[HN Gopher] Eggs US - Price - Chart
___________________________________________________________________
Eggs US - Price - Chart
Author : throwaway5752
Score : 600 points
Date : 2025-02-05 16:31 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (tradingeconomics.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (tradingeconomics.com)
| cortesoft wrote:
| Yeah, bird flu is really bad.
| tppiotrowski wrote:
| Why does this mostly affect the US? I've been abroad most of
| the year and eggs don't seem overly expensive.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| The below links are not all inclusive, but each touch on your
| inquiry in various capacities (as the problem is complex and
| multifaceted). Georgia halted all poultry sales due to
| infection detections, for example.
|
| https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/h5n1-much-more-than-you-
| wan...
|
| https://agr.georgia.gov/pr/highly-pathogenic-avian-
| influenza...
|
| https://www.wusf.org/health-news-
| florida/2025-02-02/deadly-h...
|
| https://investigatemidwest.org/2025/01/21/134m-poultry-
| and-c...
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-13447-z
|
| https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0609227103
| llamaimperative wrote:
| It's spreading abroad, but the US seems to be ground zero.
| The US's agricultural methods also make it _extremely_
| vulnerable to infectious disease (if one breaks through the
| continuous deluge of antibiotics we pump into our animals).
| simple10 wrote:
| My guess is how lax the US is with factory farm animal
| welfare. When an epidemic breaks out, it hits these factory
| farms much harder and the USDA (government food agency)
| cracks down and indirectly drives up prices.
| bushbaba wrote:
| Even if it's not lax. It will spread. There is economy of
| scale benefits by having larger farms.
| Svip wrote:
| The bird flu is mostly contained to North America. Birds fly
| north/south, not east/west, so so far there has been no
| reports of it moving across either ocean. This is why
| Europeans and Asians are terrified of bird flu transmitting
| between humans, because then an infected human could get on a
| plane and spread it there. So far, however, that threat
| remains unrealised.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Didn't the UK just cull millions of birds for H5N1?
| noneeeed wrote:
| Yes, it's been a big issue here.
|
| I've not been actively tracking the price of eggs, but I
| know it's causing a lot of problems for egg producers.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Albatross and other birds disagree. And don't forget the
| birds using ships to migrate.
| lm2s wrote:
| Is this a serious comment? Bird flu is happening right now
| in EU.
| chneu wrote:
| nonsense comment. this bird flu is global and has been
| decimating a ton of wild animals, not just birds. It's been
| going on for well over a year.
| gramie wrote:
| To cite a close-to-home example, chicken farms in Canada
| typically have about 25,000 chickens, whereas ones in the
| U.S. often have millions. So an infection that requires the
| entire flock to be slaughtered has a much bigger effect on
| the supply of eggs south of the border.
| mrweasel wrote:
| That makes a lot of sense, because I lookup up how we
| handle it in Denmark and it's the same, destroy the entire
| flock if a farm is infected. It's just it's not millions,
| it's 6000, 40.000, 20.000 chickens per farm, not a million.
|
| Weird that the size of the farms aren't being regulated if
| you know from other countries that it makes containment
| easier.
| azinman2 wrote:
| But the population is about 57x smaller. So 17.5k
| chickens would be equivalent in terms of impact.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Are eggs regularly transported long distances in the USA?
| I don't think I've seen eggs from outside Denmark for
| sale in Denmark, though many other things (cheese, meat)
| are.
|
| If people in Minnesota (same population) aren't regularly
| buying eggs from out of state, then the comparison with
| Denmark holds.
| mrweasel wrote:
| > I don't think I've seen eggs from outside Denmark for
| sale in Denmark,
|
| That is because of the strict rules regarding salmonella.
| Danish chicken farmers will test for salmonella and kill
| any population of chicken found to have salmonella,
| leaving our eggs "guaranteed" free of salmonella. Any
| other country that wish to sell eggs in Denmark will need
| to be able to make the same guarantee. This is one of the
| few exceptions for the free movements of goods within the
| EU.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Sweden, Finland and Norway seem to have the same checks
| as Denmark [1] but we don't see their eggs for sale here
| either.
|
| But from a quick search, it looks like I've happened only
| to live in egg-exporting countries within the EU, which
| explains why I've never seen it. Even so, whole eggs
| don't seem to be transported great distances -- most
| imports and exports are liquid or dried egg.
|
| [1] https://food.ec.europa.eu/food-safety/biological-
| safety/food...
| mrweasel wrote:
| Unless you segment up your chickens and spread them out,
| so one farmer may have a million chickens, but spread out
| on 40 locations. The problem is that you need to kill ALL
| of your chickens in just a few is sick and having a
| million chickens in a single location will pretty ensure
| that you have to constantly kill of all your chickens and
| replace them.
|
| But there's probably more going on that just sick
| chickens being killed of.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| Eggs are usually produced and sold regionally. The current
| bird flu epidemic impacting US chicken farms will be less
| impactful elsewhere. I believe there were reported cases of
| bird flu in Europe at the end of last year, but I don't think
| they spread to the widespread devastation we're seeing in the
| US.
| lm2s wrote:
| It's not, bird flu has also been detected 1-2 days ago in
| Portugal near where I live.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| This is why we must freeze USDA funding, halt all public health
| communications from our federal government, and urgently (TOP
| PRIORITY!!!) scrub all mentions of the word "women" from every
| public-facing piece of scientific content we can find.
| Spivak wrote:
| I did think it was funny that they included 'women' and
| 'female' in that list. Medicine is gonna have a hard time
| with that one, "this drug has some adverse effects with
| uhh... ovulating persons?"
| llamaimperative wrote:
| I don't find it funny at all.
| dpkirchner wrote:
| I found it exactly in line with everything I know about
| right-wing politics.
| elgenie wrote:
| The candidate "solution" to that problem is to remove any
| representation requirements in medical trials, so adverse
| effects that manifest just in specific subgroups aren't
| found. I wish I were joking.
| jl6 wrote:
| They didn't include 'women' and 'female' in that list.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Consider for a moment: what if it _did_ include those
| terms? What do you think it 'd indicate if some
| hypothetical government decided to hunt down those words
| across the scientific literature and subject them to
| review? Would that indicate something meaningful to you?
|
| Now keep that thought in mind... and now acknowledge that
| that hypothetical government is actually the current one.
|
| Pay close attention to what your mind is doing and let us
| know if you notice any interesting contortions that
| somehow draw a line between the obviously fucking insane
| hypothetical government you were imagining a second ago
| and the current real one. Report back!
|
| https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-
| takes/2025/02/05/n...
| jl6 wrote:
| There is no executive order banning use of the words
| women and female.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Thanks for sharing your contortions! Honestly impressed
| with your candor, I appreciate it.
| jl6 wrote:
| I replied to someone who thought the words had been
| banned and scientists would have to use phrases like
| "ovulating person".
|
| It seemed to be based on taking your post ("scrub all
| mentions of the word "women"") at face value.
|
| You understand now that that isn't true? That the word
| "women" is not being scrubbed, and nobody has asked for
| it to be scrubbed?
| Xunjin wrote:
| I hope they stop this cultural war and focus on the real
| problems that actually affects the population,for example,
| high prices.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| Musk and Trump have both publicly said that people will
| need to accept higher prices.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| (After getting elected on promises to lower prices on day
| one)
| Xunjin wrote:
| I'm not doubtful that happened, but could you provide a
| source?
| asveikau wrote:
| The recording I saw was Trump saying we need to accept
| pain. He's asked frequently why his actions make very
| little sense and he typically responds incoherently.
| tzs wrote:
| I don't have a specific cite but I saw it in quotes from
| when he was announcing 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico.
|
| He said they could cause price increases and pain in the
| US but that they would cause more pain in Canada and
| Mexico.
| verdverm wrote:
| Its in one of his screeds on Truth or Musk Social
|
| Colbert has a good bit and quip about it
| dekhn wrote:
| Trump said it directly in a news conference.
| https://apnews.com/article/trump-tariffs-canada-mexico-
| china...
|
| "We may have short-term, a little pain, and people
| understand that,"
| butlike wrote:
| Please stop the precedent of saying both their names in
| the same breath
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| They seem to be joined at the hip now, what with Elon
| being granted carte blanche. If it helps, I prefer "fat
| man and little boy".
| rsynnott wrote:
| Poor ol' JD Vance is presumably
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_Man_(nuclear_bomb)
|
| (The _third_ WW2-era bomb design, an impractically long
| plutonium gun-type. Much like Vance, it was rather
| pointless and impractical, and was never really heard
| from again.)
| jayd16 wrote:
| Prepare to keep hoping.
| lawn wrote:
| The cultural with tariffs you mean?
| rcpt wrote:
| Prices aren't high on anything except for housing.
|
| No politician, either past present or future, will ever run
| on a platform of reducing housing prices.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Here are several specific proposals to do just that:
| https://nlihc.org/resource/harris-campaign-releases-
| plans-lo...
|
| Not a fan of credits to buyers (just inflates prices
| further) but I'm a big fan of credits to developers,
| streamlining permitting, and making some federal land
| available for development.
|
| Regardless of whether you think these are good policies
| or an effective platform, it is patently false to say no
| one would run on such a promise.
| rcpt wrote:
| Those are all great policies. And yes credits to buyers
| is pretty stupid.
|
| But this is still a far cry from "vote for me and your
| home value will go down".
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Because why would you say that?
|
| You would say "we're going to build more housing."
| rcpt wrote:
| People say that about eggs.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| Well no, one person (a moron and a liar) said that about
| eggs
| wholinator2 wrote:
| Eggs are not treated as the most important investment of
| your life, the value of which you hedge the entire rest
| of your life against, and which is expected to increase
| in value to support an growing rather than shrinking
| lifestyle. Eggs are nothing like houses economically
| jquery wrote:
| I'd rather the government build the houses directly, I'm
| tired of America's solution to everything is to let
| middlemen skim huge profits (same issue in health care
| and education).
| justin66 wrote:
| > Prices aren't high on anything except for housing.
|
| And health care, and education, and child care.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Thing is, that would be difficult, whereas randomly
| breaking government agencies is quite easy. If you happen
| to be Donald Trump, and you're looking for ways to please
| your supporters, culture war nonsense is the easy approach,
| provided you don't care at all about the consequences.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Those who would give up essential liberties for cheap eggs
| deserve neither and will lose both.
| xrd wrote:
| Look, we all know these were chickens hired because of DEI
| under Obama.
| dpkirchner wrote:
| They're _all_ female!
| PaulHoule wrote:
| It's the kind of thing that today's right-wingers would
| accuse today's transgenderists of wanting to do. I think
| you'd have a hard time expressing traditional values if you
| couldn't say "woman".
| llamaimperative wrote:
| The internal incoherence is a feature of a cult, not a bug!
|
| The more deliberately twisted shit they can make you
| believe, the more dependent your entire cognitive
| architecture is on them.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| It's a mirror of the thoughtless language engineering of
| their opponents, it's like calling people "latinX"
| without asking them first.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| A minor difference being that one is a bunch of bluehairs
| Twitterati and social science professors using a goofy
| word and the other is a systematic purge of scientific
| literature and government data... Minor difference
| though!
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Actually I'd argue that left-wing language engineering
| contributed to right-wing lunatics getting in control.
| This poll says 56% of Hispanics in the US are
| uncomfortable with 'LatinX'
|
| https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/ipoll/study/31120958/ques
| tio...
|
| These are a swingy group that could go either way. This
| podcast
|
| https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/will-tariffs-end-
| trump...
|
| describes polls that make it clear that Americans think
| that Republicans care about the issues that matter to
| them and that Democrats don't. "Woke" talk contributes a
| lot to the latter.
|
| The good news for them though is that now that they see
| Republicans in power talking crazy like this, Democrats
| will look more normal to people. But if people on the
| left muzzled their own fanatics years ago we'd have woken
| up in a different America.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| No disagreement there, it certainly helped lose the
| election. That still doesn't mean the two positions are
| equal but opposite. For example, when Biden was elected
| there wasn't a Cmd + F across the federal government for
| "Latino".
| PaulHoule wrote:
| A serious treatment of that requires considering what the
| Democratic party actually _is_.
|
| Wintrobe's book [1] has an analysis of a tinpot dictator
| who wants to steal everything a country has but has to
| spend some resources on buying people off and some on
| repression so that he can get away with it. Bill Clinton
| made a similar maneuver around 'triangulation' that
| amounts to trying to share as little of the spoils to
| mass supporters as possible so that he can really give as
| much as the spoils as he can to donors.
|
| In the case of Bill Clinton he got the full court press
| from [2] so he could say he was under so much pressure
| from the right that he didn't have to do anything for the
| left.
|
| Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, made a clear show of
| disdain for the activist faction of the party but they
| were supposed to vote for her because, hey, she's a
| woman. She also hoped to win by default against Trump.
|
| Harris didn't show the activist fringe much love, but she
| didn't show disdain for it either. She was also hoping to
| win by default, which didn't happen. Because she didn't
| define herself, she was defined by Fox News. She would
| have had to have broken visibly with the activist fringe,
| however, which seems like it could have been a risky move
| although the dirty secret is that the activist fringe may
| not actually vote and if it does vote it is concentrated
| in places where their vote doesn't count.
|
| For now, Trumps's salvos in the culture war are 'cheap
| talk' that pleases certain people but doesn't consume
| resources that are coveted by donors. I suspect it will
| be unpopular too, since people are going to blame you for
| things once you get in power.
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.com/Political-Economy-
| Dictatorship-Wintro...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Mellon_Scaife
| llamaimperative wrote:
| I'm not sure what all this is about.
|
| You have one party's "extremism" which takes the form of
| bluehaired Twitterati saying stupid shit and, I guess,
| not getting sufficiently disowned by actual political
| leaders?
|
| On the other hand you have an ongoing ACTUAL ideological
| purge of our government's personnel, records, budget, and
| data, complete with watchwords (like "women") and loyalty
| tests.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Sure.
|
| I spoke to my uncle about this when he was convalescing
| in a nursing home. We live in New York, neither of our
| votes counted. I voted for Harris, he voted for Trump.
|
| He did not see it as a black or white thing, he saw it as
| a comparison. He didn't see Harris as giving any reason
| why he should vote for her other than, maybe, she is a
| woman. The message that you shouldn't vote for Trump
| didn't resonate. Personally I saw Jan 6 as worse than
| Sept 11 but actually most people don't. Probably the best
| explanation I see for this is talked about in this
| podcast
|
| https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/will-tariffs-end-
| trump...
|
| where Americans were asked "What issues matter to you?"
| and "What issues matter to X party?" and found that the
| lists mostly lined up when X=Republican but that people
| didn't see Democrats talking about the issues that
| mattered to them.
|
| This is connected to my argument above because the reason
| why Democrats fall into that trap is the same thing that
| has ruined center-left parties everywhere in the world:
| that they make a lot of cheap talk to impress their base
| while reserving the spoils for their donors.
|
| The good news is that people will be pretty sick of the
| Republicans in 2 years and if the Democrats were a normal
| party they would take over the house of representatives
| pretty definitively then. They've got an amazing way to
| pull defeat out of the jaws of victory though.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| You're still talking about the election. I am not. I am
| talking about actual political actions being taken.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| What are you going to do about it?
|
| Winning the next election is the most realistic plan.
| Maybe not that hard in 2026 for Congress, we might win
| earlier than that since there are 3 special elections in
| the queue already and 6 per year on average. Flip 3 seats
| and the Republicans no longer control the House. The
| thinner the margin it is the more some lunatic who is
| offended by the idea of having a budget can throw sand in
| the gears.
|
| Winning all the elections from 2025-2028 is the thing to
| be thinking about, and thinking about the loss in 2024 is
| key to that.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| It's always an absurd double standard.
|
| A bunch of people said stupid shit on Tumbler, so I guess
| the republicans just had to go tear down all our
| institutions and grift every dime they can?
|
| It's pathetic, but par for the course for the party that
| insists on "personal responsibility", yet blames
| Democrats for the deficit despite being empirically
| responsible for most of it.
|
| "You had extremists" nope, none of those people screaming
| on tumbler were invited into the Party's cabinet.
| niceice wrote:
| Source for the claim they are removing the word "women" from
| every public-facing piece of scientific content?
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| There is no real source, it is a lie.
|
| https://chcoc.gov/content/initial-guidance-regarding-
| preside...
|
| The order is to remove gender ideology, i.e. trans. Switch
| gender back to sex (binary).
| llamaimperative wrote:
| It's funny because the terms diverged as a matter of
| empirical necessity of describing certain types of people
| who clearly _didn't_ fit into binary categories.
|
| Biology is hard -\\_(tsu)_/-
| llamaimperative wrote:
| You can look it up. They're not directly removing the word,
| they're using it to trigger "reviews", and then purging
| stuff they found to violate their ideology.
|
| I can tell you there's already been critical guidance from
| the FDA on clinical trials that have been removed because
| they have the word "diversity," as in "a clinical trial's
| population should aim to reflect the diversity of the
| population to which the drug will ultimately be marketed."
| niceice wrote:
| Thanks for confirming that claim is false.
| Xunjin wrote:
| What are the precautions the USA government is taking? Also how
| much of the local market is consumed by USA?
| Fomite wrote:
| Bluntly: None.
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| What is the executive branch of the government doing about H5N1
| currently? I have not seen any press releases or statements
| about it.
|
| edit: I'm not being facetious, and don't welcome flippant
| replies. I'm genuinely interested, since I haven't seen any
| updates and have well-founded reasons to be skeptical this is
| getting the necessary attention.
| pstuart wrote:
| Look to how they handled covid as a guide for how they manage
| future outbreaks.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| They're preventing public health agencies from talking about
| it (or anything else), so if you haven't heard anything:
| mission accomplished!
| Aaronstotle wrote:
| Nothing, same guy who said Covid would be over by Easter a
| month after the first lockdowns.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| What, exactly, should they do? At this point it's pretty much
| just on the producers to protect their flocks.
| llamaimperative wrote:
| One smart thing would be: don't actively disrupt -- and
| perhaps even accelerate -- clinical trials for H5N1
| vaccines.
|
| But uh... I don't see that happening.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| We already have vaccines (some countries use them) and
| I've seen no evidence that the investigations into newer
| vaccines have been hampered in any way.
| dpkirchner wrote:
| He was elected to explicitly _not_ do anything about H5N1 and
| all other would-be government priorities.
| manfre wrote:
| They're following the plan where if you don't track any data,
| there is no problem. The head in the sand strategy.
| Fomite wrote:
| You have seen a lot of press releases about what they're
| doing about it.
|
| Muzzling the CDC, gutting infectious disease research, and
| dismantling USAID (which does some disease work abroad).
| postepowanieadm wrote:
| Odd it affects only the USA but not Mexico.
| necubi wrote:
| Mexico vaccinates its chickens, the US does not (https://www.
| unmc.edu/healthsecurity/transmission/2023/02/17/...)
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| Luckily the federal government doesn't get to talk about all
| that scary stuff right now[0], and maybe never again! /s
|
| [0] https://www.salon.com/2025/02/02/administrations-
| communicati...
| anjel wrote:
| Currently imagining the political furor that would inevitably
| erupt over deploying a flu vax for poultry.
| simple10 wrote:
| I live in CA and saw a massive jump in prices when the state
| ordered chickens to be euthanized due to bird flu. It was also
| the first time I saw grocery store shelves completely empty of
| eggs for days at a time.
|
| Prices for organic eggs have somewhat returned to pre-bird flu
| levels but the regular sales and discounts have stopped. Non-
| organic eggs are still significantly higher.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| My understanding is that free range law have recently gone into
| effect in CA.
|
| Were the organic eggs already free range? That would explain
| the price stability there and variation of the non organic.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Do you mean cage-free hen regulation? This statewide
| regulation has been in effect since 2022.
| ars wrote:
| Free ranging chickens is the proximate cause of Bird Flu.
| Chickens get it from wild birds that land near them.
|
| States are going to have to repeal those laws and confine
| chickens in sealed buildings to protect them.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Free ranging chickens is the proximate cause of Bird
| Flu_
|
| Source? Why is it only American free-range egg farms are
| being affected, while Canada and Mexico's are being
| spared?
| ars wrote:
| https://www.timesunion.com/capitol/article/cage-free-egg-
| bil...
|
| "Avian flu experts have called for caution in
| implementing cage-free requirements, noting that poultry
| exposed to the outdoors have a higher risk of contracting
| the virus."
|
| https://www.wattagnet.com/poultry-meat/diseases-
| health/avian...
|
| "Incorporating lasers that deter wild bird populations
| into biosecurity protocols can help prevent the spread of
| highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) between
| commercial poultry farms."
|
| > Why is it only American free-range egg farms are being
| affected, while Canada and Mexico's are being spared?
|
| Mexico immunizes their birds, which is highly labor
| intensive, which they can afford due to low wages and the
| US can't.
|
| Canada is far north and the infected wild birds have not
| gone that far in large numbers (although the numbers are
| increasing).
| bluGill wrote:
| Immunization isn't just about cost. Many countries have
| decided meat from vaccinated chickens are not safe to eat
| and the US exports a lot of chicken to those countries.
| We cannot vaccinate until the others will allow it.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Wild birds are indeed the main way that avian influenza
| spreads, however `ars` is just grinding some axe of
| theirs. California does not have a free-range chicken
| regulation. Virtually all commercial chicken flocks in
| California are already housed indoors. The California
| "cage-free" regulation only enforces minimal standards
| against cruelty. It essentially codifies these industry
| guidelines: https://uepcertified.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2021/08/CF-UEP-G...
| thomasjudge wrote:
| I would say that the H5 bird flu virus the the proximate
| cause of bird flu
| ars wrote:
| Maybe I'm using the word wrong, but H5 is the _root_
| cause, while free range is the proximate cause.
| simple10 wrote:
| AFAIK, free-range and cage free are not heavily regulated
| terms like organic, which is a registered and trademark
| enforced term. At best they just mean the hens have a bit
| more room to move around. Neither of them actually mean there
| is no cage.
|
| It's why we see "pasture raised" as the more premium
| marketing term. It still doesn't mean much without looking
| into the specific farm.
| bluGill wrote:
| Real pasture raised eggs do taste better. I believe this is
| because the chicken get to eat bugs - store bought eggs
| that advertise "fed an all vegetarian diet" taste worse
| than regular store bought - though both are bad. (taste is
| of course subjective). Most store bought pasture raised
| eggs taste just like any other store bought egg - sure the
| chickens get to pasture but there are too many for them to
| get enough bugs in their diet.
| bombcar wrote:
| It's well known that you can change egg taste by changing
| chicken feed, some people swear by it.
|
| But the more the chicken can "graze naturally" the more
| likely it is getting everything _it_ wants, which may
| improve health and taste.
| pests wrote:
| Michigan just switched to cafe-free only at the start of a
| year due to a new law going into effect. Prices were
| increased around the holidays as retailers preemptively
| switched their stock.
|
| Might not be well defined but I'm sure it's defined enough
| to be law.
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Right - here's the summary of the changes: https://www.mi
| chigan.gov/mdard/-/media/Project/Websites/mdar...
|
| And the specific section of the law defining 'cage free'
| for Michigan:
|
| https://www.legislature.mi.gov/Laws/MCL?objectName=MCL-28
| 7-7...
|
| There may be some flexibility in consumers' understanding
| of the terms, but of course the legislature has actual
| rules.
| russdill wrote:
| Certain 3rd party certification systems exist, such a
| https://certifiedhumane.org/
| latchkey wrote:
| I'm in CA and TJ's was empty for months not too long ago.
| daedrdev wrote:
| Im oretty sure thats TJs fault, they regularly run out of
| eggs for years now if you go at the wrong time
| latchkey wrote:
| Sounds like a combo of ABF and this...
|
| "Trader Joe's is transitioning to carry only cage-free eggs
| by 2025."
|
| https://www.allrecipes.com/trader-joes-egg-
| shortage-2024-874...
|
| I was more reacting to the "first time" anecdotal evidence.
| villedespommes wrote:
| I'm in NorthCal, they usually have some supply in the first
| few hours of opening
| OnionBlender wrote:
| Same in SouthCal. Employees said to come in the morning. An
| hour after opening they still had lots. Although there is a
| 2 cartons per household limit.
| NickC25 wrote:
| I'm in South Florida.
|
| There are 3 Whole Foods within a 15 minute drive of me, 4
| Publix, 2 TJ's, a Sprouts, and 2 Costco locations in that
| same range as well.
|
| Nowhere have I seen eggs.
| mleo wrote:
| Not sure what time you go to TJ's. In SoCal, I go nearly
| daily, a benefit of living 50ft from the store, and while
| stock is currently low, I have only seen it empty once.
| Again, it could be that when I go at lunchtime, they have the
| daily delivery available, but by the evening it is gone.
| Their prices for regular eggs remain <$4/dozen.
| vips7L wrote:
| I'm in socal and have been buying vital farms eggs. The price
| has been near constant.
| simple10 wrote:
| Same in norcal. Vital Farms has been constant except Safeway
| owned grocery stores used to have them on regular sales. Now
| they're always full price.
| anthonybsd wrote:
| I am in NJ and shelves are not empty here but the prices are
| off the charts. In December I bought eggs in Stop and Shop for
| $3.19 for a dozen of large brown eggs. Yesterday I bought the
| same eggs for $9.75 each.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Y'all are getting hosed. The Whole Foods ones around here
| (upstate NY) are $4.19/dozen as of today.
| anthonybsd wrote:
| Yeah, maybe I'll check local Whole Foods in a few days too.
| This is literally nuts:
| https://stopandshop.com/product/egglands-best-cage-free-
| larg...
| araes wrote:
| Checks out:
|
| Store: Rochester NY and Buffalo NY -> 365 by Whole Foods
| Market, Large Brown Grade A Eggs, 12 Count, 24 oz, $4.19
|
| Notably, if I put in Downtown LA as the store location, I
| actually get even cheaper eggs offered. Not sure where this
| market's getting their prices from:
|
| Store: Downtown Los Angeles, 788 S Grand Ave, Los Angeles,
| CA -> 365 by Whole Foods Market, Grade A Eggs Cage-Free
| Plus Large Brown (12 Count), 24 oz, $3.79
|
| Using: Whole Foods - Eggs [1] with a local store selected
|
| [1] https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/products/dairy-
| eggs/eggs
| mplanchard wrote:
| Fresh, local eggs have remained around the same price here. While
| more expensive than eggs from large producers in normal times,
| they are now often cheaper.
|
| This is a great reminder of how important it is to support local
| farmers and small operations, which increase the resilience of
| the system as a whole.
| perfmode wrote:
| I've always bought the most expensive pasture raised free range
| cage free eggs at Whole Foods. If I recall they used to be
| around $10 per dozen.
|
| Been a while.
|
| Anyone know Is this still the case?
| garyfirestorm wrote:
| its 3-4$ at trader joes - still 8ish in WholeFoods in
| Michigan
| jcdavis wrote:
| Still $3.50 at TJs in SF last week still, which is by far
| the cheapest around (that I'm aware of).
|
| Pretty surprised they are still that low given prices
| elsewhere.
| _joel wrote:
| Loss leader, perhaps, to get people through the door and
| buy other stuff at a better markup. That and/or they've
| got long-term fixed price contracts.
| RyanOD wrote:
| I've definitely noticed the pricing for eggs at our
| neighborhood Trader Joes staying constant while the pricing
| at our neighborhood Safeway has doubled.
| bombcar wrote:
| Trader Joes is like Costco and is known for driving hard
| bargains; they likely have a long-term contract. You
| overpay a bit but guarantee stability.
| agloe_dreams wrote:
| The free range eggs at Aldi in PA are ~$5.30/doz vs
| ~$6.50/doz for the normal eggs. Might be cheaper than normal.
| wiredfool wrote:
| Meanwhile in Ireland, I can get a tray of 30 free range for 8
| eur at a vending machine on the dog walk. Or 15 for 4.50.
|
| Lidl is maybe marginally cheaper, prices there have gone up
| maybe 20% in a year.
| schnable wrote:
| free range isnt the same as pasture raised.
| perfmode wrote:
| Free-range hens have some outdoor access, but pasture-
| raised hens roam outdoors freely with significantly more
| space to forage.
| afavour wrote:
| This is also a great defense against something like bird flu.
| When you centralize operations a disease can spread through a
| population like wildfire. When it's a number of smaller,
| separate operations the impact is lessened.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Really raises the question - should vital infrastructure,
| like food production, be built in an attempt to maximize
| profit or resiliency? Have things swung too far in one
| direction?
| financetechbro wrote:
| Feels like we've swung exceedingly far. Our drive to
| capture efficiencies through economies of scale make us
| very vulnerable to systematic disruption
| Karellen wrote:
| > Our drive to capture efficiencies through economies of
| scale
|
| Is that what's happened here? It looks to me more like
| the billionaire/PE class's drive to capture rents through
| monopolies is a more accurate lens to view the situation
| through. Especially as it's the trope namer for
| chickenization
|
| https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/chickenization
|
| https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/17/revenge-of-the-
| chickenize...
|
| https://duckduckgo.com/?q=chickenization&ia=web
| graemep wrote:
| I think both are true.
|
| It also goes far beyond farming - it applies to many
| supply chains.
| afavour wrote:
| To my mind there's no question that it's swung too far. But
| it's very easy for me to live in the country and say "oh I
| get all my fresh produce from the local farm!" when there
| are cities of millions of people that need feeding too.
| Scaling while retaining resiliency is not easy.
| jghn wrote:
| I live in a city and buy most of my fresh produce, meat,
| and dairy from local farms.
| phil21 wrote:
| Which is not scalable for the entire big city. My parents
| are organic market gardeners, and there is simply no way
| that model could scale up enough to feed that many people
| cheaply.
|
| Food budgets would have to go back to the 1940's or
| earlier - where they were a significant fraction of take
| home pay. Now they are almost a rounding error
| comparatively.
|
| I don't necessarily think that would be a bad thing. A
| lot of the asset price inflation like homes can be
| tracked to food and consumer goods taking an increasingly
| lesser portion of the family budget. Re-balancing this
| seems wise to me.
| jghn wrote:
| You put your finger on what I think is the real issue:
| whether or not access to cheap food is a net benefit or
| not. I also won't claim to have the perfect answer but do
| feel we've gone at least a bit too far in one direction.
| cj wrote:
| I think we've only "gone too far" in the sense that cheap
| food also means unhealthy food, generally.
|
| Access to cheap food would be wonderful if it were
| healthy! Unfortunately the cheapest food is typically the
| worst food for your health.
| jghn wrote:
| Yes, and I think it goes beyond "healthy", depending on
| one's definition.
|
| Part of it is also that "cheap" tends to lead to
| monocultures and other patterns that are more easily
| disrupted.
|
| An example being the Cavendish banana, which for most of
| the western world is the only thing they know of when the
| word "banana" is mentioned. And now the banana supply of
| a large part of the world is in danger of going extinct
| [1]
|
| And there's also ecological health. "Cheap" tends to
| promote mass production in certain areas and shipping
| everywhere. "Cheap" tends to promote less sustainable
| farming practices. That sort of thing.
|
| [1] https://www.foodandwine.com/banana-extinction-8715118
| mrguyorama wrote:
| >Food budgets would have to go back to the 1940's or
| earlier - where they were a significant fraction of take
| home pay. Now they are almost a rounding error
| comparatively.
|
| You are demonstrating your privilege. I am pretty frugal
| and my INDIVIDUAL food cost is like $100 a week, or 10%
| of my take home pay, and while I make peanuts compared to
| most in tech, I make more than the average adult.
|
| USDA stats say the average numbers are closer to $500 a
| month and 11% of gross salary, and also:
|
| >households in the lowest income quintile spent an
| average of $5,278 on food (representing 32.6 percent of
| after-tax income).
| bdangubic wrote:
| _Now they are almost a rounding error comparatively._
|
| ballparking I'd need about low 7-figure after tax pay for
| my food budget to qualify as a rounding error...
| Retric wrote:
| Almost a round error comparatively doesn't mean it's
| 0.01%.
|
| People used to spend ~30% of their income on mass
| produced basic staple foods with very little meat they
| cooked at home. You can live like that on like 1$/day.
| Median household income is over 80k today so we are
| talking more than an older of magnitude price reduction.
|
| Get regular meal delivery etc and sure you can spend
| crazy money but it's not really spending that money on
| food itself.
| bdangubic wrote:
| family of 3, never ordered delivery in my life outside of
| pizza once in a blue moon and eating out no more than
| twice per month - food bill $1,900-ish / month
| Retric wrote:
| That's over 20$/day per person. All 3 of you could
| literally eat exclusively fast food in most of the US on
| that budget.
|
| You're not just paying for food here. One possibility is
| you're talking things you buy at the grocery store here,
| but laundry detergent is't food.
|
| So what's the actual deal here.
| bdangubic wrote:
| eating healthy... eggs are $14/dozen and all that
| "inflation" jazz
| Retric wrote:
| The article is literally about eggs being 7$/dozen, which
| is an egg specific price spike.
|
| Even assuming you're spending twice as much on eggs it
| just doesn't add up to over 20$/day. Flour is 0.50$/lb,
| lettuce is 3$/lb, butter is 5$/lb, etc. Even a 3,000
| calories per day you're well under that.
| latency-guy2 wrote:
| I have a similar build, basically all adults and I am the
| only one who pays for food. My monthly bill is about 30 -
| 60% your bill. Mostly sits in the 30 - 40% range.
|
| I don't dine out, I don't drink, and I have some
| lifestyle + allergy restrictions for some things, but I
| tend to believe those restrictions actually make it more
| expensive than not.
|
| I am also not in a VHCOL, but still quite high since I'm
| quite close to a major hub in an expensive suburb.
|
| That number is insane to me. I would have to go high end
| on every single meal to get to the same number. I don't
| think I debate quality all that much either. I don't feel
| I cheap out either generally. Food is a fair bit less
| than 5% of what I make annually too.
| rcpt wrote:
| You should buy an Instant Pot and learn how to make
| beans.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Cool, but that's not an option for many people; how long
| does it take you to get there, and what transportation do
| you have available to you?
| codemac wrote:
| In many cases maximizing profits increases supply through
| efficiency, especially in the case of things like food.
| Increased supply is usually considered a safer place than a
| lower supply if it's vital.
|
| Every step you take that makes food more expensive, some
| use cases of food are no longer possible (say, free eggs in
| all elementary schools or something).
|
| How many of these uses are we ok eliminating so the
| wealthier population has a more consistent/resilient
| supply?
| epistasis wrote:
| > built in an attempt to maximize profit or resiliency
|
| I think framing it as an either/or is a bit of a mental
| trap. They are sometimes in opposition, sometimes not.
|
| For example, those farms which were not resilient are _not_
| maximizing their profits, since they 've had more than a
| year of warning of avian flu. They were operating to
| minimize work and costs, not maximize profit, and they are
| losing out on a ton of it right now.
|
| Those operations which built with resilience, or got lucky,
| are swimming in profits right now.
| Chabsff wrote:
| The issue with that reasoning is that it fails to take
| into account that risk is a commodity now. It's often
| more profitable to go for short term profit and offload
| your risk to an insurer who amortizes that monetary risk
| in a pool containing a bunch of other industries.
|
| For critical services like _food production_ , that's a
| problem. "Well, we don't have food, but it's okay because
| screw production went well" doesn't make sense socially,
| but our system makes it so monetarily.
| epistasis wrote:
| I'm not sure in what sense you mean risk is a commodity,
| and why it's a problem. I'm also unsure what changed to
| make it so now, as opposed to having ever been so.
|
| Those who actually took risk into account and planned
| accordingly have profited wonderfully. Those who did not
| take risks into account lost their bet. Eggs are priced
| higher for some, but are pretty much available everywhere
| still, and have not dipped below some sort of minimal
| level of availability. In California, past shortages were
| far far worse than this one, and even then the egg
| shortages were in no way catastrophic to the economy or
| health of humans.
|
| Of all the times in history, ever, we are at the lowest
| possible risk of famine. Instead, our abundance of high
| calorie food is the biggest risk to the health of
| Americans.
|
| So I would like to understand your point a bit more if
| you have the time to elaborate.
| mlyle wrote:
| > Those who actually took risk into account and planned
| accordingly have profited wonderfully.
|
| I don't know why you're saying this. Imagine I'm
| investing.
|
| If I "take risk into account" and select stocks anyways,
| I may lose a bunch of money one year. But I expect to
| make more on average than bonds.
|
| Looking at a year where bonds excel compared to stocks
| doesn't mean that I failed to "take risk into account."
|
| Likewise, a conventional producer of eggs that has now
| had a significant downturn in production may be having a
| bad year, but this doesn't mean that they're not
| following a profit maximizing strategy or not taking risk
| into account.
|
| > Of all the times in history, ever, we are at the lowest
| possible risk of famine.
|
| I think this is making the same kind of mistake: looking
| at today's outcome and assuming that reflects the risk
| picture.
|
| We're not observing too much famine right now. But we
| could certainly have a more of a risk of the most
| catastrophic possible famines now because of things like
| monoculture, critical links in production, climate risk,
| etc. Just looking around and saying "all is great today"
| or "conventional egg producers are having trouble today"
| or "stocks are down 15% for the year" does not capture
| the picture of risk, particularly for rare events.
|
| The best we can do is try to interpret sentinel events
| like this one and think about what else can happen.
| bombcar wrote:
| I think the assumption they're making is that we want to
| guarantee a certain reliability of food, and that even if
| we have perfect insurance that pays out when there isn't
| enough food, we just have money, and no food.
|
| That's a _theoretical_ problem that could occur, but is
| extremely unlikely. The worst we 'll see is what we have
| now (eggs are spendy) or a certain type of food
| disappearing for awhile (tomatoes one year were gone from
| almost all fast food places).
|
| If we have to substitute one food for another for a year
| or two that's an inconvenience. But preventing famine by
| trying to guarantee that the price of eggs doesn't go up
| is likely far, far down the list. Better that money be
| spent on improving the supply chains and if necessary
| bulk storage of long-lasting caloric sources (cheese and
| flour reserves, perhaps).
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Here's an idea. Let's get a large proportion of our
| calories from inefficient animal sources. Then if there
| is a widespread crop failure we can eat the breeding
| stock and then the animal feed.
|
| That's generally what happens in Africa. It doesn't work
| as well in North America because consumers here are too
| rich to switch to barley and oats when wheat is
| expensive.
| bombcar wrote:
| The problem in the USA is we produce about infinity
| billion times the calories we need.
|
| If food was a problem in the US we wouldn't be putting
| corn in our cars or our cows.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Yes, ethanol is the American equivalent. If we ever have
| a food shortage due to widespread extreme weather or
| similar, the president can nix the ethanol mandate to
| eliminate the food shortage.
|
| The world does not have caloric food insecurity. We might
| be insecure in terms of specific nutrients or specific
| foods, but the modern world is not insecure in terms of
| human food calories.
| mlyle wrote:
| I don't think of it this way. I think the conventional
| producers were acting to maximize expected profits at the
| cost of increased volatility in outcomes. Most years
| these practices have been more profitable.
| bluGill wrote:
| Conventional producers have been working to contain
| things like this for year. They don't all succeed, but
| this isn't the first time eggs have got expensive because
| of a bird flu, and they have been paying attention to
| what works. They don't remodel all barns at once to fix
| the issues, but they have been remodeling barns over the
| years to prevent this issue.
| mlyle wrote:
| > Conventional producers have been working to contain
| things like this for years.
|
| Sure. My point is, what optimizes for average production
| and profits doesn't necessarily optimize for worst case
| production and profits. There is a level of care that
| doesn't pay off most of the time.
| bluGill wrote:
| 1000 years ago we were much less resilience, and that
| despite farmers then optimizing for that and not profit.
| (read acoup.org for long discussions on what farming was
| really like over different times in history)
| conradev wrote:
| A surprisingly large amount of the United States' crop
| yield comes from rain falling on non-irrigated fields
| (85%). Our biggest crop is corn, and corn is very water-
| sensitive at specific points in its growth.
|
| There is no infrastructure to protect there - only
| infrastructure to build (irrigation), for better
| resiliency.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Surely "profit versus resiliency" is solely a matter of
| time preference.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| True. It's really a matter of maximizing profit when
| measured between quarter. Resiliency isn't a factor in
| that equation.
| stickfigure wrote:
| > be built
|
| The passive voice is disingenuous. Do you buy local farm
| products? You vote with your wallet. Make your choice, like
| everyone else.
| concordDance wrote:
| Profit works very well if there are many food sources with
| uncorrelated problems.
|
| Still works fairly well as long as capital owners are smart
| and use insurance (who in turn advise their users on how to
| reduce their risk).
| Frost1x wrote:
| We as thoughtful human beings can consider non-extreme
| points where we find other optimizations that aren't
| necessarily around profit or resiliency. We can create a
| new metric called "human progress mertric" where we
| consider profit as a strong driver but also put weight on
| things like resiliency and allow profit to slide a bit so
| our real goal is better achieved.
|
| Rarely ever, IMO, are worthwhile goals entirely profit
| optimized or resiliency optimized. Some blend tends to be
| best, and sometimes you can even have both simultaneously
| (they're not always inherently mutually exclusive, although
| those taking in the winnings may _want_ it to be).
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| Profit of course! And only short term profit! Don't want any
| of you eggheads trying to constrain profit to the goal of not
| killing all our customers!
| oceanplexian wrote:
| Actually the inconvenient truth is that it's not.
|
| Free range birds are able to interact and spread the disease
| more easily than the caged birds which can be quarantined. At
| least in my location all the cage free inventory is totally
| wiped out.
| mplanchard wrote:
| That's not at all the case here (VT). The local sellers are
| essentially all pasture-raised, free-range, etc., and their
| eggs are the only ones in stock. I have read some posts
| from them talking about the various ways they keep segments
| of the flocks separated, and they are being quite careful
| about any outside access.
|
| Edit: I guess also the birds are indoors much more anyway,
| given the winter. It's 11 F here today, so probably they're
| huddled up inside :)
| mothax wrote:
| My half-dozen chickens in my yard in VT are hardy and out
| and about! I get about four eggs a day, and endless
| entertainment from the small herd of therapods.
| mplanchard wrote:
| I love to hear it! I didn't realize they were so cold
| tolerant, but I'm glad they can still enjoy the outdoors
| even when the winters are as cold as this one.
|
| I'd love to get some chickens one of these days. Four
| eggs a day would be enough for us to regularly give away
| dozens while supplying all of our own egg needs.
| lukas099 wrote:
| Free range birds cannot be quarantined?
| Garvi wrote:
| The problem is the interaction with wild birds.
| dendrite9 wrote:
| This is my understanding from a former poultry farmer,
| but of course he had a reason to blame the other types of
| chicken raising for bird flu issues. I think both can be
| true, and you're in effect gambling different ways with
| each strategy.
| Zanfa wrote:
| The _only_ thing caged birds do is interact with other
| birds. There's a reason antibiotics are so widely used.
| It's like a massive Petri dish.
| bluGill wrote:
| Antibiotics are not widely used. There are many
| regulations, to use them at all you need a vet to sign
| off. You also have to pay for them. Then the animal has
| to be off of them for weeks before you can sell it.
|
| In any case where are talking about a virus which an
| antibiotic won't touch at all.
|
| Modern large farms have very strict bio controls. Things
| like: You shower before entering the barn (there is a
| shower in the barn entrance). Then you wear only approved
| clothing. Your shoes are disinfected as part of this
| process. then when you leave you reverse the process. If
| you enter one barn you are not allowed in a different
| barn for a week.
| shkkmo wrote:
| > Antibiotics are not widely used. There are many
| regulations, to use them at all you need a vet to sign
| off.
|
| This isn't true, some types of antibiotics are routinely
| used as a preventative measure on chicken farms.
|
| > Both FDA and the World Health Organization (WHO) rank
| antibiotics relative to their importance in human
| medicine. The highest ranking is "critically important."
| Antibiotics in this category are used sparingly to treat
| sick birds. Antibiotics in other less-important classes
| may be used in chicken production to maintain poultry
| health and welfare, including for disease prevention,
| control and treatment purposes.
|
| https://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/questions-answers-
| ant...
| ANewFormation wrote:
| While I'm unsure about chickens, they're also [ab]used
| for larger meat animals like cows and turkeys because
| they make the animals grow larger, faster.
|
| The fun thing is - nobody knows exactly _why_ this
| happens. There 's a bunch of hypotheses, but they're
| exceptionally hand-wavy.
| wahern wrote:
| > maintain poultry health and welfare
|
| That's a little deceptive. The antibiotics widely used by
| the industry are used for growth promotion. I don't know
| how it works, but I don't believe it's because they're
| keeping the birds healthy--i.e. treating infections. Some
| sources suggest part of the mechanism is by suppressing
| otherwise healthy or benign gut microbiota that compete
| for calories. Antibiotics have been used this way for
| nearly a century. There have been attempts to phase out
| subtherapeutic antibiotic use, but the practice is
| standard operating procedure in the US, and the US is a
| major chicken exporter. It's banned in the EU, though.
| shkkmo wrote:
| Of course it's at least a little deceptive, it's from an
| industry association PR page. When I said anti-biotics
| are used as a preventative measure, that wasn't meant to
| exclude their use for other non-medical purposes, but
| that's a more complicated argument.
|
| I posted that, not because it is an unbiased source, but
| because if even that biased of a source admits it, then
| it's hard to dispute.
| Loughla wrote:
| People really do underestimate the biological controls in
| large operations. I'm absolutely not a supporter of that
| style of farm, but
|
| They're essentially clean rooms with animals living in
| them. It's kind of amazing. We only see the ones that are
| bad.
|
| But like I said. No animal deserves to be crated all day
| every day for its life.
| scoofy wrote:
| I suspect that bird-human contact is as much a concern,
| if not more so than bird-bird contact.
| weberer wrote:
| They only interact with other birds within their isolated
| farm. How would the virus be introduced to that
| population? Its normally transmitted by wild birds.
|
| >There's a reason antibiotics are so widely used
|
| Yeah, for bacteria that's in their gut biome. Not
| pandemic viruses.
| boplicity wrote:
| Cage free does not mean they're out in a field. It means
| all of the birds are in one crowded space. Eggs that come
| from birds that genuinely roam the pasture are exceedingly
| rare.
| fsckboy wrote:
| but hides from the foxes would be more plentiful?
| darth_avocado wrote:
| There's cage free, then there's pasture raised and then
| there's regenerative farming. All of them don't include
| chickens roaming around as freely as you think they do.
| Cage free especially just means they're stuffed like
| sardines in giant barn, but are not in cages. Pasture
| raised often means they're still in netted coops that
| move around on a pasture. I think regenerative farming
| comes closest to allowing chickens to roam around, but
| it's still not freely.
| aj_icracked wrote:
| Totally agree with this. After selling my last company
| (iCracked W12) I had been playing around with the idea of how
| to build the world's largest decentralized food production
| network - think millions of people leveraging their backyards
| to produce, share, and sell protein and vegetables. I've
| always wanted to build a company that blends smart home / AI
| technology with backyard agriculture and we decided to start
| with chickens. I have been raising chickens for 15 years and
| automating my coops with Arduino's, automatic doors, cameras
| for computer vision, etc.
|
| We spent 2 years building and designing a AI / smart coop and
| it's been a fascinating company to be able to build. We've
| trained our computer vision model on around 25 million videos
| and have gotten extremely good at doing specific predator
| detection, egg alerts, remote health monitoring, specific
| chickens in a coop and behaviors etc. We're at the point now
| where we can say, "Hey AJ, there's 2 raccoons outside your
| coop, the automatic door is shut, all 6 chickens are safe,
| and you have 10 eggs that can be collected". Super fun
| project and would love y'alls feedback. If you're interested
| in seeing what we're doing we're at www.TheSmartCoop.com
| TylerE wrote:
| Seems interesting a bit but surely the economics are rather
| brutal? Even a traditional coop has an ROI of years and
| years and years.
| aj_icracked wrote:
| It's a good question - From what we've seen most suburban
| people that raise chickens don't do it to lower costs of
| eggs - they do it to have better control over the quality
| of food they eat, to teach their kids that you take care
| of the chickens, they take care of us. To eliminate food
| waste (avg family throws out 200+ lbs a year of food that
| can go to chickens, and because funnily enough most
| backyard farmers treat the chickens as family and pets vs
| just little egg-factories.
|
| Avg hen lays about 250-270 eggs a year depending on
| breed. So 6 chickens (our coop is designed for 6) throws
| off about 1500 eggs a year. Avg American eats around 291
| eggs + egg products per year (which is crazy!).
|
| Most people build their coops or buy one from Tractor
| Supply or Amazon for $300 and day-old chicks are around
| $4 each and feed is inexpensive (50lb bag at Tractor
| Supply is $21). You can make the economics work super
| well if you want to but as most backyard chickens are
| treated as pets (I am leaving out large farms and
| homesteads, etc) a lot of people pamper and spend $ on
| their hens because it's more than just getting a lower
| cost egg if that makes sense.
| bombcar wrote:
| From an absolute financial standpoint it might be hard to
| justify eggs from backyard chickens, though once you
| realize that they can eat something like 25% of their
| feed can be grass or clippings, and that some percentage
| can be redirected household waste (think: peels, food
| waste, etc) it becomes much more favorable.
|
| As you mentioned, most treat them like pets which means
| they get to learn how long-lived chickens can be, and how
| egg production levels off in the later years.
|
| But even then, if you're buying less than half the feed
| needed, you can probably break even for quite awhile
| (especially now).
| ljf wrote:
| I grew up on a (very) small farm - I still go to throw
| apple cores out of the window, as when I was younger the
| was always /something/ that would be happy for the treat.
| All dinner scraps were saved (or rather taken straight
| out), and all the windfall and rotten apples were happily
| eaten by the sheep, cow, geese and chickens.
|
| I really hate throwing food away now, really pains me!
| bombcar wrote:
| Yeah, the amount of food waste that can easily be
| "reprocessed" on even a small farm is tremendous.
|
| Not only do you have reduced waste, you have reduced
| packaging (no need to put the eggs in cartons if you're
| just carrying them to the kitchen).
|
| People usually thing you need pigs to eat waste, but most
| farm animals will take some or all (the biggest risk is
| accidentally giving an animal something it shouldn't
| have).
| Perenti wrote:
| I grew up on a small poultry farm. Most farmers I know
| are very very good at recycling and reprocessing. There's
| very little "rubbish" if you are clever about it. If it
| can't be fed to an animal, and it doesn't rot (compost),
| it's probably something you can build with, either a
| machine or a structure. Meanwhile you use animal waste to
| improve the garden, producing more food, the scraps of
| which go back to the animals.
|
| The biggest exception was in the case of disease, which
| we managed with fire. Burning diseased bird coops along
| with the corpses of dead birds was very cost effective on
| our small scale.
| aj_icracked wrote:
| One of the things that we've been thinking about is when
| we're at scale (I would say scale is 50,000+ Coops in the
| field) I would love to build a circular food waste system
| where we use food expiring / thrown out from grocery
| stores to feed our Coop member's chickens. Then we'll do
| partnerships where our members can sell excess backyard-
| to-table eggs back to the grocery stores.
|
| Most people don't get that eggs usually are 30-60 days
| old when you buy them at the grocery store and they have
| to travel up to 1000 miles to get there in cold storage.
|
| Want to know how old your eggs are? On every egg carton
| there's a 3 digit number from 1 to 365. That is the day
| of the year the producer of eggs handed them off to the
| distributor. Producers have up to 30 days to hand it off
| to distributor and the distributor has an additional 30
| days to hand off to retailer. Kinda wild!
| lsaferite wrote:
| The crazy part that I learned when we started keeping
| chickens is that the eggs last so long unrefrigerated. In
| the US we have to wash commercial eggs, but we don't wash
| ours until use. We can keep eggs in our countertop spiral
| holder for weeks, easily, and they are perfect. Once I
| learned how old eggs in stores were, I bought more
| chickens.
| nsbk wrote:
| Throwing away the core is throwing away both food and the
| most beneficial part of the apple for your gut. Of the
| ~100 million bacteria in an apple, the core and seeds
| contain around 60%, while the pulp only contains around
| 20%, the skin 10%, the stem 10%. Numbers are from the top
| of my head, they could be off
| hattmall wrote:
| Are you saying you eat Apple Cores?
| RobotCaleb wrote:
| It's actually not that hard if you change how you eat an
| apple. Don't eat around the core, and there won't be any
| core left at the end.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| It's a good thing we don't make every decision in our
| lives from an absolute financial standpoint. We'd all be
| eating gruel and porrage.
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| We in fact do make most decisions in our lives based on
| finances, you're just not aware of most of them.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Try living your life the other way around for a while.
| close04 wrote:
| I agree with the sentiment but keep in mind that being
| able to do that is a luxury, not the baseline. Too many
| people in the world, very developed countries included,
| _have_ to take decisions based exclusively on their
| finances, having no more room for the niceties than you
| have for a yacht.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| I've found, in my own life, that when I'm hyper focused
| on optimizing things for cost I often get far less "out"
| of things. I end up not eating my whole dinner because I
| don't like it. But if I let go a bit, things are actually
| in aggregate more financially efficient when I'm getting
| more of what I pay for, if that makes sense.
|
| It only works for people who are built this way though.
| Not hedonists.
| buran77 wrote:
| That's a much bigger problem. People at the limit of
| survival financially - and there's _a lot_ of them - may
| not have the luxury of any kind of financial education,
| or the leeway to experiment and take longer term
| aggregates and strategies. There is only now.
|
| It's expensive to be poor and this is why. It's not just
| hedonists, a chronically empty stomach changes the way
| you think and how far and wide you're seeing.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| So you are telling me poor folks are poor and struggling?
|
| As if this isn't known?
| buran77 wrote:
| > So you are telling me poor folks are poor and
| struggling?
|
| No, I'm telling you that your examples, the "strategy" of
| getting financial efficiency, and calling it "hedonism"
| are disconnected from the reality of the people who
| suffer from this the most. Unlike you those people don't
| leave dinner on the table because it was too cheap.
|
| > As if this isn't known?
|
| It doesn't sound like you _know_ know. You 're telling a
| blind person how to get around better by just "looking
| around".
|
| Your perspective above is the modern version of "let them
| eat cake" [0]. "You don't have enough money? Try to live
| like you have enough money".
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake
| iancmceachern wrote:
| My advise isn't for those in that situation.
|
| My advise is that many not I'm that situation, maybe you,
| act and think as if they do need to, but in reality
| don't.
|
| Others are straight hedonist.
|
| I'm saying don't be either.
| hattmall wrote:
| It does not make sense,to me, can you elaborate? I know I
| spend too much time / effort cost optimizing. Interested
| in reasonable ways to justify not doing so!
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Just let go of it.
|
| Logic yourself there.
|
| Calculate a cost of your time, maybe it's your salary,
| maybe you come about it a bit differently.
|
| Then if you spend 10 mins saving 8 cents on Ramen, and
| you like the cheaper Ramen less, you have a paradigm
| within which you can objectively (not emotionally)
| determine if you are wasting your time (therefore money)
| on a false optimization, or actually doing good for
| yourself.
| ahoka wrote:
| We do, but people are maximizing utility and not
| minimizing costs.
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| Its more than that, our whole social world is constructed
| by financial possibility. The very reason that you are
| able to go see a cool movie or try that new restaurant or
| take a vacation is because someone or some entity,
| usually a bank, has calculated the risk of the loan or
| investment into whichever enterprise you are requesting
| goods or services from. Which is to say that the element
| of that risk which is non-quantifiable is still
| articulated within the boundaries of a certain quantity.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Not really.
|
| Were focused on cutting coupons and not growing food in
| victory gardens.
|
| We do a performance, a performative version of cost
| savings that is veiled in corporate marketing tactics and
| such.
|
| If you were truly focused on minimizing cost you would
| learn to be self sufficient. Sometimes that's costly, but
| pays off.
|
| We now frame things in terms of corporate marketing and
| our whole economic "complex"
|
| It's like you think you are saving money by buying
| generic soda, then you realize you don't even need soda.
| username135 wrote:
| Almost all our food waste goes into a small metal bowl
| that gets dumped in the coop every night. I used to bury
| it in the compost pile, but since the hens have picked
| through it all, theres not much left. They happily eat
| the scraps and I happily collect their eggs.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I think they also eat ticks, right?
| hattmall wrote:
| Financially speaking the biggest way to break even is
| having some way to get value from excess eggs. Selling
| them or trading for feed is ideal.
| hosh wrote:
| Pasture-raised backyard chickens are also great pest
| control.
| jacobr1 wrote:
| We've had good success with Black Soldier Flies[1] too.
| They compost pretty much anything - you can toss in
| meat/cheese and similar scraps not just veggies. And you
| get a very high quality protein to feed the chickens.
|
| [1] https://www.hobbyfarms.com/black-soldier-flies-free-
| self-har...
| blast wrote:
| You just want to work on things that crack easily.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| Very cool, let me know if you need and hardware or design
| support. I've done a lot of agtech stuff
| explorigin wrote:
| > I had been playing around with the idea of how to build
| the world's largest decentralized food production network
|
| Years ago I worked on Farmforce that is basically this. In
| America we have centralized agriculture. Over the ocean,
| small-holder farmers in Africa provide lots of food to lots
| of markets. Keeping track of all of these farms, their
| herbicide and pesticide usage and weather-based yield
| projections is already a solved problem.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| We should not model our food supply chain on Africa. In
| fact, it is beyond absurd to suggest it. African small
| holders run very unproductive farms, with horrible yields
| despite high labor intensive practices. Most countries
| have been on the brink of starvation up until very
| recently (some still are), and this only improved via
| adoption of modern farming practices.
| tfourb wrote:
| This is ignorance at its worst.
|
| Smallholder farms across Africa are quite productive if
| you measure inputs (labor, energy, capital, fertilizer,
| water, land use) against outputs (calories, nutrition).
| They are certainly comparable with industrialized
| agriculture (large-scale monoculture) that is often
| incredibly wasteful (except when it comes to paying their
| laborers a living wage).
|
| "Modern farming practices" mostly translates to "use a
| tremendous amount of energy and really bad wages to
| produce a respectable surplus in calories and large
| profits for a few actors within the supply chain".
|
| And for the last 150 years or so no "starvation" anywhere
| in the world has been due to a lack of calories that
| could have reasonably been made available for the people
| starving. In 100% of cases lack of food is due to it not
| being made available _by choice_ , i.e. because nobody is
| willing to pay for it, or it is actively withheld in war,
| etc.
|
| Source: degree in development studies and more hours on
| African (and European) smallholder farms than I can
| count.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| > Smallholder farms across Africa are quite productive if
| you measure inputs (labor, energy, capital, fertilizer,
| water, land use) against outputs (calories, nutrition).
|
| This sounds intelligent, but is extremely wrong
| perspective.
|
| For example, most of these farms are well known to
| underuse fertilizer. There is no good reason for it,
| except in some relatively snall amount of cases where
| extreme poverty doesn't leave farmers with enough capital
| to buy fertilizer (even though ROI is ridiculously high).
| This severe under capitalization is already a reason why
| we shouldn't imitate their example. Anyway, all the
| development agencies run very active program to promote
| use of fertilizer, with very limited effect.
|
| If you consider insufficient fertilizer use, then yeah,
| maybe they get good yields in the context. But that's
| like saying "sure I got very meager crop because I didn't
| water my crops in the drought even though I could, but if
| you consider my inputs (very little water and energy
| spent on watering), I actually did pretty well", which is
| ridiculous: we shouldn't imitate that.
|
| > They are certainly comparable with industrialized
| agriculture (large-scale monoculture)
|
| No. Their yields are horrible, and in no way comparable
| to modern industrialized agriculture.
|
| > And for the last 150 years or so no "starvation"
| anywhere in the world has been due to a lack of calories
| that could have reasonably been made available for the
| people starving.
|
| This is true if you define "starvation" as "literal
| famine involving mass death", but if you are trying to
| say that there has been no severe, persistent, widespread
| malnutrition due to insufficient caloric intake, then you
| are extremely wrong. Up until last couple of decades,
| overwhelming majority of Africans have been seriously
| malnourished, and this was caused by the inefficiency of
| their agricultural sector. It was only alleviated (and
| only in some places) by modern, western style
| development.
| navane wrote:
| Seeing like a state
| (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State) is
| quite a famous book that has a whole chapter on this, and
| it does argue that the small holders of Africa have a lot
| to teach to us. Many have tried western style agriculture
| in Africa, and many have failed.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| > We're at the point now where we can say, "Hey AJ, there's
| 2 raccoons outside your coop, the automatic door is shut,
| all 6 chickens are safe, and you have 10 eggs that can be
| collected". Super fun project and would love y'alls
| feedback.
|
| Nobody is going to pay you anywhere near the amount of
| money you'll need for the energy and equipment to do this.
|
| "Well shit, coyotes got one of the chickens" and
| then...just go get another chicken for...about $5 each.
| There's no data you could possibly collect that would
| interest people enough to buy your company.
|
| The whole point behind chickens is that there are some
| manageable startup costs but then they're cheap to "run" -
| if you have a big enough property and free range 'em or use
| a 'tractor', even your feed costs are cut.
|
| > I had been playing around with the idea of how to build
| the world's largest decentralized food production network -
| think millions of people leveraging their backyards to
| produce, share, and sell protein and vegetables.
|
| It's not decentralized if everyone has to use your app (I'm
| guessing your plan is to get a cut...) This stuff already
| exists. They're called "farmers markets."
|
| It's also called "talking to your neighbors." That's been
| going on for hundreds of years.
|
| > build a company that blends smart home / AI technology
| with backyard agriculture
|
| Hammer, meet nail that _does not exist._
| aimanbenbaha wrote:
| Amazing project! I always get excited when I hear new
| innovative ideas to improve ecosystems/businesses that are
| taught of as "traditional". There's this My First Million
| podcast episode with Justin Mares (DTC Food entrepreneur)
| where they talk about boostrapping alternative food biz
| ideas and are very bullish on these verticals and they also
| talk about various types of birds breeds and how cornish
| cross became the predominantly type of chicken raised.
|
| Regarding this smart poultry startup, where I'm from I
| often hear from poulty farmers chicken should be able to
| roam free and have a wide space to lay around eggs and
| reproduce. I'm curious how this limitation is addressed to
| backyard herders?
| aj_icracked wrote:
| Most of our customers have decent sized backyards - I
| would say on average from clips people have shared, most
| yards are about the size of a tennis court or more (which
| is more than enough for 4-6 hens). Basically we look at
| it as, if you have a backyard, you have enough space for
| 4-6 chickens. Also, It's funny you mention My First
| Million - Sam Parr is a good friend of mine and I've been
| trying to get him to invest in Coop, lol.
| singleshot_ wrote:
| If all the birds are in a farm, would you have more or less
| inter species infection than if lots of people lived close to
| chickens?
|
| What's worse for the community, eggs from factories going way
| up in price due to supply shocks, or rapid and pervasive
| infection in the community?
| heavyset_go wrote:
| The disease affects wild bird populations heavily and is just
| as transmissible to disparate flocks as it is larger flocks.
| Breeders tend to keep their flocks isolated, often for
| genetic reasons, and because they're their cash cows versus
| just cattle.
|
| I generally agree with you about centralization and
| monocultures, just in this case I don't think it's really
| going to change things.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| On top of that, large operations tend to be hell on earth
| from an animal welfare perspective. The air alone is toxic
| and hard to breathe because there's so much avian poop
| everywhere that is constantly decomposing.
| fullstop wrote:
| I highly doubt that the farmer down the street from me is
| testing for avian flu.
|
| Their eggs are fantastic, though!
| azinman2 wrote:
| It spreads so fast and is lethal enough that they probably
| don't need to test, because they'd know quite quickly.
| fullstop wrote:
| Likely. I guess if they held onto the eggs for a few days
| before selling them it would work. If the bird is still
| alive and the egg is a few days old, sell it.
| palmotea wrote:
| > This is also a great defense against something like bird
| flu. When you centralize operations a disease can spread
| through a population like wildfire. When it's a number of
| smaller, separate operations the impact is lessened.
|
| But muh efficiency!
| vlan0 wrote:
| Yes. Vital Farm eggs. Been $8 a dozen for a long time. No
| change in price.
|
| What we're seeing are the consequences of factory farming and
| not treating animals like the living beings they are.
| tcdent wrote:
| I've been paying almost $11 for them.
| vlan0 wrote:
| Big city "tax"? Whole Foods and the local co-op out in WNY
| are both $8 a dozen.
| lacksconfidence wrote:
| My city has 30k people, although we are part of a larger
| metro. Store brand eggs are $9.50/dozen. Alternatively
| Costco is still selling 60 packs for $20, although they
| have had per customer limits recently and don't alway
| have stock. Works out to $4 per dozen. But thats a lot of
| eggs.
| HelloMcFly wrote:
| I'm in a major metro area and Vital Farms eggs are still
| $7.99 from Kroger.
| Digit-Al wrote:
| Wow! That's crazy. Here in the UK, the most expensive eggs
| in my local supermarket - which are Clarence Court Burdord
| Brown eggs - are only the equivalent of $5.08 per dozen.
| Those are the posh, expensive, eggs that only those with a
| bit of extra cash in their pocket, and a desire to eat more
| healthily, would buy.
| likeabatterycar wrote:
| I love how British eggs have deep, amber yolks. Are they
| force-feeding the hens Earl Grey?
| crdrost wrote:
| So hens don't usually have to be force-fed. Some of that
| color can come from having a diverse source of proteins--
| like the bugs and insects that pasture-raised hens get
| access to--but farmers "in the know" will also add
| paprika and marigold to the usual soy-and-grain
| supplemental feed, to try to encourage it to come out a
| bit more.
| philipkglass wrote:
| A few years back I briefly thought that a rich yolk color
| was a quality signal, until I found that additives could
| produce that color cheaply. The color comes from dietary
| carotenoids [1]. Companies like BASF sell carotenoid feed
| additives that producers can employ to get a yolk color
| as rich as desired:
|
| https://nutrition.basf.com/global/en/animal-
| nutrition/our-pr...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carotenoid
| eric-hu wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised if you were correct in your
| belief and that this became a case of Goodhart's Law when
| implemented in the egg industry.
| whalesalad wrote:
| a lot of farmers feed them marigold and other color
| enhancers to try and boost the color - because it is also
| a sign of the hen having a good diet
| blitzar wrote:
| something about metrics becomes a target it fails to be a
| good metric springs to mind.
| em500 wrote:
| Food additive manufacturers sell farmers aditives to
| produce yolks with specific hues[1]. There are
| regional/cultural variations in color preferences, so
| regional farmers will target different sades.
|
| [1] https://www.dsm-firmenich.com/anh/products-and-
| services/prod...
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| It's slightly disingenuous to call carotenoids
| "additives". Although it might technically be true,
| carotenoids are naturally present in tons of vegetables
| (hence _carrots_ ) and are a good antioxidant with other
| known health benefits.
| batushka5 wrote:
| Once we fed goose with carrot waste - the fat and skin
| was more orange than yellow!
| jay_kyburz wrote:
| Here is Australia I like the most expensive eggs you can
| buy, 150 birds per hectare, 800g, $15 a dozen.
| https://www.hilltopsfreerange.com/
| jimmydoe wrote:
| Good you can still buy them. All vita farms are oos even
| $13/dozen ones in my local whole foods.
| whalesalad wrote:
| yep. been a long time coming. it's unfortunate that when it
| favors them this is a talking point for the maga folks... but
| when it hurts them they are nowhere to be found.
| uticus wrote:
| > they are now often cheaper...increase the resilience of the
| system as a whole
|
| cheaper and resilience are not proportional here. in fact,
| cheaper is proportional to efficient, which large producers are
| better at (apart from questions of healthiness, etc). i can't
| argue against resilience though, although that comes at a cost.
| speaking as a backyard-chicken-raiser of some years.
| roughly wrote:
| "Cheaper" varies by the costs of the various inputs. A local
| chicken farmer which sells to a local market has, aside from
| the costs of the land, chickens, feed, and labor, the costs
| of putting the eggs in a truck and driving the truck to the
| market. Larger distributors have the cost of collecting the
| eggs, driving them to a warehouse, storing them, potentially
| repeating that while optimizing inventory and locality, and
| then driving them to the market. The cost of gas, labor,
| electricity, and a variety of other factors can dramatically
| swing the cost calculations. Combined with the noted lack of
| resiliency in the system - the multiple additional logistical
| steps, the multiple points of failure in the system, the
| larger blast radius of those failures - and the "larger is
| more efficient is cheaper" calculus isn't quite as cut and
| dry, as we've seen over the last couple years.
| bluGill wrote:
| Many of your small producers are not counting their full
| costs. They see they $ from selling eggs, but don't count
| the cost of the barn, their labor, the land the chickens
| are on... A real accountant would find all those hidden
| costs and figure out how you allocate the cost of the light
| bulbs in the barn to each chicken - only when you have all
| those numbers can you really see if it works out.
| bombcar wrote:
| This is so common in small businesses. The biggest
| example I see is single-family landlords who are
| _notoriously_ bad at doing the honest math.
|
| This is often why small businesses survive until the
| owner dies/retires, because the were making much less
| money than needed to continue. The biggest one is
| ignoring location costs because they own the building
| (avoiding rents or mortgage which would immediately put
| the business way underwater).
|
| Combine the above with small farms often ALSO being the
| home of the owner, and it gets quite flexible.
| ryandrake wrote:
| If the business lasted until the owner died, then it was
| making at least the amount of money it needed. Not all
| businesses need to grow or make tons of money, if they at
| least serve their owner's lifestyle. If I could make a
| business that supported me until I died, I'd start it
| right now.
| bombcar wrote:
| Yeah, it's called a "lifestyle business" and you can't
| buy them, but you can start them (or sometimes be given
| one).
|
| (Many common small businesses are lifestyle businesses,
| because they're individual service businesses, like
| plumber, contractor, etc.)
| mplanchard wrote:
| Sorry I'm not sure I follow your point. I'm saying that given
| the current situation with bird flu, the local eggs are often
| less expensive at my grocery store.
|
| I'm not saying that they are less expensive to produce or
| that they will remain less expensive at the store during
| normal times. However, paying the extra costs during normal
| times means those farms stay in business, which means I can
| still get eggs for the same price right now as I can in
| normal times.
| fatnoah wrote:
| I'm 50 and grew up in a medium sized New England mill town. One
| of the few memories I have of my grandfather is taking a quick
| trip to the local egg farm to get some eggs. These have all but
| disappeared from New England.
| mplanchard wrote:
| They are still here in Vermont!
|
| I hope this bird flu thing is a push for other places to re-
| establish demand for local eggs and chickens. As someone else
| pointed out, it's also a great opportunity to push your local
| legislators to allow backyard chickens.
| jghn wrote:
| This. I buy my eggs at the farmers market from a local,
| actually small, farm. I pay $8/doz. In normal times this is
| very expensive. But you know what? Tomorrow when I go to the
| farmers market they'll still cost me $8/doz.
| bityard wrote:
| I guess I don't see why local farmers _wouldn't_ raise their
| prices to maintain their premium above store-bought eggs.
| They certainly have around here.
| jghn wrote:
| Because in setups like I'm describing the farmers tend to
| start building relationships with their customers. Price
| gouging is generally not the best way to maintain those
| relationships.
|
| In previous egg shortages over the years the couple of
| farmers I use would sometimes impose limits like 1 carton
| per customer or something like that. But not jack up
| prices.
| bombcar wrote:
| Smaller farmers usually want to make money to cover their
| costs, and if they weren't doing that, they're already in
| a huge pickle.
|
| As you mention, they'll impose limits (or perhaps offer
| "shiny brown eggs for $1 more") rather than piss off the
| customers, who 90% of the time have cheaper options
| already.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Are rising costs the reason for store-bought eggs' rising
| prices?
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Yes but its because all their chickens keep dying because
| of the factory farm conditions that local farms might not
| have
| adrianmonk wrote:
| Maybe they see it as a way to acquire new customers. They
| are in the very unusual position of being able to undercut
| their bigger competitors on price while still making a
| profit.
|
| Right now, buyers are probably shopping around a ton. You
| can probably get customers who normally wouldn't be
| interested. After they try it, some of them may decide they
| like it and could become long term customers.
| jl6 wrote:
| Are small local farms able to keep producing as normal because
| the birds aren't getting bird flu or because they're not
| testing/killing them?
| mplanchard wrote:
| The local farms here at least are being really cautious about
| testing and isolation. Many of them sell their eggs to the
| local grocery stores, so they are bound to the same standards
| as other eggs.
|
| I don't see what benefit they would gain by not testing,
| anyway: if their flock is infected and a significant portion
| of the birds die, they are going to lose revenue the same way
| a massive egg producer would. If anything, I'd imagine them
| to want to be more cautious, since they have fewer eggs in
| their basket as it were (fewer total chickens).
| hwillis wrote:
| Bird flu has 95% lethality in chickens and takes ~48 hours to
| kill. It's not like they can get away with ignoring it.
| Testing happens when you wake up and half your birds are
| already dead.
|
| That said OP is asserting local costs haven't changed without
| evidence. Even if that were true (and I don't think it is-
| local farms are also being hit hard eg duck farming in NY) it
| probably speaks far more to small operations having a harder
| time changing their prices. Or the cheap eggs are just places
| who haven't been hit yet.
| mplanchard wrote:
| I was wondering how I could provide evidence for you other
| than walking to the grocery and taking a picture, but I
| found at least one of our local farms that has their prices
| online: https://www.maplewindfarm.com/collections/retail-
| store -- I'd expect it would be quite easy for them to
| change their prices on their own storefront and in their
| farmstand, where I often buy their eggs.
|
| A dozen large eggs there right now is $7.90, which is right
| in line with what their costs have been for at least the
| last year (they are one of the more expensive local
| brands).
|
| Unfortunately I just went to the grocery last night, so I
| don't have any reason to swing by today, but next time I do
| I'll try to remember to snap a pic of the egg section to
| share.
|
| I've seen a bunch of posts online from the farms about how
| they're doing biosafety protocols, keeping groups of
| chickens isolated from each other, etc. I'm sure that
| increases their costs somewhat, but whatever they're doing
| seems to be keeping them insulated from the worst of the
| flock die offs, and regardless, their prices haven't really
| changed.
| 1propionyl wrote:
| To add to this, checking Craigslist... local chicken
| owners here are selling their extra eggs for about $7-8 a
| dozen here as well (20m drive from a major US city).
|
| Only marginally more expensive than store eggs, but a lot
| fresher, unwashed (will keep for a long while on the
| counter), and you can see exactly where (and from whom!)
| the eggs are coming from.
| hwillis wrote:
| Biosafety prevents or delays the farm from being
| infected. It doesn't lessen the impact once it happens.
| One bird can infect all the others in hours even when
| they are in separate buildings just from spreading on
| clothing. If they are infected they will die.
|
| If a small farm gets an infected bird, they can't just
| raise the prices of their eggs. Those eggs will just
| disappear from the stores because all the birds are dead.
| If they are doing rigorous isolation, like hiring totally
| separate people taking care of completely isolated
| flocks, that should increase their prices. Farms that are
| spending more money on isolation and chosing not to
| increase prices are still at high risk- they just haven't
| been unlucky yet.
| mplanchard wrote:
| Well I certainly don't know enough about chicken farming
| to argue with you about it from any position of
| authority, and I haven't talked personally to any farmers
| about it yet.
|
| Regardless, we have continued to see the availability of
| all the usual local eggs with very little fluctuation in
| price. Perhaps they have all been lucky.
| bombcar wrote:
| Anecdotes aren't data, but I'll chime in to agree - the
| locally sourced eggs have gone up in the last few years,
| but only from like $4.99 to $5.59.
|
| The "generic egg" have gone from $0.25 a dozen during
| some price war 6-7 years ago to $6.99. That price has
| caused the local eggs to sell out first where they used
| to always be available.
| mplanchard wrote:
| Just to be clear, I never claimed to have data. I said
| "fresh, local eggs have remained around the same price
| here," "here" being where I live. The whole discussion is
| based on that anecdote. GP noted that I made that
| assertion without evidence, so I was just trying to
| provide evidence that I wasn't inventing it out of thin
| air.
|
| I suspect that the combination of our and other anecdotes
| in the thread may suggest though that there is some merit
| to the hypothesis that small, local farms are more
| resilient to this kind of mass pandemic, although it may
| vary from region to region, especially with the number
| and quality of local farms, which is probably much higher
| where I live than some other rural states and/or in major
| metropolitan areas.
| azinman2 wrote:
| I've never seen eggs for 0.25/dozen.
| somecontext wrote:
| In case anyone was curious, the Internet archive on my
| parent commenter's link shows large dozen egg prices of:
| $7.90 March 2024, $7.50 November 2023, $6.50 February
| 2023.
| mplanchard wrote:
| Oh good thinking! So in line with the sibling commenter,
| they've gone up some, but not a crazy amount, with most
| of that increase happening prior to the outbreak. And
| still cheaper than Vital Farms prices mentioned by others
| elsewhere in the thread.
| Larrikin wrote:
| I personally don't really like eggs. I only buy them when I
| need them for ingredients in something I plan to cook soon,
| so I haven't been tracking their price over time. But we
| are making a cake this week and had been hearing about the
| eggs problem for a while now.
|
| Yesterday, eggs were not sold out at my local grocery
| store. There was a sign saying they may limit purchases.
| The crappy bottom of the barrel eggs were selling for 9
| dollars a dozen. Pretty much all the eggs that touted
| organic or farm fresh on their containers were going for 4
| to 5 a dozen, which seems reasonable. I assume those are
| from the local farms.
| joecool1029 wrote:
| Depends on where you're at. I mentioned in my last comment
| that bird flu is killing snow geese nesting near me. It's
| also infecting crows. The snow geese are not likely to
| interact with backyard chickens but the crows absolutely
| will.
| hammock wrote:
| Smaller flocks, so the damage of an outbreak is contained
| greenie_beans wrote:
| here is a recent news story about exactly this:
| https://www.mynbc5.com/article/vt-farm-takes-steps-to-
| preven...
| silisili wrote:
| My local sellers are $4/doz for the good ones, $5/18 from
| another seller whose eggs taste 'off' so I quit buying them. I
| think $4/doz for quality eggs is worth it.
|
| This is also hopefully a catalyst to get people to petition
| their city for backyard chicken rights. Raising chickens is
| relatively easy and can be rewarding. Even if you don't want to
| personally, support the right of those around you to, please.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Generally, mixing livestock and people in the confined
| conditions of a city is a very bad idea (if you're talking
| about suburbs, then that's a completely different thing, and
| I would agree with you about supporting it).
| silisili wrote:
| Ah yes, typically suburbs. Cities that adopt it generally
| have regulations around it, such as needing an inspection
| and nominally priced permit. The inspection just makes sure
| it's sanitary and follows certain rules about distance from
| house and whatnot.
|
| I definitely don't advise raising chickens in an apartment
| or some such.
| bombcar wrote:
| Most places that allow them don't have much in the way of
| inspection, etc, until you start selling the eggs.
|
| Amusingly enough, _rural_ towns are more likely to
| prohibit backyard chickens than suburbs of major cities
| these days. This is because if you want chickens in a
| rural area, the assumption is you 'll buy just outside
| town; the people who moved into town don't want to hear
| roosters (which are often banned or severely limited even
| where chickens are allowed).
| silisili wrote:
| Noticed that too. The two rural towns near me bans any
| poultry with under 5 acres, which is essentially the
| entire town. Luckily I live right outside their limits.
|
| RE: roosters, a lot of cities that permit backyard
| chickens do not allow roosters as they're considered a
| bit of a nuisance. As I'm sure you're aware(though I've
| found many people aren't), roosters are not required for
| the keeping of chickens nor the production of eggs.
| bombcar wrote:
| They _can_ be useful for flock protection, if you don 't
| get a dud rooster. But in general, they're more annoying
| than you expect.
|
| And yeah, you don't need one to "get them to start
| laying" though if you want to try to actually hatch some
| eggs you will need one (or buy the eggs ready to go).
|
| Now I've heard that the roosters in Kansas/Nashville,
| them do lay eggs ...
| jkestner wrote:
| Most annoying thing about roosters is, if you have one,
| then you'll have a bunch. (Our hens go hide their
| clutches eventually.) But if you have a bunch, then you
| can have coq au vin.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Many of the houses on my block of chicago seem to have
| chickens and there havent been any problems. Nothing but 3
| flats
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Canadian and Mexican egg prices haven't budged because they
| vaccinate their chickens [1].
|
| I'm not a fan of factory farming. But this isn't a story about
| that. It's a story about American (a) producers favouring cheap
| production by avoiding the cost of vaccination and (b)
| regulators favouring a policy of trade protectionism that keeps
| our neighbours' cheap eggs off our grocery-store shelves.
|
| [1] https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-case-for-vaccinating-
| chicke...
| mplanchard wrote:
| I think both causes can be true, and both are relevant to
| modern food production.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _both causes can be true_
|
| They can be but they're not. Canadian and Mexican factory
| farms are not being affected sufficiently to raise prices.
| The cause of the price rise is not factory farming. It's
| vaccination practice and trade policy.
| mplanchard wrote:
| I was curious about this, being neighbors with Canada,
| and I'm not seeing it mentioned in any articles about
| their egg prices. Most of these are instead about their
| supply management system and smaller farms, e.g.:
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/supply-management-
| eggs-1.67...
|
| https://globalnews.ca/news/10981016/egg-prices-us-bird-
| flu-c...
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/egg-prices-avian-flu-
| canada-u...
|
| Can you point me to some sources on your claim? The post
| you linked originally doesn't mention Canada.
| bluGill wrote:
| Buried in that story is one more important point: if you
| vaccinate many countries will not let you sell that chicken
| to them anymore. US exports a lot of chicken to such
| countries and if we vaccinate that market dies. (or we can
| vaccinate some but not others and then deal with the supply
| chain complexity)
| CharlieDigital wrote:
| Are egg laying hens the same supply line as the chicken
| sold for meat? (Genuinely curious here whether that's the
| case or not)
| goosedragons wrote:
| Generally, no. Egg laying hens grow too slow and meat
| chickens suck at making eggs so it's two different
| sources.
| njarboe wrote:
| The local eggs here have the same price but they are selling
| out very quickly. $9.50 a dozen and used to have them all week.
| They come in on Friday evening and now sell out quickly. People
| are probably buying more than they used to when available and
| that is making the scarcity worse.
| mplanchard wrote:
| We're lucky enough to have a pretty substantial network of
| local suppliers. Our grocery carries eggs from at least six
| local farms that I can think of off the top of my head.
|
| I've read that some of the farms are having a hard time
| keeping up with both the increased demand from groceries and
| also trying to keep eggs available for their regular
| farmstand customers and such, but it seems like so far there
| is enough slack in the system that it's working out okay.
| whateveracct wrote:
| If I avoid name brand stuff, my prices generally aren't bad.
| Like you said, the local eggs have been stable.
|
| Locally sourced chicken also is reasonably priced and often on
| sale. There was BOGO (mix and match) last week so I got a whole
| chicken and a 2lb pack of breasts for $12 total. Both beautiful
| quality. With a bunch of minor cheap produce, herbs, and
| pasta..that's chicken soup + a chicken one pot meal that'll
| last us all week. Sometimes those whole chickens are on sale
| for 99c/lb!
| TylerE wrote:
| That is likely to change. Why should they sell a superior
| product for less?
| mplanchard wrote:
| Well, if you know your local farmers and buy from them
| regularly, it doesn't look great if they jack their prices
| up unnecessarily. They also know that they're competing
| against the perception that local food is more expensive.
| In normal times, factory farms can always undercut their
| prices, so it would make sense for them to use the current
| situation as an opportunity to get more people to start
| buying local (due to the prices!) and hope that they will
| continue to buy local once the prices invert again (due to
| the quality).
| hammock wrote:
| Why not?
| TylerE wrote:
| Because capitalism? Small farmers are already fighting
| brutal economies of scale.
| hammock wrote:
| If they don't want to charge more though?
| TylerE wrote:
| When their gas prices go up, their equipment goes up,
| their feed goes up, etc, they won't have any choice.
| tcmart14 wrote:
| I wonder though, in specifically this instance, if the
| price of their feed is going down because of how many
| chickens have been culled or just flat out died from
| disease.
|
| But yea, if other cost rise, they will need to rise
| prices.
| hammock wrote:
| Doesn't quite answer the question (of why they should
| sell at the highest price they can).
|
| Unless you are suggesting that raising prices today is
| _better_ (normative sense, since you used the word
| "should") than raising prices when you don't have a
| choice. In which case, can you explain more your
| reasoning?
| TylerE wrote:
| _gestures vaguely in the direction of the last 10,000
| years of well documented human behavior_.
| whateveracct wrote:
| This has held true for literally 4 years. And it's not some
| niche store - it's a Kroger-owned chain!
| likeabatterycar wrote:
| Ok, but, you can't feed 340M people with "fresh, local eggs".
| While it's nice you buy six eggs at a time from Joe Farmer off
| the back of his '72 Ford, but factory farms are an unfortunate
| necessity to feed everyone that isn't so privileged.
| roughly wrote:
| We're not reliably feeding 340M people eggs right now,
| either. The current system has significant friction points
| and deadweight loss.
| mplanchard wrote:
| Man, if only it were possible to adjust the number of eggs
| that we eat in order to account for the increased cost of
| eggs that are farmed humanely and whose purchase benefits the
| local economy instead of massive corporate conglomerates. But
| alas, 340 million souls need their daily eggs.
| B-Con wrote:
| Your solution to a supply and demand mismatch is that
| everyone regulate their demand to match the local supply?
|
| Your solution is for a problem that doesn't exist.
| mplanchard wrote:
| Yes? I know it's not a popular opinion, but I think that
| if you can't produce something ethically at scale, the
| right thing to do is to produce less, ethically, and for
| people to consume less of it. For example, I buy more
| expensive meat from places that treat their animals well,
| and as a result I eat less meat than I would otherwise.
| greenie_beans wrote:
| > you can't feed 340M people with "fresh, local eggs"
|
| i think the opposite, i would like to hear a good argument
| why you can't.
| wyre wrote:
| Where can the NYC metro area get fresh, local eggs to feed
| the 19 million people that live there?
|
| This is an extreme example, but still applies to every
| other metro area too.
| _joel wrote:
| Why am I imagining high rise chicken coups now? Vertical
| farming, take note :)
| greenie_beans wrote:
| within 7 hours of NYC you have a ton of amazing farms
| that supply NYC. many farms in the hudson valley but
| you'd be surprised how many farms all the way to vermont
| and maine that distribute their fresh produce to the
| city. you also have a lot of rural space within a day
| drive of NYC.
|
| recently there was a massive flock of ducks that were
| culled at a farm in long island. all 19 million people
| don't eat eggs, but there are enough suburbs with green
| space surrounding the city that each of those
| neighborhoods could easily support their own egg
| production. that could surely help.
|
| i have a big spreadsheet of farms within a day's drive of
| NYC if you would like me to help you find fresh eggs. i
| can share the distributors too, that would be a good
| resource if you want to help supply the 19 million people
| of NYC with fresh eggs.
|
| > Where can the NYC metro area get fresh, local eggs to
| feed the 19 million people that live there?
|
| trying to reduce this to something like "there is NO WAY
| this could ever work" isn't a strong argument.
| likeabatterycar wrote:
| > within 7 hours of NYC
|
| Literally the definition of "not local"
|
| > help supply the 19 million people of NYC with fresh
| eggs
|
| This sounds like it could be one of Kramer's schemes on
| Seinfeld, where he's loaded his rusted-out jalopy with 5k
| eggs to bring into the city to sell for a profit, but
| somehow they end up all over the freeway and chaos
| ensues.
| greenie_beans wrote:
| > Literally the definition of "not local"
|
| lol that's hilarious. you can keep arguing about the
| semantics of that while panicking about the factory
| farmed egg shortage. it won't bother me because i'll be
| feasting on food grown by farmers i know, all within a
| day's drive from me. if you are lucky then the regional
| distributors will pick up the slack thanks to the "not
| local" farms.
| likeabatterycar wrote:
| Most people with jobs and families etc. don't have a day
| per week nor gas money to spare to drive seven hours each
| way to go egg foraging. It's great you can manage this
| luxury but it's just not practical and a fairytale life
| for 99% of people. Not to mention many people in NYC
| don't own a car.
| greenie_beans wrote:
| do you have a substantive argument or more ridicule?
| because i can go for both.
|
| would you like to see my spreadsheet of regional
| distributors who move food into NYC from small farms in
| the northeast? it's possible you've eaten this food. or
| would you like to see demographic and usda farming data
| when small farms were the primary food producers during a
| time when the NYC metro had a similary large population,
| before CAFOs and the centralized ag we know today? or
| were those people fed because they went egg foraging?
| AngryData wrote:
| To an extent, yeah. But farmland utilization has been
| dropping for decades. We are nowhere near not having enough
| farmland to feed people even if production efficiency was to
| drop significantly.
| GeoAtreides wrote:
| someone is leaving money on the table
|
| no reason not to hike up the prices: a. if everyone is doing it
| b. if the demand > supply
| kamarg wrote:
| | no reason not to hike up the prices
|
| Because they're happy with the income they're making from it
| probably. Not everything has to make the absolute maximum
| amount of profit possible.
| nnurmanov wrote:
| I should have invested in eggs and bitcoins
| taeric wrote:
| This is the kind of advice that can work for anyone, but can't
| work for everyone. Scale kills all things.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| Not necessarily. Supporting local is the opposite of
| supporting scale, it's supporting decentralization. A single
| local provider might not be able to sustain all local demand,
| but there need not be only 1 local provider.
| taeric wrote:
| Somewhat exactly? Supporting local is largely the opposite
| of supporting scale.
|
| Unless you have the idea that local farms can make up all
| of the sales that are done, then you are arguing for a
| practice that will result in a lower supply of goods. With
| a lower supply, you expect prices to rise until the demand
| adjusts down to a lower value, as well. No?
|
| Hence, this is great advice for anyone to try. But if
| everyone does it, things get more expensive as you lose out
| on the very advantages that led to the "at scale" solutions
| in the first place.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| Decentralization doesn't necessarily imply lower supply
| of goods, but it does almost certainly result in higher
| cost of goods (outside of compared to monopolies). That's
| the cost of market resilience: higher average cost for
| lower variance over time. Higher cost of goods may result
| in lower demand and then lower supply, but the causal
| order is the opposite direction from assuming
| decentralization means lower supply.
| djtriptych wrote:
| Came to say the same thing. Fortunate to have a store front on
| my block in brooklyn that sources primarily from area farms. No
| interruption in supply or change in prices (though I've always
| been paying in the $7 range).
|
| Besides all the arguments around diverse food supply and
| economic SPOFs, it just feels so much better to shop this way.
| jmyeet wrote:
| What I find endlessly fascinating is how often I see anti-
| capitalist sentiment, which your comment is, in the context of
| how often and how much people will defend capitalism and attack
| socialism. For the record, I don't know if the second part
| applies to you, specifically. This is a general observation.
|
| Local food production is quintessential socialism: it is quite
| literally the workers (the farmers) owning the means of
| production (the farm).
|
| When people hear that, they so often reject it with some
| variant of "no, that's a business; that's capitalism".
| Businesses (and markets) existed millenia before capitalism and
| exist in every economic system.
|
| The defining characteristic of capitalism is exploitation by
| capital owners. In the eggs case, it's Cal-Maine Foods (or any
| other large company) owning the land and in all likelihood
| employing undocumented workers because they can pay them sub-
| minimum wage. At least that's how the likes of Tyson produces
| chicken.
|
| It's also worth adding that something like avian flu is used to
| justify price hikes well beyond what the supply change would
| otherwise warrant.
| dawnerd wrote:
| What I find weird is people's aversion to buying the organic
| and local eggs. They had them for half the price as the factory
| farm eggs yet people weren't touching them.
| soerxpso wrote:
| I think it's largely a matter of routine. People have been
| buying the same eggs for years; switching is perceived as a
| risk by our monkey brains.
| monetus wrote:
| A lot of local eggs here will have slightly orange yolks and
| my family just won't do it, not even in cornbread.
| whalesalad wrote:
| the orange yolks are usually a sign of better hen health...
| the irony of this. they taste a lot better, too.
| monetus wrote:
| Sad, for sure.
| virtualwhys wrote:
| $4 and change here for locally sourced eggs in San Diego, CA,
| at an organic food store no less.
|
| Meanwhile, $9+ at commercial supermarket for bottom of the
| barrel factory produced eggs -- strange times...
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > Fresh, local eggs have remained around the same price here.
|
| Same here. Local eggs have gone up a bit, but it's mostly the
| cheap (caged) eggs from large producers that have shot up in
| price or are unavailable.
|
| We eat plenty of eggs and haven't felt the effect of the "egg
| crisis". But then again, I buy local eggs and don't shop at
| Walmrt/Kroger/etc.
| malkia wrote:
| We were thinking the other day getting some from the local
| farmer's market, but then hearing about the bird flu, and
| decided against it... :(
| Sparkyte wrote:
| This is how it should be. Consolidating egg production is a
| bane on society. It might make the profit cheaper but it also
| greatly increases the opportunity for cross contamination to
| occur due to the distances they have to travel. I always buy
| locally sourced.
| BeefWellington wrote:
| One of the things that's come up in several trade deals Canada
| has negotiated is how protectionist we (as a country) are when
| it comes to dairy.
|
| We have not experienced the massive increases in pricing on
| eggs. The supply management system effectively works to keep
| farms roughly below a certain size, and seems to have helped
| avoid large impacts on certain staple foods.
|
| The usual rhetoric against this is that we should be getting
| cheaper prices by letting in foreign competition. This ignores
| that doing so would allow foreign subsidies to wipe out our
| local supply of critical foodstuffs, then making us dependent.
|
| It's not an ideal system but it seems to have yielded some
| tangible results when things like bird flu are making their
| rounds.
| cpursley wrote:
| I built a little project to help with this over the break,
| still needs a lot of work - hopefully helpful for folks looking
| to connect with their local farmer:
|
| https://www.farmersstand.com/farmers-markets
| GrantMoyer wrote:
| Seems like a great time to stop eating eggs.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| They're tamasic, anyway.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| First they came for the chickens and I said nothing because I
| was not a chicken... What's next, avocados!?
| ozten wrote:
| I always wondered why the people "in reality" in the Matrix
| only ate grey gruel.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Yes, bird flu is bad.
|
| OTOH, the US egg industry has a history of price-fixing, and
| other dirty tricks.
|
| For instance: https://apnews.com/article/egg-producers-price-
| gouging-lawsu...
| rcpt wrote:
| Farm owners are not our friends. Example #1000000
| ThinkingGuy wrote:
| Cory Doctorow's commentary from 2 years ago:
|
| https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/23/cant-make-an-omelet/#keep...
| _tariky wrote:
| Perfect time to build chicken coop.
|
| Also eggs price is increasing globally witch is not good.
| spatley wrote:
| I built a chicken coop, mostly as a hobby, and the eggs were a
| bonus. the 1,000 in materials for the structure and 25 bucks a
| month in food and bedding make that amortization table go out a
| couple of decades before you see ROI.
|
| I joke that they are the most expensive organic eggs you can
| buy. ;)
| wiredfool wrote:
| That $800 first egg...
|
| 10 years back, we were getting eggs at something like 25c/egg
| in feed costs. But we had a bunch of birds that only laid
| every 2 or 3 days, so they were no where near as efficient as
| a first year dedicated layer. OTOH, they all had names, we
| had most of the egg colors, and the bantam eggs were so cute.
| And the one hen that basically only laid double yolkers.
| oaththrowaway wrote:
| Double yolkers are my favorite, always a pleasant surprise!
| declan_roberts wrote:
| We're able to keep the feed costs down simply because as a
| family of 7 with young kids we have a lot of food waste
| that the birds will happily gobble up.
|
| Also their bedding makes fantastic compost for next year's
| veggies.
|
| It's a nice system.
| wiredfool wrote:
| Leftover spaghetti and red sauce is hilarious when
| chickens get a hold of it.
| _tariky wrote:
| Health does not have a price.
|
| Owners of coops know how different are those organic eggs.
| Totally diffrent color of yolks, also they have totally
| different smell when they are cooked.
| declan_roberts wrote:
| I also notice that the yolks are bigger in my backyard hens
| vs store bought eggs.
|
| That could be a side-effect from slower winter laying
| though since we don't use an artificial light.
| jeffbee wrote:
| If your goal is to increase human-bird contact and contact
| between bird species during a bird flu pandemic, then sure.
| Perfect time!
|
| The California Dept. of Food and Agriculture has numerous
| alerts on their site regarding H5N1 spreading in non-commercial
| backyard flocks.
| Fomite wrote:
| Counterargument: Having a backyard poultry flock in the middle
| of an avian influenza pandemic (it is a pandemic in birds), is
| maybe not the best idea.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| A chicken coop is a major time investment for most
| urban/residential owners.
|
| Just keeping predators out alone is an ongoing effort, weather
| events damaging it, then the smell/near constant cleaning, sick
| chickens/vaccinations/health checks, and you better figure who
| is doing all of this if you ever want a vacation or are sick
| yourself.
|
| If you're a full time farmer, this is just your normal day, and
| a personal chicken coop isn't even a blip. But people with no
| farming/livestock experience don't even have an idea of what
| they're signing up for. I've known two different people that
| didn't last two years and were out thousands.
|
| And when the price of eggs go back down, taking it out is also
| work.
|
| PS - Check local zoning/rules; for example some have
| size/chicken limits or require it to be XYZ feet from the
| property line (due to smell/noise).
| shuckles wrote:
| My neighbor kept chickens in their backyard which caused
| issues in my yard with parasites and other pests. So it isn't
| even a PITA that you can contain to yourself.
| idlewords wrote:
| I've noticed a fun split among people I know--those who grew up
| on a farm will move heaven and earth never to deal with
| chickens again, while people who grew up in cities or suburbs
| are really into the idea.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Having dealt with my share of pig shit, chicken sheet and cow
| shit, I can assure you that chicken shit is the worst.
| programmertote wrote:
| Can you share a bit more? I grew up in a city and never
| knew the details of the farms (and interested). Thank you.
| everforward wrote:
| Not an industrial farmer, but we had chickens, horses and
| goats growing up.
|
| Chickens suck because they poop on _everything_ , and it
| dries into a glue-like substance caked onto things. The
| straw ends up caked in poop, the walls get caked in poop,
| the floor gets caked in poop, the chickens poop on each
| other. Getting it off requires a paint scraper, and
| getting way closer to it than you want. It's also
| liquid-y. It's a lot like bird poop on your car, but
| bigger because the bird is bigger.
|
| The horses were less bad. Their poop was fairly "clean"
| as far as things go. They stayed pretty structurally
| intact (it's basically a ball of half digested fiber,
| kind of like a hairball) so it wasn't a big deal to get
| them with a pitchfork, and they were almost exclusively
| on the ground. It's not a job I wanted to do, but it
| wasn't awful. The heat in the non air conditioned barn
| was honestly worse than the work.
| declan_roberts wrote:
| Our coop is off the ground. All I do is bring my
| wheelbarrow up to the door, open it up, rake it in, and
| then go dump. From my POV it's one of the easier chores.
| kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote:
| Didn't grow up with chickens, but have had them for 8 years
| now. Easiest pet I've ever owned, and they provide eggs.
| Haven't seen a weed in the yard in years. They'll decimate a
| garden bed, though.
| wglb wrote:
| I suspect "pets" are the distinguishing word.
| bombcar wrote:
| A big, big part of it is whether you had to do it as chores,
| and whether roosters were involved.
| tptacek wrote:
| I'm married to someone who grew up on a chicken farm, have
| never so much as threatened to own a chicken, and still hear
| the litany of how awful chickens are at least a couple times
| a year. They're apparently really, really nasty animals.
| wglb wrote:
| Grew up on a farm. Dealt with cows, horses, chickens.
| Chickens are by far the worst. Maybe bats would be worse.
| Happy to leave that as an exercise for someone else's
| imagination
| KaiserPro wrote:
| https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/historical-statisti...
|
| 16% in 2024 for the uk, but thats probably due to heating
| costs/the odd cull
|
| I've personally not seen a massive spike this year
| declan_roberts wrote:
| I agree. Just remember that hens take around 18 weeks or longer
| to start laying so get started sooner rather than later.
|
| And you can get an automatic coop door to make your life
| easier.
| proudestmonkey wrote:
| Time to buy chickens!!!
| rcpt wrote:
| On Craigslist live chickens are 2x the price of grocery store
| rotisserie chickens
| clircle wrote:
| And them watch them die from the avian flu?
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| It is worth considering how chicken exposure impacts your risk
| of contracting H5N1 and the state of current treatments, and
| likelihood of obtaining those treatments if you need them.
| taftster wrote:
| You'll have a significant upfront cost for the coop, fencing,
| feeders and other equipment. Around $1000-2000 or so. And
| presumably, you'll be buying baby chickens, which require their
| own special care. It takes about 6 months for a baby chicken to
| start laying eggs.
|
| But once you do that, you can maybe get to a reasonable place.
| The upfront cost being ignored, at today's egg prices, you can
| basically break even.
|
| I have 9 egg laying chickens. They go through about $30 of food
| per month. They need another $20 in bedding supplies. $50 /
| month basically. Plus I spoil them with meal worm treats, so
| add another $30 per month for that (but I'll ignore that in my
| numbers below).
|
| In winter, I average about 5 eggs per day out of my 9 chickens.
| In summer, it's closer to 8 per day. So we'll assume the best
| case here. 8 per day * 30 days per month =
| 240 eggs $50 per month supplies / 20 dozen eggs = $2.50
| / dozen
|
| So not bad overall. But in winter it's worse, and my costs are
| higher because I give them worms.
|
| We can't eat through all the eggs though, so we try to find
| nice people/places to give them away (single moms, food banks,
| etc.).
|
| Ultimately, raising chickens is just for fun. They are pets and
| enjoyable creatures. Highly recommend if you have the land for
| it (and no HOA rules).
| llm_nerd wrote:
| Here in Ontario I'm buying eggs for $2.99 / dozen, or about $2.10
| USD.
|
| This isn't a boast or schadenfreude, but is an observation that
| the protected, stable industry (supply management), which itself
| yields smaller, less industrialized operations means that while
| bird flu is a problem, it's hitting smaller clusters rather than
| gigantic mega operations where gigantic numbers of birds get
| culled.
|
| So while our eggs are more expensive at times, there are
| benefits.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| It's great for the industrial food processor or restaurant
| chain that has a consistent demand/menu for eggs.
|
| But more meh for the consumer that's more
| liquid/dynamic/reactive and can easily substitute ad hoc if
| something gets too expensive.
|
| It's an industrial subsidy at more than one level.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| Consumer demand for eggs and milk is _extremely_ consistent
| over the short term, and when the price explodes people
| just...pay more. Hence all of the mad rushes and bizarre
| hoarding behaviour for this perishable product across the US.
| People are just spending more of their income on eggs, and
| bizarrely might be buying even more than normal. Over decades
| people change habits but for something acute they just suck
| it up.
|
| >It's an industrial subsidy at more than one level.
|
| It's food security. There have been times Canadians were
| almost convinced to eliminate it to pander to the US, but in
| the face of the idiocracy taking hold down South, and its
| boom-bust agricultural sector (one that yields enormous
| numbers of farmer suicides)...yeah, it isn't ever going
| anywhere.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| If we wanted to be strategic about food security (and deem
| supply management to be the way to do it), we'd supply
| manage primary food energy like beans and oats. Oh, and
| crop inputs like fertilizer.
|
| Meat/eggs/dairy mostly destroys food energy. I guess you
| could argue the set pricing ensures food security for the
| animal.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| >we'd supply manage primary food energy like beans and
| oats
|
| We have enormous amounts of these crops, are hyper-
| competitive in them and fully self-supplying, and moreso
| they're very quick to turn around: A single season can
| yield enormous stockpiles of beans and oats.
|
| That isn't true for dairy farms, egg operations, and so
| on. These don't scale up nearly as quickly. If Canada
| allowed the unrestricted flow of US options in these
| industries, US booms and mass industrial operations would
| wipe out Canadian suppliers, leaving us hugely
| vulnerable.
|
| Like in the near future we might have an entire collapse
| of trade between the countries (as some new nonsensical
| exercise of brinksmanship is pursued, with new and
| ridiculous demands). We could wipe out 100% of foods that
| the US sends to Canada and be...perfectly fine,
| including, thankfully, poultry, milk and eggs. There are
| a lot of countries where this sort of food security
| independence isn't true.
|
| Recent events have amply proven how critical Canada's
| protection of these industries are, making it all the
| more ironic that they're such a target. For obvious
| reasons.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| > That isn't true for dairy farms, egg operations, and so
| on
|
| Because we don't let them grow (and for some reason don't
| believe in shelf-stable products).
|
| Biggest dairy exporter on the planet is New Zealand, I'd
| be more worried about them than USA. But we could've been
| NZ. Supply management kneecaps your ag industry. Lost
| opportunity if you're good at it, which Canada generally
| is.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Eggs store very well when refrigerated and are naturally optimal
| in terms of physical volume. Buy eggs in bulk and store them in a
| large mixing bowl or other round container in your refrigerator.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Eggs store pretty poorly in the fridge because liquids
| transpire through the shell. Within a month your egg will be
| 20% air.
| zo1 wrote:
| This is disturbing and not what I found with eggs at all -
| Are eggs somehow different in the US compared to the rest of
| the world?
| kleton wrote:
| Commercially, they wash the cuticle off the eggs in the US
| before they are sold. This means they have to be
| refrigerated.
| orev wrote:
| Eggs definitely have a permeable shell and water does
| evaporate out of them over time. 20% loss is absurd though;
| it would be more like 1%
| giblfiz wrote:
| Yep. In the U.S. the eggs are all machine washed which
| removes a natural protective outer coating (as well as
| dirt).
|
| This means that they don't store as well or as long, and
| really should be refrigerated. It _might_ reduce
| salmonella.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| > as well as dirt
|
| Well, more importantly, poop. The cloaca does all.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Yes. Eggs in the US are washed thoroughly. Removes
| potential pathogens but also removes the protective coating
| on the egg. Eggs in Europe are not washed.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Yes. In the US eggs are washed with soap and hot water
| after being laid. Most of the rest of the world doesn't do
| that. We simply arrange things so eggs don't lie in poop,
| then deliver them to the customer unwashed.
|
| Both methods work, but the washing process removes a
| protective layer from the eggs, causing them to require
| refrigeration and generally last not as long
| ars wrote:
| US eggs last exactly the same amount of time, and they do
| not actually require refrigeration, it's basically a
| custom at this point that customers expect.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Once the egg has been refrigerated (which it will be in
| shipping and in the supermarket) breaking the cold chain
| is, at best, risky; you'll potentially get condensation
| which can lead to contamination.
| ars wrote:
| I'm not just theorizing here, I've actually done it.
| Multiple times, as in, every day.
|
| I don't refrigerate my US eggs, I've been doing that for
| years, with zero problems.
| arjie wrote:
| This is so fascinating. I believe you, but I am one month
| from a newborn so I can't perform the experiment. It's
| like how for years on end I'd read explanations on Hacker
| News for why Japan's traffic lights were blue instead of
| green and I went there and they were identical to US
| lights. So I'm sceptical of these folk explanations that
| always go around. One day, years from now, I shall test
| it myself.
| ars wrote:
| It's also not true. You can keep US eggs out of the fridge
| with zero problems, and they do not "transpire" in a month,
| that's simply not true. I keep my US eggs for months at a
| time, out of the fridge, with zero problems.
|
| The whole washing thing causing problems, that multiple
| people have replied is a myth. They spray the eggs with
| mineral oil afterward which works just as well. There's
| nothing magical about the natural coating, it's just oil.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| Eggs in the US, Canada, Japan, Scandinavia, and a couple
| other countries are washed, which removes a layer that
| seals the egg. Eggs are a major vector for salmonella
| contamination; washing them materially reduces the
| incidence rates.
|
| It is not egg specific. The countries that wash their eggs
| have atypically strong standards for bacterial
| contamination hygiene in food processing. Many food
| products from Europe are prohibited from import into the US
| due to insufficient safeguards against bacterial
| contamination during processing. There is an entire
| business where Scandinavian factories process food from
| distant parts of Europe to satisfy US food safety
| requirements for export.
|
| As a general principle, the US does not create exemptions
| in food processing regulations on the basis that the
| existing process is "traditional" or has a long history.
| Many other countries do.
| adrian_b wrote:
| Europeans do not wash their eggs like the Americans,
| because they believe that this is a poor method for
| preventing Salmonella contamination, which has the
| serious drawback of increasing the chance that the eggs
| will not be safe for consumption when stored for a too
| long time.
|
| In Europe, poultry vaccination against Salmonella is the
| preferred method. In most places Salmonella occurrences
| are exceedingly rare.
|
| In general, Europeans believe that USA has atypically
| weak standards of food safety and that all the cases when
| certain kinds of European food are prohibited for import
| into USA on grounds of food safety are just cover-up
| stories, because the real reason is to avoid competition.
|
| It is weird that USA has a phobia of vaccines even for
| poultry, because in this case there is no doubt that
| vaccines would have prevented the great financial losses
| caused by bird flu.
| wahern wrote:
| There's some evidence that livestock vaccination
| accelerates viral pathogen evolution, similar to
| antibiotics with bacteria. Even with vaccination, modern
| sanitation and isolation procedures would and should
| still be required.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| The US FDA's position on this is well-reasoned.
|
| US eggs are generally vaccinated against salmonella _and_
| washed. The vaccination part isn 't mandatory but it is
| cost effective so producers do it anyway. The
| effectiveness of the salmonella vaccines is middling at
| best and unpredictable -- eggs are still a major source
| of salmonella outbreaks in Europe. The benefit of washing
| eggs versus vaccines is that it produces a _reliable
| result_ whereas the vaccine effectiveness has high
| variance. Also, this isn 't a "European" thing, some
| parts of Europe also wash their eggs for the same reason.
| The US only started washing eggs in the 1970s, in a
| successful effort to reduce salmonella incidence.
|
| Salmonella vaccines that work consistently and
| effectively in poultry are still an active area of
| research, it isn't a solved problem.
|
| Regardless of what you believe, US food regulations
| regarding bacterial contamination are significantly
| stricter than Europe outside of Scandinavia. There are a
| number of well-known cases where European producers
| modified or upgraded their production processes to meet
| US sanitary requirements to enable exports. Scandinavian
| countries notably don't have to do this because their
| standards are similar to the US.
|
| There may be other dimensions of food safety that are
| better in Europe but mitigating bacterial contamination
| is famously not one of them.
| drivebyhooting wrote:
| Round mixing bowl does not pack well into refrigerator. Surely
| the flat pack they come in is better?
|
| Also I store eggs outside the fridge. It works fine.
| orev wrote:
| Eggs have famously short shelf life, even in the refrigerator.
| They're not going to last more than a month if you're lucky.
| The egg cartons they're sold in are already the most optimized
| way to store them. Moving them into something else doesn't make
| any sense.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| >famously short shelf life, even in the refrigerator.
|
| 15 weeks!
|
| https://tellus.ars.usda.gov/stories/articles/how-we-store-
| ou...
| pton_xd wrote:
| I'd call a month in the fridge a pretty long shelf life. An
| open container of chicken stock barely lasts a week.
| matwood wrote:
| I wonder if that's just the US (because they wash off the
| coating) or everywhere. Out of habit, I still put eggs I buy
| in Italy in the refrigerator even though they are stored at
| room temperature at the store.
| drawkward wrote:
| fresh eggs are even better and do not require refrigeration at
| all
| thot_experiment wrote:
| Oblate spheroid packing is anything but optimal! Eggs that
| perfectly tile 3-space when?
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Sadly Wolfram Alpha doesn't understand the 'Easter Basket
| Packing' problem yet, but it's definitely do-able.
|
| Edit: This is an interesting problem that ChatGPT can't quite
| hatch. It immediately gets confused and thinks 100 eggs fit
| in a 5L mixing bowl!
| MisterTea wrote:
| My friends parents live on a nice piece of land in rural Maryland
| and have chicken coops. The chickens eat just about anything so
| food scraps go to them making them great recyclers: garbage ->
| food. Also cuts down on the amount of feed they need to buy. Any
| time I visit I get a dozen or two of fresh eggs.
| uticus wrote:
| question: why hasn't this had a side effect of raising food
| prices in general? a significant percentage of foodstuffs involve
| eggs.
| criddell wrote:
| It's starting to. Waffle House recently added an egg surcharge
| to their menu.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| It certainly has. Raw chicken has noticeably gone up in price
| as well, and poultry is completely unavailable at some
| retailers.
|
| But a lot of restaurants in my area have been price gouging
| under the guise of "inflation, it's out of our control" and
| have much more room to absorb price increases, to a point.
| jnmandal wrote:
| Meanwhile, my chickens cost exactly the same as they did 12
| months ago. :)
| codingdave wrote:
| Which is great, so long as your flock does not get the flu and
| die.
|
| We have had chickens in the past, and while I fully support
| anyone wanting to do their own chickens, the level of effort to
| keep them clean and healthy, safe from predators, and the labor
| to take care of them is non-trivial. They were the most
| expensive and labor-intensive "free eggs" we ever had.
| oaththrowaway wrote:
| I have lost 2 flocks of chickens to a combination of
| raccoons, foxes, and skunks. Interestingly enough none of
| those could kill my turkeys - they are big enough to fight
| them off I guess. They don't lay as many eggs though.
|
| It is a lot of work, but after my last group was killed off 2
| months I have not impressed by store eggs, so I'm planning on
| re-enforcing my coop so I can get another group of them soon.
| theonething wrote:
| > I have not impressed by store eggs
|
| Curious to know what differences do you discern between
| store and fresh eggs? Not doubting you, just curious to
| know.
| binarymax wrote:
| Not the author but for me the taste is obvious. It's like
| the difference between the cheapest eggs and the pasture
| raised you get at the store.
| declan_roberts wrote:
| Also the yolks are noticeably bigger and darker on the
| home flock. More yolk has a big impact on flavor.
| MrLeap wrote:
| In my experience they taste richer. The yolks are more
| orange than yellow.
| latentcall wrote:
| Backyard chicken eggs for me are much richer and fuller
| flavor. I also keep Black Copper Marans and those eggs
| are delicious.
| bombcar wrote:
| Go here: https://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/chicks.html and
| click "good/better/best" for egg production.
|
| Note the wide variety. When you're doing a backyard
| chicken coop, you can pick whatever you want, for
| whatever reason (Rhode Island Red for hardiness, say, or
| a combo for variety). So not only do you have feed
| variation, you have breed variation, which can contribute
| to taste differences.
|
| You also have freshness, as you use the eggs within a day
| or so of laying.
| oaththrowaway wrote:
| During the summer I was getting ~9-10 eggs a day, and we
| probably averaged eating 6 a day - so besides the size
| and taste, a big thing is that unwashed eggs last a long
| time.
| joe8756438 wrote:
| i have a simple system for keep my birds safe from land
| predators.
|
| so the birds get a point for each level of protection they
| receive. each group needs two points to be safe.
|
| i mainly raise geese, which are tough, not going to be
| bothered by a hawk. geese (turkeys similar) start with one
| point. an electric fence is one point, a fully enclosed
| coop is one point, night light (.5?), guard animal (.5?).
| chickens are always inventing ways to die, so they start
| with 0 (should probably be -1).
|
| fingers crossed i haven't lost any geese to land predators
| in three years and only one chicken that flew the
| enclosure. hawks have taken a few chickens, but never when
| the geese are around.
| declan_roberts wrote:
| I know people here who specifically add a "guard goose"
| to their hen flock for protection. They swear it helps
| against predators.
|
| We have a very reinforced coop and an automatic coop door
| so we've never had any issues.
| joe8756438 wrote:
| yeah, they deter aerial predators, but you can't have too
| much room for them to roam away from the geese. in my
| experience you need to have the geese and chickens
| together within about 200sq feet.
| reginald78 wrote:
| Do skunks hunt chickens? We lost ours when we were a kid to
| raccoons and weasels. The later being better suited to
| getting into the coop.
|
| Our neighbor's chickens were devoured by black bears twice.
| They had one wily chicken that managed to escape both
| events however.
| oaththrowaway wrote:
| I've never seen one actually kill a chicken but I killed
| one a little bit ago that was in there eating a carcass.
| And that's what I've seen come sniffing around the traps
| I leave. I've trapped 2 skunks in the last year - only 1
| raccoon, and he was able to make an escape. Smartest
| animals I've had to battle in the wild.
| joe8756438 wrote:
| yes. i have a flock and the feed alone puts a doz at $3.
|
| the labor is somewhat enjoyable and the chickens are
| incredible child-leftover disposal machines. but when you
| factor infrastructure and labor youll probably never recoup
| your "investment" in eggs.
|
| for anyone dealing with land predators, get electric poultry
| net. it's magic.
| declan_roberts wrote:
| Is that true even right now in the winter? My hens are
| basically pensioners at this point. I'm planning on
| refreshing the flock this spring.
| GeoAtreides wrote:
| what will it happen with the old hens?
| bombcar wrote:
| Most layers do ok the first year, great the second, and
| then taper off. If you have old crockpot recipes, they
| can taste great after egg production drops off.
|
| But they can keep laying for quite some time.
|
| You can reduce the feed costs by letting them graze
| (though even a few chickens will lay waste to an average
| sized backyard if given the chance) and/or using
| household food waste.
| joe8756438 wrote:
| yeah, on a small scale it's actually pretty easy to make
| a decent dent in the feed bill. once you get over a dozen
| hens though it would take a few adults to make enough
| waste. chickens eat a lot!
| declan_roberts wrote:
| We'll give these ones away. Somebody will take them in
| and get eggs out of them for another year probably.
| joe8756438 wrote:
| im in md, and my hens have been laying all winter, no
| artificial light. they are a hybrid cross i bought from a
| local egg producing farm. i think they are called sex
| linked reds (not sure).
|
| it's crazy how many eggs they lay.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| You say that, but just wait until they unionize.
| zie wrote:
| Fake/Vegetarian eggs are priced the same here, so I made the
| switch and am only using fake eggs now for most of my cooking.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| arent eggs already vegetarian
| epistasis wrote:
| The usage of the term "vegetarian" in the US is not
| consistent enough to come up with a precise definition,
| probably due to the mixture of so many cultures bringing
| their variation and translations. So it's always good to
| clarify on particular food items in my experience. Some will
| consider eggs part of a vegetarian diet, others will be
| practically offended at the ridiculousness of the idea.
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| Huh? I'm American and even used to work as a professional
| line cook. Vegetarian has only ever meant "no meat
| products" to me. Vegan means "no animal products of any
| kind", and anything else requires a more specific phrase
| like "I'm vegetarian, and also I don't eat eggs", or "I
| can't eat any dairy products at all", or whatever.
| notTooFarGone wrote:
| Yeah poeple are overcomplicating the shit out of that.
|
| The times I have to explain people "It's just not meat"
| is through the roof.
| zie wrote:
| Some vegetarians make exceptions for eggs, but I wouldn't
| call it "vegetarian" personally. You do you though.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism
| vips7L wrote:
| Technically since they're not meat and aren't born, but
| they're not vegan or ethical. The treatment of hens is
| inhumane.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| i'm vegan, just describing the state of modern american
| understandings of words
| vips7L wrote:
| Sorry I didn't mean to come off as "hot".
| whimsicalism wrote:
| on reflection you didn't, another reply did
| dastbe wrote:
| Eggs are definitely a grey area for vegetarians, to the point
| where vegetarians will describe ovo-lacto-vegetarians where
| they are ok with eggs (and animal milk) whereas others
| aren't.
| sonar_un wrote:
| I've been vegan for over 15 years, but even when I was
| vegetarian, I never really considered eggs to be
| vegetarian. Though some people do.
| mullingitover wrote:
| Yes.
|
| Vegetarians don't eat meat (including fish, although some
| religious sects have a marketing deal with fishermen to count
| fish as a vegetable for some reason), do eat animal products.
|
| Vegans don't eat meat and also don't eat animal products.
| dml2135 wrote:
| I always found this a funny etymological thing. Going just
| by the words themselves, if you asked me to guess which was
| which, I'd say they should be reversed -- "vegetarian"
| seems to clearly imply "eats a diet made up of vegetables"
| whereas "vegan" is more ambiguous and seems to fit "mostly
| eats vegetables but also will eat some non-meat animal
| products".
|
| But what I'm guessing happened is that the less-strict diet
| came first (at least in the modern era), so got the
| "vegetarian" moniker, and then we just needed another work
| for the strict no-animal-products diet so had to come up
| with "vegan".
| mullingitover wrote:
| The term goes back to the Vegetarian Society in England,
| and was also popularized by Seventh Day Adventists in the
| US. The SDA church is fairly large at about 22 million
| members, and they've always promoted vegetarianism,
| meaning meat free diet with animal products.
| OJFord wrote:
| It's not a strictly defined term, in the UK people generally
| mean lacto-ovo-vegetarian by it (they will eat eggs and milk)
| but many combinations are possible and what's most common
| varies geographically - in India for example it would
| generate taken to mean lacto-vegetarian (milk, no eggs).
|
| Wikipedia has a nice table:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism#Varieties
| PyWoody wrote:
| Are there any particular brands that you like?
| zie wrote:
| I've only ever tried one brand. It's the only brand my local
| grocery store carries. It's a yellow carton with black
| writing, if that helps. I'm too lazy to go walk into the
| kitchen at the moment though.
| chneu wrote:
| Just Egg! Is the brand. It's really simple and easy to make
| at home too. It's just mung beans and black salt blended
| very well. You can bulk order yellow mung beans for super
| cheap.
| myvoiceismypass wrote:
| The book "Making Vegan Meat" by Mark Thompson has a great
| recipe for this (amongst other things). It was kinda wild
| how easy it was to make well.
| chneu wrote:
| There are a bunch of really good vegan cookbooks. I have
| indian, korean, african and south american vegan
| cookbooks. They're great and most of the recipes are
| really easy to make. I'd also add the fermentation bible
| to that.
| stickmangallows wrote:
| I use different things based on what it's for. Ground flax
| seeds for baking, aquafaba for souffles, tofu with black salt
| for scrambles, "Just Egg!" for egg wash when frying, and
| maple syrup for egg wash on breads. Of those, I mostly bake,
| so keeping the flax seeds around is much more convenient for
| me than regularly buying eggs anyway.
| niceice wrote:
| Did you find some that aren't filled with terrible oils and
| other bad-for-you ingredients? I haven't in my area yet.
| chneu wrote:
| Just fyi the whole "vegan foods are full of toxins and
| chemicals" is mostly nonsense pushed by the dairy and beef
| industries. They've spent a lot of money paying fitness, alt-
| right, and trad-wife influencers to push nonsense about vegan
| foods.
|
| The one I love is the "there will be mass famine" if everyone
| goes vegan narrative that meat-heavy eaters like to talk
| about.
| niceice wrote:
| Just fyi fake eggs and fake meat and fake butter are highly
| processed and include bad ingredients like other highly
| processed food.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Canola oil consumption is associated with same the human
| health outcomes as olive oil.
|
| Despite what you hear on social media, "seed oils" and
| margarine (which doesn't have trans fats anymore) are
| still preferable to butter.
|
| People who really want butter and other foods to be good
| for them tend to have a blind spot where if they convince
| themselves that X is bad, then butter is good because
| it's not X. And because of this, they weaken their
| epistemic standard when it comes to proving that X is
| bad, often satisfied with story-telling about how it must
| be bad, because it's connected to their belief that not-X
| is good. Just something I've noticed in the seed oils
| social media fad.
| chneu wrote:
| what do you mean by highly processed? Are you aware of
| what the words you're using actually mean? I've worked in
| food production for 20+ years and "processed" is one of
| the most misused terms in food.
|
| To be clear, if you cook food you have processed it. If
| you mechanically separate food it is now processed. If
| you chemically treat any ingredient for any
| reason(bleaching, cleaning, etc) it is now processed. The
| term is meaningless without context. Do you also say
| there are "chemicals in water"?
|
| Just because something is "processed" does not mean it is
| bad. "Fake Eggs" are "processed" because they're
| mechanically blended and have a pretty standard
| emulsifier in it. There are no health trade offs here.
| The product is not "bad" because it's been blended or has
| an all-natural emulsifier. It's just nonsense to call
| something like that "highly processed".
|
| Most "highly processed" vegan products are about as
| "processed" as a loaf of standard bread you'd buy in the
| aisle at the store. If mixing flour with oil is "highly
| processed" then you have no idea what you're talking
| about.
|
| The hysteria towards veg products being "highly
| processed" is nonsense from the beef/dairy/carnivore
| misinformation machine. This is up there with the myth
| that "vegan diets are more expensive", lol.
|
| Be aware that when you say the things you said, you're
| appealing to the misinformed crowd. The words lack
| meaning and context. These words, "highly processed" and
| such, are used to evoke an emotional reaction. It isn't
| based in data or science.
|
| Context is extremely important. Without context you're
| not saying anything intelligent. It's the same thing that
| flat earthers or anti-vaxxers do. They appeal to emotion,
| not reality.
|
| Furthermore, even with the hysteria around "high
| processed vegan foods", they're STILL associated with
| better health outcomes. That's the funny part of this.
| When put into context, even the "bad vegan foods" are
| still much better for most people than the "all-natural
| animal products". You can even expand on this further by
| including the environmental cost. Vegan products are
| about 20x less resource intensive from an environmental
| viewpoint than animal products. So, better health,
| cheaper, better for the environment. Wins all around.
| camel-cdr wrote:
| One packet of Kala Namak salt goes a long way.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| This tofu scramble recipe became an instant staple in my
| diet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc5pZ-PY-H8
|
| Tastes more eggy and hearty than real eggs. And, like eggs,
| it's a good base for throwing in other ingredients like
| chopped tempeh, seitan, some sort of grain, mushrooms, etc.
|
| It's a good gateway recipe into eating tofu in general.
| christophilus wrote:
| Gonna try that out. I just made her latest Chinese-style
| tofu and rice... super good.
|
| Derek Sarno has some really good vegan breakfasts, too, if
| you haven't tried them.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7sIBlpnAvQ
| pkaye wrote:
| Which one do you use? I was looking up the Just Egg brand in
| the US and it was more expensive than the free range chicken
| eggs brand we use. We've been trying have a more plant based
| diet but just stick with chicken eggs for now because we don't
| use it every day.
| zie wrote:
| My local grocery store only has 1 brand, so I use that one. I
| don't know the brand, but apparently others say it's "Just
| Egg". I have no idea. I don't pay attention. If I ever got
| another option, I'd try that one too and then perhaps care :)
|
| I agree if the pricing wasn't basically the same I wouldn't
| have even attempted the switch.
|
| I just happened to notice the cost of eggs going up again and
| saw fake eggs at the same price and thought, well I'll try
| those, why not!
| joecool1029 wrote:
| I live in NJ on some bird migration routes, the area I'm in has
| nesting snow geese right now and they are infected, birds dead,
| dying, and struggling to fly, some of the parks have been closed
| to the public due to concern of it skipping to humans. There's at
| least one large egg farm only around a 5 minute drive from this
| flock (one of ISE's). I have no idea if it skipped in there but
| given the short distance it's very possible.
| colonial wrote:
| Yup, bird flu moment. I'm very glad my family put up a chicken
| coop in our backyard years ago; we get a ~carton a day, and they
| last forever even outside the fridge due to the natural "sealant"
| still being intact.
|
| Hopefully store prices will come down as the year goes on and
| flocks bounce back.
| ars wrote:
| The commercial eggs also last forever outside the fridge. That
| thing about the natural sealant is a widely believed myth.
|
| Source: I leave my commercial eggs outside the fridge, and they
| last with zero problems.
| declan_roberts wrote:
| I don't think it's a myth compared to unwashed eggs.
|
| You should try leaving washed eggs out on the counter for 20+
| days (incubation for a chicken) and see.
| ars wrote:
| I've left them for 2 months (I found a big sale, so I
| bought a bunch). The yolk broke easily when I opened the
| egg, but it was perfectly fine to eat. And it was not small
| and dried out as implied by someone in the thread.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Food borne illnesses are not a guarantee, and doing the
| thing the FDA calls dangerous a hundred times might still
| mean you never get sick, because you got lucky or some
| other safety caught you.
|
| I have eaten genuinely year old (and older) eggs with no
| issues. That doesn't mean it is a myth that eggs only
| last 5 weeks in the fridge, it just means that I was
| putting myself in extra danger out of a weird sense of
| frugality and laziness.
|
| I've also eaten pounds and pounds of raw cookie dough and
| not gotten sick, but that doesn't mean raw cookie dough
| doesn't have an inherent salmonella danger (ironically
| for this conversation it mostly comes from the flour!)
| nearbuy wrote:
| This is true, but the FDA doesn't back up the original
| claim that unwashed eggs don't need to be refrigerated.
| They say to put all eggs in the fridge.
| bena wrote:
| Are you implying that these eggs would incubate chicks? Or
| are you using the incubation time as a sort of natural
| timer? Like they _would_ last that long if they were
| unwashed, but washed eggs wouldn 't last even the
| incubation period.
| bink wrote:
| As I understand it this can be safe or not-so-safe depending
| on where you live. If you're in the US you're likely buying
| sanitized eggs, whereas that's not standard practice in most
| other countries.
| sva_ wrote:
| > source: anecdote/survivorship bias
| sethammons wrote:
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8561600/
|
| what myth are you talking about?
|
| The study found that washed eggs had higher bacterial counts
| in their contents after storage compared to unwashed eggs,
| particularly at higher temperatures. Key findings include:
|
| Cold Storage (4degC for 8 weeks): There was no significant
| difference in bacterial counts between washed and unwashed
| eggs.
|
| Warm Storage (30degC for 12 days): Washed eggs showed
| significantly higher bacterial contamination, suggesting that
| washing increased the likelihood of bacterial penetration.
|
| Bacterial Types: The number of hemolytic bacteria and coli-
| aerogenes was also higher in washed eggs.
| ars wrote:
| First of all the washing procedure they used is not what is
| used commercially. Commercially they also spray mineral oil
| on the eggs which this study did not do.
|
| And then of course there's this line:
|
| "These differences between unwashed and washed eggs are not
| significant."
| gretch wrote:
| I've been thinking about this for a while as well
|
| A question if you have time to answer - How many birds per sq
| meter do you have? What's your total land area? And how do you
| deal with accumulation of chicken poop?
|
| Thanks
| jkestner wrote:
| With a coop, it's a bit like a litter box. We put down hay,
| and change it out with the poop every couple of weeks, into a
| compost pile.
|
| Chickens are way easier than a dog or cat day-to-day, with
| distributed risk.
| colonial wrote:
| Off the top of my head:
|
| * Maybe 0.25 birds/square meter? There's ~12 total (we raise
| some for slaughter now, so it fluctuates) and they have a
| large enclosed outdoor area attached to the much smaller
| (6m^2, perhaps a bit more) indoor coop.
|
| * Several acres. We let them free roam during the day with
| someone to supervise, but otherwise they have to stay secured
| (coyotes.)
|
| * Inside the coop, the standard way is the "deep litter"
| method. You cover the floor in several inches of pine
| shavings and turn it over with a rake daily. Add a new bag of
| shavings here and there, and cycle it out completely maybe
| twice a year. The old bedding makes for good compost. If it
| doesn't smell, then you're good. For the outdoor area, we
| just auger it over and add mulch/soil around the same time
| the bedding is replaced.
|
| (Note - tending to the birds hasn't been in my wheelhouse for
| a while, so don't take this as gospel!)
| mcv wrote:
| What's going on with eggs in the US? The whole world had high
| inflation after Covid, so that's not US-specific, but eggs
| tripling in price? That is extreme. I don't think my (Dutch,
| free-range organic) eggs went up more than 25%.
| idlewords wrote:
| Bird flu is what's going on.
| autoexec wrote:
| It's just greed. A couple years ago Cal-Maine Foods, whose
| birds were never infected at all, raised their prices anyway
| and their profits went up 718%
| https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/29/business/egg-profits-cal-
| main...
| dan-robertson wrote:
| Why is it that egg producer greed/generosity matches well
| with the times when there is an egg supply
| shortage/surfeit?
| autoexec wrote:
| it doesn't. The largest egg producer in the nation had no
| infected birds. There was no shortage. The companies just
| conspired to restrict supply so that they could gouge
| consumers and stuff their pockets. They were ordered to
| pay millions in fines because of it
| (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/egg-suppliers-ordered-to-
| pay-17...)
|
| They successfully tricked you into thinking that their
| prices are set by supply and demand. They're probably not
| the only company fooling you either. For just one other
| example, literal tons of unsold/unworn, perfectly
| wearable and desirable clothing gets shipped overseas,
| burned, or thrown into the ocean or landfills. The excess
| supply of clothing is so vast that it's now a form of
| pollution (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment
| /article/chile...). If clothing prices were set by supply
| and demand they'd be paying us to take the clothes off
| the rack. Supply and demand are a good explanation of
| economics for grade schoolers, but it doesn't explain the
| world we live in.
| renewiltord wrote:
| You've got this great opportunity to outcompete Aritzia
| and you're not doing it? They have no hold over you. When
| they conspire, just don't play along, like Zuck rejected
| Apple. Pick 50% their margin. You'll be a billionaire in
| a year.
| autoexec wrote:
| Zuckerberg has no ethics and is just mad that apple's
| lack of ethics isn't working in his favor. A businessman
| with ethics has very little chance of dethroning an
| entrenched cartel within a corrupt industry. The
| hypothetical ethical business looking to outcompete their
| rivals may be the only one willing to set fair prices,
| but they also won't be able/willing to do what their
| competitors do. They won't exploit
| slaves/children/workers to make their products. They
| won't bribe governments to pass laws and regulations to
| keep out competition. They won't cut corners by using
| poisons in their products and manufacturing knowing it
| will harm their workers and consumers. They won't dump
| their waste into the ocean and pollute the environment.
| They won't collude to set prices, limit supply, or shut
| out anyone who doesn't play along.
|
| The idea that you can defeat greedy corporations just by
| treating customers better is a fiction. There's always
| more money to be made by screwing over everyone at every
| opportunity, and there's no shortage of greedy people
| willing to do exactly that. It's why we need the kinds of
| laws, regulations, and enforcement that even the playing
| field and allow ethical companies to thrive.
|
| You can't jump into the middle of a rigged game where the
| referees have been bought off and expect to win by
| following all of the rules. You have to stop the cheaters
| and the cheating first to even have a chance.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Oh I see. And how much would t-shirts made by this non-
| slave ethical corporation be?
| autoexec wrote:
| I've never owned a t-shirt that wasn't made by an
| unethical clothing industry which uses child slaves and
| abuses workers in sweatshops to produce hundreds of tons
| of clothing filled with plastics and poison every single
| year most of which will be burned or left to rot in a
| desert on the other side of the world from the retail
| shop that overpriced it when they sold it to me.
|
| I have no idea what the fair market price of a t-shirt
| would be in a world where no one had to compete with the
| practices of the current industry. I do know that it'd be
| worth every penny. The price being paid now in
| environmental harm, inequality, and human suffering is
| way too high.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| It's not particularly hard to find clothes that are made
| ethically. I do it for most clothes I own. It's even
| easier if (and more expensive) if you wear more
| traditional clothes (wool suits, coats, dress shoes,
| etc). You can avoid a lot of the abuses by buying things
| made in more developed countries (though obviously
| workers still won't be paid terribly well, and the
| garment industry in the United States has some unpleasant
| corners). This tends to make clothes more expensive,
| especially as higher quality, more expensive inputs tend
| to be used too, but you can probably find a tee that
| isn't particularly pricey.
|
| I'm kinda surprised you never tried to do this
| considering how easy it is and how much your comments
| seem to suggest that you care. Possibly we're talking
| past one another and you wouldn't find any clothing
| companies that meet your ethical standards.
| tptacek wrote:
| You can just pull this up in FRED and match the spikes to
| HPAI outbreaks. People aren't making this up. If it's a
| spurious correlation, it's a really weird and powerful
| one.
| autoexec wrote:
| It's not a coincidence. Companies know that if they
| suddenly raised the cost of their products 100% consumers
| would protest. At a certain point people will notice that
| they're being cheated and change their shopping habits
| accordingly.
|
| Companies use opportunities like bird flu outbreaks to
| rip off consumers while deflecting blame. When the
| nation's largest supplier of eggs didn't have a single
| bird infected they still jacked up their prices and
| colluded with other farms to keep prices high and supply
| low because the news was constantly telling consumers
| about bird flu and setting an expectation that prices
| would be higher.
|
| When the pandemic came, there were legitimate supply
| chain issues and many companies took the opportunity to
| appeal directly to their customers saying "We hate to
| increase prices at a time when every household is
| suffering, but we have no choice because of the supply
| chain! We're all in this together!" and because consumers
| knew we were in an unprecedented situation, while they
| still weren't happy about the price increases, they
| didn't blame the corporations for it.
|
| The corporations however took advantage of the situation
| and continued increasing prices far higher than they
| needed to and for much longer than they needed to.
| Consumers didn't start to catch on until much much later
| when the news began reporting that all these companies
| were making record breaking profits the entire time. Meat
| packers for example had their profit margins increase
| 300%. Unfortunately by then they'd already been working
| hard to plant the idea that their high prices were caused
| by the disaster relief checks that went out to households
| during lockdowns. Then they blamed the "inflation" their
| own greed was feeding to justify raising their prices
| even higher. The more the news talked about inflation the
| more companies could rip you off because the expectation
| of higher prices was set.
|
| The truth usually comes out eventually. Mostly when we
| finally see what the profit margins look like. They can
| hide some of it with clever investments and hollywood
| accounting, but it's harder to hide the money they make
| for shareholders and while they're doing everything they
| can to trick the public into thinking that we should feel
| sorry for them and sacrifice more for them, they're also
| busy telling investors that they're pulling in record
| profits and their pockets are overflowing with our cash.
| tptacek wrote:
| The entire egg industry is a conspiracy, like when that
| one guy at ADM price-fixed the lysine industry, except
| keyed to outbreaks of HPAI. I see.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Why wouldn't you pick the time when the public would be
| convinced a price rise is justifiable in order to raise
| prices (on a fairly inelastic good?) That isn't what you
| need a conspiracy for; the biggest would just press
| release that they were doing it, and the rest would
| follow. You might need a conspiracy to keep smaller
| producers from defecting from the price the biggest are
| setting, but the defectors wouldn't actually have the
| capacity to replace the price fixers, so they'd just be
| setting money on fire by not following.
|
| I think it's pretty clear that they do explicitly discuss
| fixing prices with each other, but there's no actual need
| to do that.
|
| https://farmaction.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Farm-
| Action...
|
| edit: also, check out frozen potatoes
| https://jacobin.com/2025/01/french-fry-price-fixing-
| antitrus...
| tptacek wrote:
| Notice how that's not a story about price-fixing of a
| commodity but of a (delicious) intermediate industrial
| product destined for ultra-sophisticated buyers. There's
| no story about people price-fixing potatoes.
|
| Also notice how the prices don't move up and down with
| incidents of potato blight or whatever.
|
| Further: for this to be explanatory, you have to show
| why, after HPAI outbreaks subside... _prices come back
| down_.
| autoexec wrote:
| > There's no story about people price-fixing potatoes.
|
| Like these people? https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-
| settlements/closed-settl...
|
| > for this to be explanatory, you have to show why, after
| HPAI outbreaks subside... prices come back down.
|
| It doesn't matter if prices sometimes go down, what
| matters is why. As it turns out, the answer to that is
| collusion. https://apnews.com/article/egg-producers-
| price-gouging-lawsu...
|
| When companies work together to set prices they can lower
| them a little sometimes (while still increasing their
| profits) and ruthlessly gouge the hell of out consumers
| the rest of the time hopefully without raising too much
| suspicion.
| tptacek wrote:
| They sued every major potato producer in the United
| States and got a $5.5MM settlement.
| soerxpso wrote:
| Because to certain people, when a company lowers prices
| to compete because of an increase in supply, it's the
| competitive free market doing its things (not
| generosity), but when they increase prices because of a
| decrease in supply, it's greed.
| autoexec wrote:
| It's always greed. Companies will charge as much as they
| possibly can while maximizing their profits. It doesn't
| matter if the price of something goes up or down this
| week, in either case the change only happens because the
| company thinks they'll make more money by offering the
| product at that new price.
| empath75 wrote:
| Bird flu
| bluedino wrote:
| Meanwhile, chicken prices haven't increased at KFC, Hooters, or
| Popeyes.
| ars wrote:
| That's because chickens raised for meat don't live long
| enough to be affected.
|
| A second reason is because chickens get sick by contact with
| wild bids, due to free range laws for egg laying chickens.
|
| Meat chickens don't go outside, they are kept in large barns,
| although without the pens and egg collection of their egg
| laying sisters. So they are not affected.
| liminal-dev wrote:
| A sign of what's to come.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| An avian influenza outbreak has killed roughly 20 million
| chickens so far and is not yet over.
| tzs wrote:
| Massive bird flu outbreak that has killed many egg laying
| chickens and required euthanizing many more to try to contain
| the spread.
|
| In just the last 3 months over 30 million chickens were killed,
| which is about 10% of the total US egg laying chicken
| population. Overall the US has lost so far something like 40%
| of its egg laying chickens.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| I guess the flu hasn't made it to the EU, large eggs at Lidl
| have been about 28 cents each for many months now.
| stevenwoo wrote:
| Bird flu in the US has spread to wild animals and other
| species of wild and domesticated animals so it is very
| widespread, also there is a vaccine but poultry farms
| refuse to use it because of cost and it would make the
| meat/eggs not suitable for export, poultry producers have
| resorted to making their poultry farms as clean as
| possible, washing trucks that come onto property, making
| employees wash and wear protective clothing to prevent
| contamination and the disease still makes it onto these
| farms. The method we used last time we had bird flu
| pandemic on poultry farms was mass culling of flocks that
| had any infected birds, but it has not worked for long this
| time so the cycle of kill flock, clean everything out,
| raise new birds raises long term capital costs for poultry
| farmers in USA.
| mcv wrote:
| We've also had bird flu in NL some years ago, but I don't
| think it was anywhere near that dramatic. I do vaguely
| recall that it was mostly an issue for free range
| chickens, because they go outside and can get infected by
| wild birds shitting from above. I'd expect indoor
| chickens to be less vulnerable, though I do recall
| similar measures to prevent humans from spreading it. I
| think there have been rules that free range chickens need
| to get a roof over their heads to prevent spreading.
|
| It's still weird that it got so dramatically out of hand
| in the US this time.
| lobsterthief wrote:
| The Trump administration has stated that the CDC and
| other public health organizations cannot release any data
| or statements without first running them through the
| organization. So these public health orgs and the general
| public have not been communicating like they should
| during such a disaster. It's insane and because of this
| we're only at the tip of the bird flu iceberg.
|
| Send help. Most of us didn't sign up for this.
| barbarr wrote:
| Bird flu, made worse by concentrated farming of chickens. Those
| operations are basically disease factories and some bird flus
| come from them.
| ars wrote:
| That's actually not true.
|
| Bird flu comes from wild birds, not factory farming. Chickens
| get it when wild birds land near them due to free range laws.
|
| The solution (possibly temporary) is to confine the chickens
| in sealed buildings so they can't contact the wild birds.
| misantroop wrote:
| And the reason why it spreads so well is still concentrated
| industrial farming.
| ars wrote:
| No, that's simply not true. It's being spread by wild
| birds, not concentrated farming.
|
| I know people love to blame "big anything", but it's just
| not true here.
|
| Here's a source:
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/bird-flu/virus-transmission/avian-in-
| bir...
|
| "Domesticated birds (chickens, turkeys, ducks, etc.) may
| become infected with avian influenza A viruses through
| direct contact with infected waterfowl or other infected
| poultry, or through contact with surfaces that have been
| contaminated with the viruses."
| miltonlost wrote:
| "Domesticated chickens may become infected by wild
| waterfowl or by other infected poultry", and other
| infected poultry includes domesticated chickens. Nowhere
| in that web page does it say that domesticated chickens
| cannot spread it to other domesticated chickens. Once a
| domesticated chicken becomes infected (however it became
| infected) in a massive concentrated area, it will spread
| that infection to other domesticated chickens. You're
| conflating "spreading across chicken farms by flight"
| with "spreading within chicken farms by already infected
| chickens" and saying the first is true so therefore the
| second can be.
| ars wrote:
| I'm not conflating it. Spread with Avian flu means to
| other places. A single chicken in a farm means ALL
| chickens will get it. That's such a trivial thing, it's
| not even worth noting.
|
| What matters is how does it _spread_.
|
| I think what's confusing you is that there are diseases
| where a single infected animal does NOT mean all animals
| will get it, and in those cases the more concentrated the
| farm the higher percent of other animals will get it.
|
| That exists. But it's not the case here. Here it's 100%,
| doesn't matter if it's a concentrated farm, or a pastoral
| farm with chickens walking in the house.
| danem wrote:
| So you're suggesting there's some other viable model of
| egg production that would deliver eggs at 2021 prices?
| People want cheap eggs. Saying, "well if we just adopted
| a decentralized, more resource intensive model we
| wouldn't have problems with bird flu" doesn't address
| that concern.
| sethammons wrote:
| I think it was Food, Inc, a documentary from a number of
| years ago. Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms talks about
| factory farming and Salatin often argues that industrial
| farming is not necessarily more cost-effective and that
| his method is both profitable and environmentally
| sustainable.
| acdha wrote:
| People want lots of things to be cheap but that doesn't
| mean it's sustainable. Here in the mid-Atlantic we've
| seen the same thing others mention: the local, non-
| factory farms prices haven't changed in years but the
| supermarket stuff went from being cheaper to more
| expensive.
|
| The theory that optimizing for the lowest price might
| other negative effects isn't exactly novel: we've seen
| that in many other areas, and if you've ever been
| anywhere near a factory farm it's enough to put you off
| of eating eggs.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| People keep fucking buying them!
| rsynnott wrote:
| Bird flu. Though, also, US inflation was _somewhat_ worse than
| Eurozone inflation (Eurozone peaked higher but rose later and
| fell faster).
| pessimizer wrote:
| Price fixing under the cover of catastrophes, such as covid and
| bird flu. Frozen potatoes did the same thing over the past few
| years, without any excuse and without the prices of unfrozen
| potatoes going up similarly.
|
| I think the industry has decided that a dozen eggs are going to
| retail for $5, just because it's a nice round number that will
| have "support." A few months of paying $8-9 for them will make
| it seem like a drop to $5 is going back to normal, and make $2
| eggs seem like a misremembered dream.
|
| https://www.newsweek.com/kroger-executive-admits-company-gou...
|
| https://apnews.com/article/egg-producers-price-gouging-lawsu...
|
| -----
|
| edit: (2023) https://farmaction.us/wp-
| content/uploads/2023/01/Farm-Action...
|
| > The first case of avian flu in a commercial table-egg layer
| facility was detected on February 22 in Delaware. Over the
| ensuing Spring season, avian flu outbreaks would be reported in
| 10 states and result in the loss of 30.7 million egg-laying
| hens. After the end of May, however, avian flu discoveries
| would slow down dramatically. Notably, no hen losses were
| reported after the beginning of June except due to sporadic
| outbreaks in September, October, and November. All in all, the
| total number of egg-laying hens lost to avian flu in 2022 was
| around 43 million birds. Although these figures seem to support
| the theory that the avian flu outbreak of 2022 was significant,
| its actual impact on the egg supply was minimal. After
| accounting for chicks hatched during the year, the average size
| of the egg-laying flock in any given month of 2022 was never
| more than 7-8 percent lower than it was a year prior -- and in
| all but two months was never more than 6 percent lower.
|
| > Moreover, the effect of the loss of egg-laying hens on
| production was itself blunted by "record-high" lay rates
| observed among remaining hens throughout the year. With total
| flock size substantially unaffected by the avian flu and lay
| rates between one and four percent higher than the average rate
| observed between 2017 and 2021, the industry's quarterly egg
| production experienced no substantial decline in 2022 compared
| to 2021.
|
| > [...]
|
| > Contrary to industry narratives, the increase in the price of
| eggs has not been an "Act of God" -- it has been simple
| profiteering. _For the 26-week period ending on November 26,
| 2022, Cal-Maine reported a ten-fold year-over-year increase in
| gross profits -- from $50.392 million to $535.339 million --
| and a five-fold increase in its gross margins._ Notably, Cal-
| Maine's gross profits increased in lockstep with rising egg
| prices through every quarter of the year -- going from nearly
| $92 million in the quarter ending on February 26, 2022, to
| approximately $195 million in the quarter ending on May 28,
| 2022, to more than $217 million in the quarter ending on August
| 27, 2022, to just under $318 million in the quarter ending on
| November 26, 2022. The company's gross margins likewise
| increased steadily, from a little over 19 percent in the first
| quarter of 2022 (a 45 percent year-over-year increase) to
| nearly 40 percent in the last quarter of 2022 (a 345 percent
| year-over-year increase).
| bluedino wrote:
| Michigan here, this is has been made worse by a new law requiring
| all eggs to be 'cage-free'. I think I paid $9 for the cheap
| store-brand eggs (18) last week.
|
| And that is, if they even have any eggs at the store. I've been
| to Wal-mart and Kroger when the entire section is empty with a
| sign saying there are egg supply issues.
|
| It's also winter so my 'chicken farmer friends' are low on eggs,
| when it's cold the chickens don't lay nearly as many.
|
| https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2024/12/18/m...
| epistasis wrote:
| How does cage free make this worse? The supply shortages are
| coming from avian flu in every report I have heard.
| bavarianbob wrote:
| It's another requirement to comply with. More work for the
| producer == higher cost for the consumer.
| epistasis wrote:
| But the claim is that the shortage has been made worse by
| cage free laws. Any higher cost from cage free laws would
| already have been part of the price.
| bluedino wrote:
| I'm saying the prices are what's been made worse. But
| suppliers haven't converted over so that doesn't help the
| shortage.
| mullingitover wrote:
| When California's anti animal cruelty measure went into
| effect the price difference was negligible.
|
| Thus stuff is not related, wild to see people trying to
| conflate it.
| mcmcmc wrote:
| It increases the cost of egg production which shifts the
| supply curve left raising the market clearing price. If it
| were cheaper then all egg producers would be doing it.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| Well, that'd depend on the law's definition of a cage but
| it's a hell of a lot easier to protect chickens that are
| fully enclosed vs those that are free range.
| willis936 wrote:
| This is a very wrong interpretation of a cage. Cages are
| matrices of 3 cubic foot volumes with a few pieces of wire
| separating them. All but the top row are toilets.
|
| Edit: the toilet thing is what I've seen for transport in
| open-trucks. For most of their lives they're just crammed
| horizontally.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_cage
| carb wrote:
| That's true when you're talking about foxes and wolves, but
| not if you're talking about an airborne flu.
|
| Rows of adjacent cages keeping groups of chickens in close
| proximity with each other with shared air.
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| Many cage free chickens are also free range chickens,
| where they can roam outside. That massively increases
| their chances of picking up the bird flu, as opposed to
| those they are inside all day.
|
| I'm not advocating for one or the other, just explaining.
| Even cage free chickens will come into close enough
| proximity where they will all die if just one chicken
| picks up the flu. It's incredibly virulent.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _That massively increases their chances of picking up
| the bird flu, as opposed to those they are inside all
| day_
|
| Are they getting bird flu at a higher frequency?
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| I'm in a turkey producing area - one of the largest in
| the country. What helped massively in 2015 was to simply
| put fine netting over the windows to the turkey barns,
| keeping other birds and at least some of their excrement
| out.
|
| This is from Australia, but whatever:
|
| "In Australia, indoor and free-range poultry, are at risk
| of contracting avian influenza due direct and indirect
| contact with waterfowl who may carry avian influenza
| virus in their nasal and eye discharge or faeces, farming
| and biosecurity practices.
|
| Indoor (barn or shed) systems limit poultry from direct
| exposure to wild birds, but these are not immune to avian
| influenza risks due to indirect contact. This is because
| equipment, vehicles and human movements between farms can
| introduce the virus indoors, in particular when on-farm
| dams or open water sources act as a permanent residence
| for waterfowl.
|
| Birds with outdoor access (free range) are at risk of
| coming into direct or indirect contact with wild
| waterfowl. Vegetated range areas may attract waterfowl,
| in particular if poultry are given feed or water
| outdoors. In free-range production systems, producers
| should therefore focus on managing these systems to
| reduce the risk of avian influenza."
|
| https://kb.rspca.org.au/knowledge-base/what-is-the-risk-
| of-f...
| albedoa wrote:
| You really, really need to be citing your sources. You
| have been bouncing back and forth between sounding
| authoritative and making assumptions or asking questions
| (or just being plain wrong).
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| I'm in a major turkey producing area and my wife worked
| for a national turkey producing company for 10 years. In
| 2015 it was all anyone heard about around here for
| months.
|
| Granted, I don't know much about chickens, but a lot of
| this is common sense. I'm not sure what you think I'm
| wrong about.
| carb wrote:
| Yes that's true they can roam outside, but roaming
| outside does not massively increase their chance of
| picking up bird flu.
|
| For the same reason that the main guidance during COVID
| was "be outside if with other people" and not "stay
| inside if with other people".
| AuryGlenz wrote:
| Typical cage-free chickens are almost as cramped, they're
| just not (cruelly) confined to a cage. They're still
| sharing the same air. If one bird gets it in either
| situation the whole flock will need to be culled, as
| they're all going to die (more painfully) regardless.
| mullingitover wrote:
| Caged vs cage free chickens are getting bird flu at about
| the same rate though, so this claim doesn't really add up.
| It's not like the caged chickens are in hermetically sealed
| chambers their whole lives, they're shoulder to shoulder
| with some wire between them.
| StefanBatory wrote:
| Could be that normally this wouldn't have caused much
| shortage or price increase, but that in conjunction with
| avian flu it escalated.
| uticus wrote:
| seems such laws would benefit the prices in neighboring areas,
| as 'non-cage-free' producers seek available markets. but i have
| not seen this to be the case, strangely.
| boothby wrote:
| Monopolies have no incentive to lower prices.
| rafram wrote:
| If it were actually impossible to have affordable eggs without
| confining chickens to tiny cages for their entire lives, that
| would be a damning indictment of our entire food system.
|
| But luckily that isn't actually the case. The price difference
| between cage-free and "caged" eggs is negligible. I'm in New
| York City, not known for its local egg production, and I can
| still get cage-free eggs for $4/dozen. Kroker/Walmart is just
| ripping you off.
| ge96 wrote:
| I think the most brutal thing is when the male chicks are
| immediately sent into a shredder damn. Out of sight out of
| mind
|
| That's where I can be a proponent of lab-grown meat without
| consciousness
| toast0 wrote:
| Sure, it's brutal; but roosters don't get along. You would
| have to have a huge amount of space to raise all the males.
| For mammals, you can castrate the males and raise them for
| meat, but that's not feasable for birds.
| ge96 wrote:
| A messed up thought is I wonder if they have looked at
| trying to get chickens to produce only female chicks not
| sure how some hormone or the eggs are injected without
| compromising integrity
| toast0 wrote:
| Looking around, this seems like an area with a lot of
| interest (for a long time, usda has a description of a
| pamphlet from 1921 [1]).
|
| Here's a scientific looking study about adjusting
| incubation temperature in Korat Chickens. [2]
|
| TLDR: higher than standard temperature results in similar
| hatch percentage, but more genetic female, morphological
| male chicks. Lower than standard temperature results in a
| lower hatch rate, but more genetic male, morphological
| female chicks.
|
| I saw some less scientific articles that attributed
| higher surviving female chicks at lower incubation
| temperature to male chicks being less likely to survive
| in those conditions, but since this paper did genetic
| analysis, it appears there's some amount of temperature
| dependent sex determination in addition to genetic sex
| determination. I didn't look around to see if I could
| find a paper showing this in more typical US livestock
| breeds of chickens, and at least from these results, it
| seems like while the proportion of female to male chicks
| increased, the number of female chicks at 5 weeks after
| hatching, did not due to differences in mortality.
|
| I also saw a news release about giving the mothers stress
| hormone and seeing more female chicks, but that
| artificial hormones is not acceptable practice in the
| poultry industry, so they were looking for other ways to
| induce that reaction. [3]
|
| I also saw some references to determining (presumably
| genetic) sex before hatching, which could lead to earlier
| intervention, which may be more humane. It didn't look
| like there was anything definite there, but I'm going to
| stop going down the rabbit hole here.
|
| [1] https://www.nal.usda.gov/exhibits/ipd/frostonchickens
| /exhibi...
|
| [2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S03
| 0645652...
|
| [3] https://www.poultryworld.net/health-
| nutrition/stressful-bird...
| returningfory2 wrote:
| My understanding is that the main improvement being
| implemented is determining the sex before the eggs hatch,
| and destroying the eggs.
| riffraff wrote:
| > For mammals, you can castrate the males and raise them
| for meat, but that's not feasable for birds.
|
| capons? We've been doing it for millennia.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capon
|
| EDIT: possibly you meant non-feasible since it's too
| expensive anyway, which it probably is.
| rsync wrote:
| You should see what the roosters do when we let them
| live...
| petsfed wrote:
| My rooster was a jerk, but he deserved to die the way he
| did, which was the way he lived: picking fights with things
| that could kill him in an instant if they bothered to care.
| I'm glad that he died fighting the beak and talons of an
| osprey or bald eagle, and not to the remorseless (literal)
| machinery of market efficiency.
| heywire wrote:
| Just paid $3.59/doz at Kroger here in Ohio about an hour ago
| (plain store brand). They were stocked pretty well.
| cjohnson318 wrote:
| The Target brand Good & Gather eggs were $9.49 in Boulder
| Colorado this week.
| SG- wrote:
| eggs in Canada are still $4CAD/dozen which is $2.80 USD. Canadian
| egg producers have smaller and spread out farms preventing
| disease spread along with better supply issues overall.
| ars wrote:
| I wonder if that's a geographical thing, with fewer infected
| wild birds in Canada.
|
| The disease is not spreading due to factory farms, large or
| small, it's spreading via wild birds.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Canadian egg producers have smaller and spread out farms
| preventing disease spread_
|
| Canadian and Mexican egg producers vaccinate their chickens
| [1].
|
| This isn't a story about industrial farming. It's about animal
| vaccine requirements and trade protectionism banning Canadian
| and Mexican eggs from the American supply chain.
|
| [1] https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-case-for-vaccinating-
| chicke...
| pkaye wrote:
| Based on this article, there are other trade agreements which
| limit use of these vaccines.
|
| > This intersects with Craig's main point -- if we started
| vaccinating chickens, it would kill our poultry exports:
|
| > The biggest sticking point is around trade. The US exported
| more than $5 billion in poultry meat and products on average
| every year for the past three years. The USDA enters into
| trade agreements with each individual country it trades with,
| explained Upali Galketi Aratchilage, a senior economist at
| the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
| Each agreement outlines specific biosafety and production
| requirements that both countries agree to follow. The USDA
| said, in an email to Vox, that many of those agreements do
| not allow bird flu vaccination.
| davidw wrote:
| I've been fiddling around with the Albertsons API for fun. It's
| kind of neat to see a whole year's worth of purchases in nicely
| formatted JSON.
|
| I have half an idea to create something like a personal inflation
| tracker, but I'm still thinking about it.
|
| It's entirely possible that these goons will start fiddling with
| official statistics around things like unemployment and inflation
| to tell us that inflation is not actually happening any more and
| that therefore we must cut interest rates, or some such.
| crtez wrote:
| Is it an official API? I'm not able to find any links about it,
| if you could provide some I'd love to look into my own
| purchases.
| araes wrote:
| It's apparently an API, although it's both difficult to find,
| and apparently only available through an email request to
| Albertsons. The website is here:
|
| https://www.albertsonscompanies.com/amc/
|
| The email request is at the bottom. mediacollective at
| albertsons
| davidw wrote:
| I was actually just looking at the calls the web site makes
| to a back end and using that.
| davidw wrote:
| If you get in touch with me (email or Blue Sky DM) I would be
| happy to think about how to share what I have so far,
| although it's not much at all.
| duxup wrote:
| Changing data doesn't seem like their style, I suspect the
| pattern for this administration (based on past history):
|
| 1. Simply drop the topic and ignore it / drop the topic
| (arresting Hillary, china tariffs, etc).
|
| 2. Declare the problem fixed and again ignore it.
|
| 3. Blame the boogieman of the moment.
|
| And as usual just behave like children in order to fill the
| airways / distract.
| 9283409232 wrote:
| Trump's last administration drew on a NOAA hurricane map with
| a sharpie to try to convince people he was not wrong about a
| hurricane path. Changing data is his style.
| duxup wrote:
| I honestly think that one was ignorance more than direct
| malice. I think he is in fact as ignorant / incurious as he
| seems.
| 9283409232 wrote:
| Both are bad. Trump was wrong because he was speaking on
| outdated information but he wouldn't accept that he was
| wrong so his administration created some data so he could
| say he was right.
| duxup wrote:
| Certainly bad. Arguably stupid is even more dangerous.
| jcranmer wrote:
| > he was speaking on outdated information
|
| I don't think there was _ever_ any information, outdated
| or otherwise, that suggested that the hurricane was going
| to hit Alabama. The theory I 've heard that the makes the
| most sense is that Trump saw a report about the damage it
| was going to inflict on the Bahamas, mixed up Alabama and
| Bahamas, tweeted condolences to Alabama, and the
| administration tried to defend his mix-up by concocting
| fake information to explain it.
|
| (In many respects, if he had just quietly dropped the
| matter, it would have been largely ignored since it was
| cleared up pretty quickly; it was the childish response
| to try to justify why it wasn't a mistake that made it
| such an issue.)
| chneu wrote:
| Stop making excuses for an abuser who has repeatedly
| shown he isn't as stupid as he'd like you to think he is.
| duxup wrote:
| It's not "making excuses" I genuinely think what I said.
|
| This kinda recrimination and such aren't helping
| anything.
| ModernMech wrote:
| What was your purpose in saying you think it's ignorance
| more than malice? What did you actually want to
| communicate with that statement?
| duxup wrote:
| I intended to convey that I think it was more likely
| ignorance than malice.
| unregistereddev wrote:
| I would venture a guess that they wanted to communicate
| their opinion that it's ignorance more than malice.
|
| Please do not escalate into a flame war.
| mindslight wrote:
| Another data point that stuck with me: viewing an eclipse
| by making a pinhole in paper and looking directly through
| it at the sun.
| rcpt wrote:
| It'll be funny when crypto people's "Truflation" reveals that
| the pro-crypto government caused more inflation than anyone.
| kobalsky wrote:
| > It's entirely possible that these goons will start fiddling
| with official statistics around things like unemployment and
| inflation to tell us that inflation is not actually happening
| any more and that therefore we must cut interest rates, or some
| such.
|
| in the end statistics is a science, and results can be cross-
| referenced with independent sources.
|
| you may get away with a bit, but not with much [1].
|
| [1]: https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/economy/argentina-loses-
| bid-...
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Don't rely on this. It works when bad actors are isolated and
| hoping nobody will notice, but not so well when there are
| tens of millions ready to repeat the official line, whether
| they believe it or not.
| kobalsky wrote:
| tens of millions? well then your problem is not that
| officals could fudge the numbers, your house is on fire, of
| course my comment doesn't apply.
| nanidin wrote:
| And yet we have the saying "There are three kinds of lies:
| lies, damned lies, and statistics"!
| pton_xd wrote:
| > It's entirely possible that these goons will start fiddling
| with official statistics around things like unemployment and
| inflation to tell us that inflation is not actually happening
| any more and that therefore we must cut interest rates, or some
| such.
|
| Like when the BLS overstated payrolls by 818k!! in March of
| last year, the largest negative revision in 15 years? And then
| the Fed did an emergency 50bps rate cut in September just as
| payrolls unexpectedly went up 250k and inflation seems to be
| coming back.
|
| The unemployment and inflation data has been inconsistent for a
| while now.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| https://www.cnbc.com/2025/02/04/job-openings-decline-
| sharply...
|
| https://www.bls.gov/news.release/jolts.nr0.htm
|
| Still happening. We sure have been suddenly wild unaccirate
| with the job market while the Feds need to keep saying
| "everything is fine but...".
| relaxing wrote:
| > Like when the BLS overstated payrolls by 818k!!
|
| So one Meta SRE? Is this supposed to be a lot?
| dmoy wrote:
| 818k jobs, not 818k USD
|
| https://www.bls.gov/ces/notices/2024/2024-preliminary-
| benchm...
|
| They're usually within +/- 0.1% for the estimate, that time
| it was 0.5% off
| thuanao wrote:
| You may be interested to know MIT did a project called ["The
| Billion Prices Project"](https://thebillionpricesproject.com)
| to scrape the web and calculate CPI.
|
| Sorry to all the tinfoil hats, it closely matched official CPI.
| jorblumesea wrote:
| for now, wait until the Trump admin gets into full gear
| UltraSane wrote:
| It will be interesting if that is the case by this time in
| 2026,2027, and 2028
| el_benhameen wrote:
| I see an advertising API, but I don't think that's what you're
| taking about. This sounds pretty interesting, can you point me
| to where you found it?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| "H5N1 has not been spiking the Mexican chicken industry because
| Mexico vaccinates its birds. This has a certain up-front cost,
| but it also means they don't need to do flock-wide cullings any
| time a bird tests positive" [1].
|
| I don't think we need to vaccinate all our chickens. But we
| clearly need to vaccinate a resilient core to stabilise egg
| prices.
|
| (The author also said "Americans in border states were driving to
| Mexico to buy eggs and bringing them back home," nothing that
| "this is illegal, so please don't do it." Egg prices, like
| housing prices, are a policy choice. Not an act of god. In the
| case of eggs, we favour protecting domestic production over
| consumer prices.)
|
| https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-case-for-vaccinating-chicke...
| OnionBlender wrote:
| From September 2020:
|
| Trump administration rolls back U.S. inspection rules for egg
| products.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/article/markets/commodities/trump-ad...
| pton_xd wrote:
| > The change, first proposed in 2018, makes inspections
| consistent with those for meat and poultry products, said Paul
| Kiecker, administrator of USDA's Food Safety and Inspection
| Service. Inspectors will operate under a "patrol" system, in
| which they will cover multiple plants each day, he said.
|
| > "We feel very confident that, based on the once per shift
| that we have them there, we'll still be able to verify that
| they're producing safe product," he said.
|
| So, what's the issue here?
| joe8756438 wrote:
| I've got a flock, not counting infrastructure my costs are tied
| directly to feed. I source local non-gmo and herbicide free
| grains. My cost is about $3/doz. It's unusual to be so close to a
| farm that produces the variety of grain at that level of quality.
|
| A local farm that produces on a large scale and sources grain
| from the same farm charges $8/doz. Seems totally fair, if not a
| little too cheap.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Are you counting your labor and coops as free?
| joe8756438 wrote:
| yeah that's my point.
| chneu wrote:
| Almost nobody has the space/time/money/skills to do this.
| ge96 wrote:
| I rarely eat eggs so haven't been paying attention to it
|
| I pretty much eat the same thing everyday: packaged peanuts
| (spicy ones), microwave single piece of batch baked chicken,
| frozen vegetables, brown rice, throw some terriyaki and soy suace
| on it boom, lazy meal. The peanuts are $0.69 each
| rafram wrote:
| Well, it beats Soylent.
| ge96 wrote:
| I was not aware of the bird flu bit, I just knew about "Trump
| promising egg prices will go down" seemed like a diversion to
| the other BS he's pulling
| belter wrote:
| "Average Price: Eggs, Grade A, Large (Cost per Dozen) in U.S.
| City Average": https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU0000708111
| mym1990 wrote:
| Has the cost of chickens increased as well? Maybe its time to
| take production in house
| andsoitis wrote:
| Get your own chickens.
| anthomtb wrote:
| No. I use like 3 eggs a week. Not worth the effort.
| colordrops wrote:
| I'll be that guy. No sympathy at all for those exploiting these
| birds. Hope the price goes to infinity.
| miki123211 wrote:
| IMO, price comparisons are a very misleading signal if you want
| to understand what's really happening in the world. They tell you
| that something is now more expensive, but not whether that's due
| to external events, evil corporations, evil corporations blaming
| external events, or some mix of the three.
|
| What you really want to look at is costs, income and profit
| margins in the supply chain, which prices are a direct result of.
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| New commercial egg laying hatchlings start producing at around 16
| weeks
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| So: "black-out factory farm eggs doubled in price". Sounds like a
| good opportunity to finally ban black-out factory farming?
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| I found this article today in the CBC about why Canada's egg
| prices have remained reasonable while the neighbouring US has
| gone crazy interesting: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/egg-
| prices-avian-flu-canada-u...
|
| TLDR: 1) we still have a bird flu problem, but have smaller
| flocks in the farms, so the impact of having to do a cull is far
| far less and
|
| 2) we have supply-management for poultry and eggs and dairy
| (basically a form of central economic planning around a quota
| system) ... which in good times is a rip-off for consumers [and
| some farmers] but in bad times... turns out to provide some value
| (which is why it was rolled out in the first place)
| latentcall wrote:
| I highly highly recommend keeping chickens for those with the
| ability, space, and time to care for them. You don't need acres.
| I was able to do it on a 1/4 acre in my city and as long as you
| follow the local ordinance you'll be fine. Getting a half dozen
| eggs a day at this moment. Happy to answer questions if anybody
| has any. Been keeping chickens in town for 3 years.
| bombcar wrote:
| I'll just add that the coop is for _you_ to look at. The
| _chickens_ don 't need anything fancy, so you can build one out
| of nearly anything.
|
| Neighbors might complain if it looks really weird or run-down.
| pessimizer wrote:
| If you want to be frugal with egg use, Chia seeds work great as
| an egg substitute in cookies (and other things.)
|
| https://chiaseeds.us/chia-seed-replacement-for-egg/
| abeppu wrote:
| Setting aside the recent price increase, I'm shocked that their
| data shows a price of 0.77 in May 2023. A dozen eggs for less
| than a dollar, and that was after the worst official inflation
| had already happened?
| rafram wrote:
| From the page:
|
| > according to trading on a contract for difference (CFD) that
| tracks the benchmark market for this commodity
|
| You aren't buying eggs on a commodities exchange, you're buying
| them at the grocery store. There's a lot of overhead between
| the eggs being sold wholesale as a commodity and the eggs
| making it to your front door in neat little cartons.
| yapyap wrote:
| 7 buckaroos for 12 eggs?? can any American in here confirm those
| prices? are they real?
| fred_is_fred wrote:
| Yes
| wnevets wrote:
| "Just let me know how much I should be contributing to my child's
| egg fund."
| culi wrote:
| Similarly, GasBuddy uses crowd-sourced data from their app and
| exposes that data here:
|
| https://www.gasbuddy.com/charts
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Gas is incredibly cheap in the US. It's silly that's being used
| as a political rallying cry when we had $4+ gas across much of
| the country 20 years ago. With inflation, that would be
| approaching or over $7 today.
| charlie0 wrote:
| Meanwhile, over here in Costa Rica, I've just bought 6 eggs for
| about $1.50 USD and that's the convenience store price. They are
| cheaper at the super market.
| Aurornis wrote:
| The price is a proxy for Bird Flu activity multiplied by the
| intensity of regulations around bird flu incidents.
|
| So either your area has low incidence of bird flu, low
| regulations around bird flu, or both.
|
| We have high prices because the regulations are strict around
| dealing with bird flu detections. I wouldn't necessarily
| interpret low prices as a good thing without the big picture.
| palisade wrote:
| In the past... we'd just eat the eggs, get the flu, spread it
| about a bit, take a day / week off work, go back to work. You
| know, normal life. Now we overreact and just cull all the
| eggs and/or chickens and jack the prices up. It seems kind of
| weak tbh. You're never going to purify the world and make it
| perfect. One day someone in the future is going to say, "Ew
| they ate real food instead of processed food pellets?"
| unironically.
|
| Then a disease will arrive that will make the entire
| population vanish because their immune systems never had to
| interact with anything.
| blondie9x wrote:
| The impacts of climate change are real. We have known for a long
| time that as the climate worsened animals would be more
| vulnerable to illness that live outside and have to deal with a
| destabilizing environment.
| nemo44x wrote:
| I was at a local Costco and the eggs were just completely raided
| and people were lined up grabbing as many cartons as allowed (3).
| Organic eggs were all gone and only free range were available.
|
| It makes you really realize how fragile supply can be, even for
| domestic products.
| raminf wrote:
| Costco people recommended showing up early. Went there right at
| opening in the morning and there was plenty. To their credit,
| they haven't raised their prices.
|
| Also, shocked to see people hoarding multiple boxes of 50 eggs.
| Hoping it was for a commercial purpose and not someone panic-
| buying like they were for TP during the pandemic.
| hammock wrote:
| We could get eggs for 40c a dozen 6 years ago?
| TriangleEdge wrote:
| Why is there a spike every two years?
| chung8123 wrote:
| When did we become obsessed with egg prices? Even at their
| current levels they are a relatively cheap meal.
| aucisson_masque wrote:
| Lots of people suggesting to build chicken coop. i have one, sure
| it's not much work. 2 minutes every day to grab the egg and bring
| the food and water, but then every 3 year you got to take the
| hatchet, grab each chicken, cut right on the neck and then hang
| it with it's feet while it's bleeding out and flapping its wings.
|
| then there are the few occasion where you miss with the hatchet
| and it cuts half its neck, its head hanging down, attached by a
| quarter of the neck from it's body with the blood jumping out and
| the chicken running in circle for quite a lot of time.
|
| it's also rare but sometimes even when you cut perfectly, the
| chicken will manage to get out of your hand and again you got to
| watch a headless chicken running in circle for some time.
|
| If you are the kind of animal loving people in city, i'm not sure
| it's worth it.
|
| bonus point, in summer you get a lot of fly because of the
| chicken shit, they reproduce in that. you can get in there and
| clean it everyday but it's a lot of work, and fly traps barely
| works when the heat is shinning strongly on the chicken shit. fly
| reproduce too damn quick.
|
| Also chicken have hierarchy where all the up top chicken will
| bite on the ass of the chicken under it, so if you are the top
| chicken you got a nice ass but the one at the bottom it has a
| bleedy ass and sometimes they manage to kill them.
|
| if you got to buy another chicken to replace it, it may not be
| accepted by the old one and so again -> bottom hierarchy, death
| by ass biting lol. it's funny but it significantly decrease the
| economic worthiness when you got to replace you chicken once in a
| while.
|
| Beside i don't know what you do with chicken corpse in city, you
| aren't going to put it in recycling can.
|
| Support your local farmer.
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| The axe blow is the fastest method when you have to kill
| several chickens.
|
| Alternatively, use a very sharp kitchen axe against a wooden
| plank. Place the chicken's neck between the axe and the plank
| and hammer the axe. This is the slow approach
|
| Alternatively, use a long sharp blade to sever the neck the
| same way you would slice a cucumber, with a fast sliding cut.
|
| EDIT: Cannibalism is more frequent when there is some
| malnutrition. Of course, sometimes you have to sacrifice the
| worst offenders.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > but then every 3 year you got to take the hatchet, grab each
| chicken, cut right on the neck and then hang it with it's feet
| while it's bleeding out and flapping its wings.
|
| Is this a requirement? My friends parents keep chickens and
| dont kill any of them.
|
| They dont have fly problems as the chickens spend most of their
| day outside of the coop letting them shit on the ground like
| nature intended. This disperses the waste preventing it from
| piling up into a fly trap.
|
| As far as the pecking order, yes, there were issues with birds
| attacking others but they dealt with this by splitting up the
| pens. The chickens sort of form clicks around roosters and the
| in-crowd is safe while outsiders are harassed. So they
| identified the clicks by watching who follows who and moving
| them to the other pen. In some cases they had protective garb,
| chicken clothing, that protected chickens rear ends from
| further harm or aggressive rooster mating.
|
| > Beside i don't know what you do with chicken corpse in city,
| you aren't going to put it in recycling can.
|
| NYC sanitation has a composting bin program (granted it's not
| popular) which would likely be the best method of chicken
| corpses disposal. My only issue in cities is chickens should be
| raised on green land and most is paved allowing little to no
| ability for the chickens to feed off the land.
| simonsarris wrote:
| How many do they keep? It's not a requirement but after ~3
| years they hardly lay, but still eat, and most people looking
| for serious production are not interested in running a
| chicken retirement home for X additional years of life as
| well.
| MisterTea wrote:
| About 30 total. They are not serious about production and
| let them live out life so that makes sense now.
| gadders wrote:
| You don't have to kill them if you're doing it for fun/as a
| hobby.
|
| If you're trying to do it commercially you might want to.
| kurthr wrote:
| Yeah, you want some separation from the house to the coop.
| Granma just picked em up by the neck and cracked the whip. Did
| it two handed on holidays. She knew which were sick, old, or
| just not laying. The feet did keep going for a while, and
| granpa did have to cut the heads and feet off. Removing the
| feathers after par-boiling was our (kids) job. That sucked.
|
| My experience is that without at least one rooster the hens
| won't lay well, you won't have chicks, and frankly the hens
| aren't safe from predators. But, nobody likes roosters,
| especially other roosters and neighbors. That's what kills
| chickens in the city for me.
| SparkyMcUnicorn wrote:
| > My experience is that without at least one rooster the hens
| won't lay well
|
| This is just not true. Hens will lay just as many eggs with
| or without a rooster. And a rooster doesn't do a whole lot to
| fend off predators, from my experience.
| cco wrote:
| Having slaughtered my fair share of chickens on a relatively
| small but not back yard operation, there is a much easier way!
|
| Buy a t-post (any 3-5 foot rigid metal pole will do but a
| t-post has perfect geometry). Next, you'll grab your chicken,
| lay her down on her back or stomach [1], once she has settled
| down you're going to lay the t-post gently across her spine
| just a bit behind her skull.
|
| Now place your feet on either side of the t-post to secure it,
| grab her legs, and in one swift motion pull and stand up.
|
| You will very quickly decapitate the hen and once you do it a
| couple times it'll be very low stress for both you and the
| chicken. This latter part is key, if you're stressed, unsure
| etc, the animals will be the same.
|
| You can improve this further by keeping an upside down traffic
| cone around, drop the bird into it once slaughtered and that'll
| contain the flapping/running around you mention.
|
| In my experience, for novices, this is the easiest method for
| all parties and reduces the risk of slips, mistakes etc.
|
| [1] Back is sometimes easier, they'll often go into a trance.
| Sometimes you can lay them on their stomach and trace a line to
| relax them, there are youtube videos of this.
| BrokenInterface wrote:
| Can I just say you've made my day with:
|
| "You will very quickly decapitate the hen and once you do it
| a couple times it'll be very low stress for both you and the
| chicken."
|
| Best giggle I had in years!
| wil421 wrote:
| Use a traffic cone. It will be easier and calm the chicken
| down.
| highstep wrote:
| highly agree. after using a cone anything else seems
| haphazard and cruel.
| cco wrote:
| Definitely can help, but I've found that for people that
| don't do it very often, it's very easy to make mistakes
| with a knife. The t-post method has very little opportunity
| for mistakes and really makes it a lot easier for people
| that don't have a ton of experience, i.e. backyard poultry
| owners.
| Yajirobe wrote:
| This is all so brutal. I can't believe you people are
| discussing such things so nonchalantly
| cullenking wrote:
| it's hard to do, but easy to talk about. i've done my fair
| share of slaughtering and currently have a freezer full of
| meat birds. i don't like the process (you feel bad, you
| have to do things that also are instinctually gross to
| someone not used to it), but i will continue to eat meat
| because i think it's part of a balanced and healthy diet.
|
| i do respect vegans though - many people don't live by any
| principles so it's nice to see them on display. my
| principle on this topic is that if i'm not willing to do it
| myself, then i probably shouldn't offload it to someone
| else and still consume the end result.
| picture wrote:
| I think your sentiment encapsulates the hypocrisy of modern
| people where the systems have developed over thousands of
| years to further and further insulate us from all the less
| pretty aspects of life, to a point where we largely forget
| the fact that we shit and kill things for food and greed.
| Our meat comes pre-portioned on a polystyrene tray and
| wrapped under cellophane. Just abstract blocks of yummy
| protein. We also built garbage collection and sewer systems
| that lets most of us forget about the waste we produce. Out
| of sight, out of mind.
|
| Humanely dispatching chicken is probably among the most
| mundane, natural, necessary, and arguably righteous aspects
| of what humans do to survive. While this part of the modern
| system is certainly not a "bad thing", I still think about
| my friend's opinion that everyone who eats meat should kill
| and process a living creature at least once in their life.
| If they can't handle it, then they shouldn't eat meat
| rurp wrote:
| Well said. I'll just add that even vegetarianism gets
| idealized as well. The farmers growing those crops do far
| worse things than humanely killing a chicken to vast
| amounts of wildlife that they perceive as pests.
| MRPockets wrote:
| I don't think hypocrisy is really the best word. The GP's
| objection may be uninformed or out of line with reality,
| but it is (likely) the result of the very distance
| between food source and consumption that you are talking
| about; ignorance not hypocrisy.
|
| I have had the opportunity to hunt twice in my life; both
| times I harvested a deer. I would happily do so again.
| But while I disagree with the sentiment of the GP, I do
| agree that there is something profound about killing an
| animal (for food or otherwise) such that talking about it
| nonchalantly can be startling.
|
| I'm probably just nitpicking here.
| cco wrote:
| Perhaps expected, but I have similar feelings towards
| people that work at slaughterhouses. So I definitely can
| understand where GP is coming from.
|
| But like you and the other poster said, killing an animal
| for food is a deeply ambivalent experience. For me at
| least.
| ammojamo wrote:
| Just to offer a different experience, we've kept chooks for
| years and it's been great.
|
| However, we do have a large yard where they are free to range
| around - I think this is key.
|
| In my experience there is no need to kill a chook after 3
| years. Average lifespan for a chick is 8-10 years. Egg laying
| frequency does decrease with age, but there's no need to kill
| them just because they're slowing down a bit. Our oldest chook
| is 8 years, and laid her (probably) last egg only a few months
| ago.
|
| When it does come time to kill one for whatever reason, the
| broom stick method breaks the neck instantly - easy and clean,
| just a bit of flapping around. As for the body, we just bury
| them if we are not going to eat them.
|
| I think the heirarchical behaviour depends somewhat on the
| breed and the environment. Our chooks do have a clear
| hierarchy, none of them have died as a result. We have a mix of
| breeds - Australorp, Plymouth Rock, ISA Brown and one other
| mystery breed.
|
| Flies probably depend on your environment - in Australia here
| we have a ton of flies already, I don't think the chooks make
| much difference!
|
| Some of our chooks have a lot of personality and are almost
| pets, especially the early ones we basically hand raised as
| chicks - although you don't want to be too sentimental about
| them either. You have to be OK with killing them if that
| becomes necessary - it's still a sad time when I have to do
| that though.
|
| If you have enough yard space and like the idea of being
| connected to the creatures that supply some of your food, I'd
| totally recommend giving chooks a go.
|
| * edit: should have added, we don't keep a rooster which
| probably changes the dynamics too
| jen729w wrote:
| > In my experience there is no need to kill a chook after 3
| years
|
| I assume you don't have ISA Browns? We just had 3, gorgeous
| girls, but they _all_ started laying lash eggs at about 2yo.
|
| The ISAs are bred to lay, and -- turns out! -- 300 eggs/year
| isn't sustainable for a poor little chook's insides.
|
| Don't get ISA Browns. It's heartbreaking and, if you decide
| to treat it vs. letting them die (we did), expensive.
|
| We loved our girls to death. Chickens are _amazing_ pets.
| cullenking wrote:
| there is absolutely a reason to kill your chickens that
| aren't laying - it costs money to feed them. if you don't
| optimize for price by slaughtering your older hens you will
| easily be paying > $10 a dozen for eggs.
|
| all bets are off though if you consider chickens pets,
| instead of livestock.
|
| basic economics for me: 20 chickens, a dozen eggs a day, 30
| dozen eggs a month. decent non-organic feed is $20 a bag,
| organic is $35 a bag. one bag per week if you have the space
| to do daily free ranging on a decent sized chunk (half acre
| chicken yard in my case). Round up $0.50 per dozen for
| incidentals (bedding, repair, replacement chickens semi-
| regularly due to predation). That's $3 a dozen for non-
| organic, $5 a dozen for organic.
|
| Drop productivity in half, organic eggs start costing $10 a
| dozen, and you have to work for those eggs. Cut productivity
| to 25% and you are even more expensive. In my experience, you
| are at 50% productivity within 3 years depending on the
| breed.
|
| Also slaughtered old hens make good soups :)
| russdill wrote:
| The solution to an potential cross species epidemic is probably
| not to have a bunch of people live in closer proximity to the
| primary disease vector
| sarbanharble wrote:
| Traffic cone nailed to a tree.
| ivanjermakov wrote:
| After reading that, I'm not only not want to build a coop, I
| don't want to consume eggs anymore lol. I guess I'm too "animal
| loving people".
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| This is the harsh reality that a lot of people that have
| gotten used to the convenience store aren't ready for, but
| also we're in a slow revolution where people are becoming
| more conscious of the humane cost of animal products and are
| switching diets or changing their purchasing behaviour.
|
| Definite difference between "city people" and rural people
| though. We had cousins stay with us for a week or so the one
| time, granted they were a little younger, but they didn't
| realize milk comes from a cow. So of course we took them to
| the local farm we got our milk from so they could see the
| cows up close.
| AngryData wrote:
| You don't have to slaughter them, if you get regular heirloom
| chickens. The ones bred for corporate mass farms, yeah they
| are better off dead because they are genetic freaks either
| bred to only be meat and turn into a solid mass of meat that
| can't really walk or to shoot eggs out like a gatling gun,
| both of which are horrible for any potential long-term
| health. But traditional chicken breeds you can just accept
| having less eggs as they get older. Really the super genetic
| bred chickens aren't good for backyard growers to start with,
| you aren't going to consume that many eggs or want to have
| them so fat and meaty they can barely walk after 3 months.
|
| My parents have had chickens for the last 40 years, never
| once slaughtered one. They either live to old age, or a
| predator comes along and grabs a slower older one or two.
| gadders wrote:
| >>but then every 3 year you got to take the hatchet, grab each
| chicken, cut right on the neck and then hang it with it's feet
| while it's bleeding out and flapping its wings.
|
| We've had chickens - up to about 20 at times - and have never
| done this. We're not farming them. Once they become too old to
| lay they can still hang out with the other chickens and scratch
| around. We don't mind that they're "retired".
|
| I have had to dispatch sick chickens, or ones that have been
| attacked by foxes, but that's maybe one a year if that and I
| typically do it by wringing their necks.
|
| //edit// And if you have a rooster, it stops a lot of the
| intra-hen fighting, especially if you introduce new hens into
| the flock.
| not_the_fda wrote:
| Its certainly an option. Chickens can live 7-12 years so
| that's a lot of feed for a chicken to not produce eggs. More
| economical to make soup. Their livestock, not pets.
| snakeyjake wrote:
| >Beside i don't know what you do with chicken corpse in city,
| you aren't going to put it in recycling can.
|
| You do with it the same thing you do with a turkey carcass
| after thanksgiving: throw it in the trash.
|
| "City folk" throw away meat trimmings, spoiled meat, or other
| meat products in volumes greater than a single chicken carcass
| every day.
|
| Put it in a bag, put that bag in an another bag, and throw it
| away. It isn't magic or esoteric wisdom.
| prawn wrote:
| If you're worried about a carcass stinking because you're too
| far from bin day, freeze the bag and then bin it the night
| before your refuse gets picked up.
| lm28469 wrote:
| > If you are the kind of animal loving people in city, i'm not
| sure it's worth it.
|
| If you care about animals this is still infinitely better than
| 99.9% of the industrial production which basically amount to
| concentration camps. But yeah, the blood is on your hands, it's
| much easier to forget about it and abstract it away.
|
| I believe most people would be vegetarian if they had to
| slaughter and prepare a pig, or even a chicken
| batushka5 wrote:
| In our setting predators do the job - hawks do lions' share
| (LoL) and foxes the rest. So agingn chicken does not happen.
| Although we had a rooster - a tiny one, which had incredible
| surival skills - was over 10 years, killed 2 bigger roosters
| himself, numerous unobedient hens, survived direct fox attack
| and dodged hell knows how many hawk strikes. Eventually went
| blind and had to part with his head out of mercy.
| briffle wrote:
| Having chickens taguth me that the phrase 'pecking order' is a
| pretty horrible thing.
| op00to wrote:
| What do you do with chicken corpses in the country? Burn them?
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| Wow this is such a real life comment. Very much a breath of
| fresh air on a site devoted to software, business, politics.
|
| Thanks for taking the time to write it.
| Server6 wrote:
| Isn't the problem here bird flu? I'd be very afraid of raising
| chickens right now and inviting this kind of thing directly
| into my home. The solution here is to suck it and go without
| eggs while this thing hopefully blows over.
| mythrwy wrote:
| Some people can't keep chickens because of city or HOA
| regulations or because of space requirements, but they would like
| to.
|
| A good option for those people might be Coturnix quail. Quail
| eggs are especially delicious, and so are quail (if you can
| stomach cleaning them, it is pretty easy). These birds take up a
| very little space and are extremely quiet. Eggs are about 1/3 the
| size of chicken eggs. It's a really good way to sustainably have
| top quality eggs in a suburban setting (and possibly even
| indoors).
|
| We keep chickens and wouldn't go back to store bought eggs even
| if they were 50 cents a dozen. Not the same egg. It is a little
| bit of work, but not bad once you are set up. It helps that we
| are also avid gardeners and so chickens get a lot of waste and
| greens (which also makes much nicer eggs).
| zombiwoof wrote:
| Who cares about eggs when we now have the Gulf of
| IAmGraydon wrote:
| How are the prices so out of whack from one area to the next? I
| just bought eggs for $3/dozen last weekend.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| This is it? This the big meme of 2025? "Remember when eggs were
| expensive"?
|
| Ukraine is at war, minorities are being oppressed at home, an
| economic tidal wave is about to hit us vis-a-vis Chinese imports,
| the economy is on the ropes, and big brother is literally banning
| the government from saying words like "sex" and "gender" - but,
| oh boy, can you believe the price of these eggs???
|
| Is every person in this country eating thousands of eggs a week
| and I had no idea?
| exceptione wrote:
| It is finally some positive news. Before the election,
| inflation was down, but egg prices were up. So this was a big
| thing according to social media bots and algorithms.
|
| Now prices have gone through the roof, but it is not a big
| thing anymore.
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| I submitted this. Egg prices became a political trope during
| the election, and were summarily forgotten afterward. Eggs are
| skyrocketing now and it is not a front page story. The reason
| they are skyrocketing, out of control H5N1 contagion in cattle
| and poultry operations, is not a front page story. There seems
| to be very little being done about food cost or _yet another_
| widely-predicted-by-epidemiologists emergent global pandemic.
| Apparently those are less interesting for the person in charge
| than punishing federal employees for perceived slights while
| doing their jobs.
|
| I have posted previously about the Russian genocide on the
| Ukraine people and I agree with you about the rest. Some people
| can't see past the tip of their nose, though, and care about
| eggs.
|
| -\\_(tsu)_/-
| Spivak wrote:
| I mean egg prices became a meme for exactly the subtext you're
| implying. This election season was unbelievably frustrating
| because of how large a focus was placed on economic conditions
| which as a general rule leads to throwing out incumbents. And
| the new generation running the GOP is a bunch of people who
| look more like a conspiracy forum than a government. To the
| point where Democrats got nervous and ran someone who in
| 2008/12 could have run as a Republican. Trying to give moderate
| Republicans for whom the economy is their biggest issue someone
| to vote for.
|
| But as soon as the election was over the economy was suddenly
| great and none of that mattered. Despite consumer prices having
| either not moved at all or gotten worse thanks to bird flu,
| looming tariffs which look to extract straight from people's
| wallets and a proposed tax policy that is about the same for
| everyone who isn't mega rich. The egg price thing has become a,
| "guess we know what people really voted for." I was looking
| forward to the tax cut that'll probably never come.
| coldblues wrote:
| This is what people fundamentally care about. The price of
| food, a roof under their head, clean water, fresh air and
| general healthiness. The problems you describe are beyond most
| people's grasp or reach.
| akudha wrote:
| What an incredible resource. They have so much data, even from
| tiny countries - https://tradingeconomics.com/countries
|
| I wonder how (where) they are able to get so much data. Maybe
| they are paying for data?
| regnull wrote:
| Apart from the eggs: can anyone tell me what they used to make
| this website? Looks awesome in its simplicity.
| ziofill wrote:
| Am I reading this right? A dozen eggs in 2021 went for less than
| 1$?
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Any quick explanation why Canada's eggs simply have not gone up
| in price like this? What is stopping Canadian egg sellers from
| selling them at twice the price to the US market? Regulations?
| Existing agreements?
| Sparkyte wrote:
| I can still get local farm eggs for the same price. Perhaps the
| monopoly egg places should learn to do better with their
| strategies. I can get 18 eggs for $5.40. I typically buy only 18
| eggs lasts me a month an a half.
| beezle wrote:
| I got two dozen eggs at Costco yesterday for $6.69 (the run of
| the mill white eggs).
| _blk wrote:
| Time to trade the BTC miners for some chicken?
| lumost wrote:
| Checking all of the prices on that page, food prices have clearly
| been inflating faster than core CPI. Poultry has inflated at an
| average rate of 8% for the last 16 years.
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| Because core CPI is a big fat lie. There's absolutely zero
| chance inflation topped at 9.1% in 2022.
| lumost wrote:
| Aye it would be interesting to correlate the S&P 500 returns
| to food prices alone over the last 15 years of zirp. A higher
| "real" inflation rate on food could indicate that many
| retirees budget projections are broken.
| gadders wrote:
| If you have a garden, get your own chickens. About as much
| maintenance to look after as a pet rabbit.
| prepend wrote:
| It's funny seeing the forecast is for $9.67 in 12 months time. It
| reminds me how it's so easy to project based purely on the
| numerical patterns and not including the external event that
| created the numbers.
| JoeRadd wrote:
| Can you give a comparison of egg price/egg yield as i feel this
| is more due to the euthanising of chickens rather than economic
| policy.
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