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Comment by paganel | Hacker News Reader

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There is no Commerce Clause in Africa.

Yet.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whereas for chickens:

    Poultry has a feed conversion ratio of 2 to 1.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

^ can confirm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The classic solution to storing potatoes is the root cellar:

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

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

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

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

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

Why is salty milk better for keto?

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

Thanks for the recommendation!

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

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

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

And heavy mechanization to automate a lot of the labour.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Are you sure you've got it right?

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

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

Wikipedia says quite the opposite:

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

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

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

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

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

I think it relates to risk, growth and capital.

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

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

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

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

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

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

And a barn? For 150,000 cows?

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

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

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

The poorer parts of Romania.

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

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

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

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

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

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