Posted on 01/02/2015 6:13:58 AM PST by C19fan
The new year is expected to bring rising chicken egg prices across the U.S. as California starts requiring farmers to house hens in cages with enough space to move around and stretch their wings. The new standard backed by animal rights advocates has drawn ire nationwide because farmers in Iowa, Ohio and other states who sell eggs in California have to abide by the same requirements. To comply, farmers have to put fewer hens into each cage or invest in revamped henhouses, passing along the expense to consumers shopping at grocery stores. California is the nation's largest consumer of eggs and imports about one-third of its supply.
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Guess I know what my next purchase will be.
My eggs come from a small supplier in the central part of my state. Their eggs stay local. California can do whatever it wants. Who in the world is going to be able to afford to live there?
I think the only people that buy California produced eggs will be:
1. Californians
2. PETA members outside California
And if producers outside of California produce eggs that comply with the California rules, they can capture the “PETA” market outside of California.
This is the sort of thing the Looters do in Atlas Shrugged. they keep changing the rules and business people just role with the punches until, one by one, they move to Galt’s Gulch and suddenly we are in a chaos of black and grey markets.
And in case you haven’t noticed, that is happening to a degree.
What about a hen house? Is there no in between from having them stacked in wire cages to free range? And I do pay extra for free range.
Makes total sense.
“Effem. Don’t sell them eggs. “
Texas should announce they will pick up KKKalifornias slack. If it screws KKKalifornia, I’ll eat another egg a week.
A hen will lay an egg a day. Egg famers control their light and have them on eight day weeks.
They start laying at six months old and work for a year. The young hens lay small eggs. As they age they eventually lay medium eggs, then large, then extra large, then jumbo, then they become soup.
Interesting. Once upona time I graded eggs, but never thought much about where they came from.
Also, I kept some roosters for a while. Found they LOVED mice! They would grab a live mouse and wolf it down like a snake.
Are you sure about that? The MOST ETREME elements of PETA say:
No animals can be eaten
All pets are illegal
All farm animals are to be released
For these three, they’re remarkably short on specifics; after all, if you just let Fido and Tabby loose they’ll either suffer immeasurably and die or, if lucky, turn feral, breed and further destroy the ecosystem. Letting all the cattle in North America go free would see most of them die horribly...
Well, at least it’d be our turn to produce chickensh*t, rather than just be the recipient.
coons are evil, sadistic killers. they’ll kill just to kill. have had it happen with my chickens over the years.
I now kill all coons that come anywhere near the chicken house. I did trap one this year that I got the vibe she wasn’t a killer so I took her a 3 miles away and let her go.
I swear to god I think I trapped the same coon 2 days later. Coon looked exactly the same. This time the trip was 5 miles.
I have had bobcat problems the last few years. Shot one, missed another. They are bold MFers. Broad daylight coming right up to the backyard to kill.
When a chicken can ask me, in clear and concise English, that it wants better conditions, I’ll listen.
Then I’ll chop it’s head off, and cook it.
If YOU want to pay more, go right ahead, and buy from a source that raises eggs your way. I prefer effective and cheap. . .
One good laying hen will lay 1 egg a day, every day. So two chickens will give you 14 a week. Here in the Midwest when it gets real cold chickens will stop laying or when they "molt" losing their feathers.
There are ways around this law. I am inspired by how farmers in the former East Germany managed to attain the ridiculous egg quotas decreed by the SED (Socialist Unity Party). The farmers and their family members went to the stores and bought up eggs which were subsidized as part of the social welfare plan. Then they turned in those eggs as their own production , and were paid at the higher “wholesale” rate given to the cooperatives and collective farms. The eggs were thus credited a second time against the goals of the latest Plan. This recycling of eggs earned them extra money, and made the Plan look successful, and everyone was happy. Government figures showed that people were just stuffing themselves with eggs. Of course, there never seemed to be many actually for sale, but that did not bother the planners.
Now back to the USA, and the new CA requirements. In this case, a chicken farmer in IA need only to have a few “California pens” meeting the standards of the new CA law. (You can take it from there.)
since I don’t consider myself a fruitcake (many of my friends would disagree), those extremes are not practical, but just for a philosophical discussion, if you asked me to create my perfect world, but the choice I had to make was no farm animals kept, or, the slaughter houses of today, I’d take no farm animals.
On commercial operations, wire cages are easier to clean. On a farmstead where you have your own, you don't have the same rules as a commercial operation.
You'd have to talk to someone in the egg/chicken growing business for more info on the rules, but I'm sure if the government is just shy of mandating coffee breaks for laying hens, there are plenty.
So you need three birds, two hens and a rooster?
Saw one of them hipsters yesterday in his red pants. He looked ready to spend a lot on lunch.
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