. Letting chickens in your garden is one of those things lots of websites repeat, but doesn't actually work well at all.

That's good to know, I was just going off of what those websites said. So I guess it depends on what's in the garden. Perhaps if you're just growing carrots and potatoes it'll work out well.

The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.

Lots of people keep backyard chickens even in developed countries. Most of the local schools have chicken coops.

What about the chicken feces? Wouldn't it be terrible for your health to live in a small house full of feces?

This makes no financial sense. You would be better to eat the chicken feed yourself (corn/grains) and get x50 more caloric value for your money.

(Useless blank page without JS enabled. Whine. Complain.)

The way chickens are raised today, you'd be insane to raise chickens.

Chickens of the old, roamed the grass, picking little shits that no one could find or eat, growing slowly but steadily, surviving and mating.

Today, they gorge on soybean-B12 juice that was raised on ex-rainforest area.

It's highly unsustainable and ridiculously bad investment.

Bill Gates has previously written about meat and its sustainability and has shown serious lack of understanding of how it all works on a global scale.

Yes, chickens being raised on a field filled with little nutrients only chickens can see is exactly the same as cows being raised in an environment where grass grows around them and climate is pretty stable.

That's not the way Africa or India will get its dosage of meat, and it cannot be done in any way other than massive soybean way (the best source of protein and growth for all living animals).

When we get Africans or Indians on the luxurious flesh, we'll never get them off the bandwagon and the unsustainability of the process will ruin more rainforests, more oceans, more living species and more life.

Absolutely disappointed with Bill.

I guess he's totally oblivious to the dead oceans zones that are caused primarily by animal agriculture.

Or that 90% of the rainforest is being cut primarily for soybean, that is primarily given to the animals in the animal agriculture.

Can't believe a guy was solving a problem this huge and he seems to still be on the meat bandwagon.

I'm not sure you followed the article. He's arguing for small scale, not large scale investment. Raising chickens primarily for their eggs, and secondarily for their meat. Indeed, he appears to be advocating "chickens of old" as you call them, rather than industrial operations to increase self-sufficiency.

Because they continually produce food, are largely self-sufficient, living off calories otherwise rejected and because they are small and inexpensive, chicken's are an excellent investment on a small scale.

But that is a hundred year old story. I can't see what is so insightful about that. (small scale is efficient for local needs)

What he's not mentioning at all is that the Africans and Indians will get conditioned by meat. Their cultures will grow on meat.

I saw it happen to my native country. When meat was just a once in a month occasion, after just 50 years, everything else is considered food for the poor and flesh is in every meal.

Why would we want to repeat the same mistake? Condition new 2+ billion people on meat, increase their desire for luxury and let the capitalism meet the demand?

It's absolutely impossible that small scale chicken farms meet the demand of 2 billion people and we all know that Brazil will start cutting more of the Amazon (it's already doing that) to raise more soybean to get that newly discovered stream of money. One can do the calculation for cattle, and you'll see that grass-fed cattle barely meets 10% of the current demand.

I'm quite baffled by the lack of mention of the long-term consequences in the article.

Not only will they get richer, but shifting their culture from mainly plant-based to meat-based will have a huge impact on the world.

Just look at China and what happened in the last 60 years. From a country that had only 4kg of meat per person per year, they now have 50kg - just recently their government organization urged their people to eat less meat. (Chinese ocean floor is practically dead)

Not to mention this: http://globalfarmernetwork.org/2016/06/open-letter-to-the-eu...

Why wouldn't Europe give GMO to Africa?

Why wouldn't everyone lobby for more plants in Africa?

Because we want to sell that unsustainable dairy, eggs and meat.

Well, aside from the cultural elitism here (don't "teach" them about this), I think what you are arguing will happen is almost unavoidable in a globalized world. Withholding out of concern for the environment is simply entrenching the existing social order. It's a very "white mans burden" thing to argue.

Additionally, the best response is not to withhold meat, which they will no doubt come to anyway, but to offer a sustainable and realistic alternative. You can't stop the flow of global food, but you can make it cheaper and more sustainable. And cheaper will generally win.

Finally, you simply made a huge jump from "let's get them a chicken to live on" to "it's a terrible investment because commercial meat production is bad". This is not an obvious jump or foregone conclusion.

What's wrong with entrenching the existing social order?

If you're the wealthy, meat eating country, with a higher standard of living, longer lifespan and lower infant mortality, nothing, I guess.

Exactly.

> This is not an obvious jump or foregone conclusion.

You said it yourself it's unavoidable. I'm not advocating for withholding, I'm just baffled by the call for sustainability when it isn't.

You can't grow 50kg of continuous meat consumption in your backyard - that's something only industry can do. One has to wait for the chickens to grown and then at one moment in time consume them.

"white mans burden" - is this the main argument for everything? from white guilt to whatever?

I just commented on how it won't lead to long-term sustainability. It is experimentally proven in China and plenty of federal countries of India.

This is a clear troll. Absolutely nothing said by this poster has anything to do with the actual article. Additionally, the user account is only 13 days old. Moderators, please kill this account and postings.

I don't see the troll on it. He expressed his points of view, related to the article. I agree that meat isn't a long lasting solution (I eat meat, by the way). I think plants agriculture is. Chickens for short term? Yes.

Reading the comments on that post make me weep for the future of mankind. It's like Youtube but worse - because at least on Youtube everybody knows they're being idiots.

When he says stuff like this does it affect the commodities market?

Edit: just more unintended consequences if so, and it is things like this that make me aspire to be a good neighbor instead of a Manager.

Bill Gates should live in a 3rd world village for 6 months to really understand the nuances of poverty; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untouchability and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

"Relative surplus value is produced through the reduction of the value of labor power (variable capital) by means of improvements in the production of goods (effectively the appropriation of productivity gains by the capitalist class)." -Marxist definition

In other words, they will no longer need a wage that also represents the value of eggs, so: -the wage will ultimately be reduced -the portion of their unwaged labor (raising chickens) will increase

People who raise their own chickens can work for less than those who don't.

tldr: A service they could once afford will become unaffordable.

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