backyard chickens make the news..

[Studio2770]

"She hopes the enthusiasm for raising backyard chickens will fade and that consumers will take a second look at their appetite for eggs and poultry.

“To go back in time sounds wonderful,” she said. “But there is not enough land on this earth to sustain the amount of meat, dairy and milk that people want.”​

Maybe she is in the wrong line of work... perhaps a job in the birth control or population control fields would suit her better?.......
After all.. if people weren't spitting out kids like a pez dispenser there wouldn't be so darn many people to feed....


unless she's a cheerleader for Monsanto.............................

So she hopes people will go back to BUYING lower quality store bought eggs. You don't need a ranch to raise chickens! If you have a house and a yard, you can have chickens! Raising backyard chickens grew BECAUSE consumers took a second look at eggs and poultry.

 

[olefarmersdaughter]

Well said Studio2770, well said.....

 

[Sjisty]

I'm too old to be a hipster, but when I look in the mirror at my posterior, sadly, the name fits!

 

[MEMama3]

I'm too old to be a hipster, but when I look in the mirror at my posterior, sadly, the name fits!

funny!!!!

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

I love how they focus on a few people and not the majority... and have such WRONG info in that article!

we butcher all non layers.. I would never dream of taking a chicken to an animal shelter..
hundreds of dollars on vet care?.. a swing with an axe is free
We also caponize.. so roosters are welcome in our hatches!

If the chickens are such a burden for the animal shelters... why not set up a program where they can be butchered to feed the homeless instead of whining about bad chicken owners???

"Hundreds of chickens, sometimes dozens at a time, are being abandoned each year at the nation’s shelters from California to New York as some hipster farmers discover that hens lay eggs for two years, but can live for a good decade longer, and that actually raising the birds can be noisy, messy, labor-intensive and expensive."
and how many dogs, cats, ........ children are also noisy, messy and labor-intensive and expensive...... and look how many of them are mistreated or abandoned every year....
Hens lay eggs for most of their lives, not just for two years. As the bird gets older, production does go down, but not by much (per year) Also, the older the bird, the larger the eggs tend to be.

"many urban farmers are surprised that chickens attract pests like rats, and predators including foxes, raccoons, hawks, and even neighborhood dogs."
the same can be said of garbage cans....
or cats, dogs or other pets who are outside even occasionally.

"She traces that rise to the so-called “locavore” movement, which spiked in popularity in 2008 as advocates urged people to eat more food grown and processed close to home." “It’s the stupid foodies,” said Britton Clouse, 60, who admits she speaks frankly. “We’re just sick to death of it.”
So I guess my grandparents. their parents and grandparents were "foodies"?...

"People entranced by a “misplaced rural nostalgia” are buying chickens from the same hatcheries that supply the nation's largest poultry producers and rearing them without proper space, food or veterinary care, she said."
HAHAHAHA... sorry.. but uhm... NOPE.. Places like Tyson Farms, Townsend Poultry, Purdue and others have flocks of breeder birds which lay their own eggs and have their own hatcheries.. we NEVER bought outsourced chicks when I worked at the hatcheries!

"The most commonly available hens have been bred to be good egg layers. At the same time, backyard farmers often use enhanced feed, light or other tools to prompt hens to lay constantly. "
Since when?.. I don't know of a single "backyard farmer" who has fancy lighted setups to control laying cycles!... Maybe I need to go play some motivational tapes for my girls when they decide to go on strike!
Actually many backyard chicken keepers add light during winter. You read about it on BYC and other chicken forums all the time.

"Because chickens are notoriously hard to sex, some backyard farmers wind up with roosters, which are often culled and killed because they can be noisy, aggressive and illegal, and, of course, they don’t lay eggs at all."
Sorry.. but wrong again.. vent sexing and feather sexing are insanely easy.. not to mention sex linked chicks... who wrote this crap???
Those who hatch their own often cannot tell gender until a bird is older; and many folks do put those boys into the stew pot...thinking of it as a part of their purpose.

Calling us "hipsters" I suppose is better than being called an uniformed SHEEPLE...
I dislike all labels though.... but I do think the SHEEPLE who wrote the article need to stop and use a brain cell for once in their life and should lay off the koolaid....

 

[yinepu]

Quote:
well.. my family.. our neighbors.. friends and everyone I have ever met in person over all the years I have been alive have never given extra light to the birds over the winter...
so even though "many" people on BYC do add light.. the people that I knew (and the amish who don't use electricity) never did.. so there are a heck of a lot of who never do anything fancy to squeeze out those extra eggs...

we hatch out hundreds of chicks a year.. some years it's in the thousands.. we are not a professional hatchery (though I have worked at a few).. we just grow out birds for our use, our families use and for neighbors and friends.. heck.. I don't even sell eggs and have never sold a chick or an adult bird.. just given the ones others wanted away to them for free... BUT I learned a long time ago how to vent and feather sex.. it's insanely easy to learn how to do.. not doing it and saying it's too hard is just an excuse...

by the way.. i NEVER said that hens only lay for two years.. all I stated was that those who become non layers go into the freezer.... what I posted above in QUOTES " " is from the article (it's also everything that was in the larger print...).. NOT my thoughts on it.. had they been I would have contradicted myself with every statement!...
and for anyone who reads this and thinks I posted the words in BLUE.. I did not...

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
well.. my family.. our neighbors.. friends and everyone I have ever met in person over all the years I have been alive have never given extra light to the birds over the winter...
so even though "many" people on BYC do add light.. the people that I knew (and the amish who don't use electricity) never did.. so there are a heck of a lot of who never do anything fancy to squeeze out those extra eggs...

we hatch out hundreds of chicks a year.. some years it's in the thousands.. we are not a professional hatchery (though I have worked at a few).. we just grow out birds for our use, our families use and for neighbors and friends.. heck.. I don't even sell eggs and have never sold a chick or an adult bird.. just given the ones others wanted away to them for free... BUT I learned a long time ago how to vent and feather sex.. it's insanely easy to learn how to do.. not doing it and saying it's too hard is just an excuse...

by the way.. i NEVER said that hens only lay for two years.. all I stated was that those who become non layers go into the freezer.... what I posted above in QUOTES " " is from the article (it's also everything that was in the larger print...).. NOT my thoughts on it.. had they been I would have contradicted myself with every statement!...
and for anyone who reads this and thinks I posted the words in BLUE.. I did not...
You mixed your comments on the article intermittently, so I followed suit. The comments in blue are by me, and I did not think you made the comment about laying for two years. Heck, YOU commented on that portion of the article--just not about laying for only two years...I just added an additional correction to the article...just as with the next comment I made.

Your comment on adding light was that virtually no one does, and I know many who do (as well as many who do not). I personally do not add light for longer laying hours (although I sometimes have a light on so I can check on them at night, and if it gets cold enough that they need heat, I will give them light--that is usually only juveniles).

I don't know anyone that can vent sex chickens, and you cannot do it with bantams without injuring them. And not all breeds can be feather sexed. My comment was that many people cannot tell gender until the birds are older (not hatchlings), and I stand by that. I never said that no one can tell, only that many cannot. You really need to not take general comments personally; they certainly were not intended that way.

 

[aggiemae]

What a horrible article. I am not sure if I should be more offended by Britton Clouse's ignorance or by her smugness.

 

[aggiemae]

Hipster, since when does owning chickens mean you're a hipster? One thing is for sure, for individuals who value intelligence, they sure didn't do their homework, and the poor birds are paying for it.

Um...I think the problem is that Ms Britton over generalized instead of doing her homework and getting real facts. ! I am the proud mother of a 25 year old Portland "hipster". Though my son spend way to much time drinking coffee and way too much money on Kindle editions of books he is a responsible steward of the earth and therefore takes very good care of his three back yard chickens, his vegetable garden, his cat, his home and pretty much everything else he owns.

I know that every year there is a flood of those dyed Easter chicks and no longer baby bunnies but I am going to call the shelter tomorrow to see if there actually has been an increase in the number of mature chickens since I am pretty sure the chicken "rescue" woman just tried to feed us BS and pass it off as reality.

 

[Highcotton]

The article seems to have Back Yard growers confused with the commercial growwers. How many thousand do they dump each year and the people writing the article and probably the ones running the shelters are eating the commercial growers eggs. I grew up raising chickens and I resent being called a hipster after seeing the things they did to veterans from Viet Nam.