It doesn't sound good for egg prices. They have been having a lot of problems in commercial egg production and also chicken production. Eggs at the store are nearly the same price as the local eggs at the coop now. It may actually be cheaper to get eggs from your neighbor in the future. Don't be fighting the people trying to raise chickens locally.
The government has thrown almost a half a billion dollars at this problem to help big producers with replacing chicks that are sick. This flu is bad in Minnisota and some other states. They aren't going to allow anything with feathers at the county fair this years, probably a wise move. It seems that free range chickens aren't having a problem, unless they are traveling around the country like the commercial on TV.
Last Edit: Aug 6, 2015 9:51:35 GMT -6 by rickymouse
My sisters county did the same thing. No birds at any fairs, and she tells me that many who kept chickens or other birds (there were a couple of Emu's down the road) had to put them down. Most of the chicken farms were affected (or is that infected) drastically. One that she knows of was shut down completely. (ETA: These are chicken/turkey farms, not factories, so you know that the farmers income has been totally wiped out. Not even insurance will cover the cost of that size of loss)
But her county doesn't show up on the RSOE map anymore at least. But it will still take a year at a minimum to recover the loss of that many birds.
Oh now now... You all just hate chickens and meat animals, huh? Why so much hate??
Its just a matter of making them all comfy and free range and free to live their little bird lives how they like ...remaining healthy, able to produce food in sufficient quantity to feed a nation or put humans first is just unthinkably selfish. Hmpf!
(hops out of sight before losing composure (smirk)
My sisters county did the same thing. No birds at any fairs, and she tells me that many who kept chickens or other birds (there were a couple of Emu's down the road) had to put them down. Most of the chicken farms were affected (or is that infected) drastically. One that she knows of was shut down completely. (ETA: These are chicken/turkey farms, not factories, so you know that the farmers income has been totally wiped out. Not even insurance will cover the cost of that size of loss)
But her county doesn't show up on the RSOE map anymore at least. But it will still take a year at a minimum to recover the loss of that many birds.
It's kind of strange because some chickens are more susceptable. Now, I know a little about the chicken food and how some has added antibiotics and some is made from GMO crops while other food is made from normal stuff. The Coop in a town thirty miles away makes their own chicken feed by mixing things.
Now the chemistry of food can lower tolerance to viruses or make the chicken respond badly to the virus. They are making this virus look bad but it is not really that bad to humans The eggs can carry immunity to the virus for those who pick up the antigens and utilize them in their bodies.
The more I study, the less I fear getting sick from natural things but the more I worry about getting sick from the disruptions man is doing to the food we eat or the medicines they feed us. Our bodies are designed to fight things but we have messed with the food and it is causing mistakes to be made by the body. Here is an article that is very relative to what I am saying. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150806091328.htm Now, this can also apply to the chickens and other animals. The chickens are more evolved than man though, they are much older of a species. But we can still mess it up with unnatural practices and chemistry.
Spyder's getting some eggs from a coworker this weekend who has a bunch of their own chickens. I think he said around 4 dozen earmarked for him to pick up? Either way, the mere $4 they want for the eggs is a steal considering the prices right now for conventional as it is. Free-range eggs for a buck a dozen? Oh hell yes, please.
At the rate things are going, I foresee a whole lot of people up here in MI turning to local farms & everyday folks with chickens for theirs, or getting their own birds (more than they already do, I mean) Grand Rapids recently made it legal to have chickens within city limits. From what I've been told, people thought it already was, and many have had theirs for a long time within city limits. Other towns in the area are considering making having chickens legal, too, ours included I believe. Would we have our own coop in the backyard if we could? Oh yeah, absolutely!
We need to make our areas secure in case something happens that disrupts the food distribution. There are a lot of things that can happen in an area. It may only be in a hundred mile radius, but it is nice to be able to know you have something available. It is hard to bake a cake without eggs.
Free range eggs usually taste better, but when they feed the chickens only vegetarian stuff they don't have the good flavor. They need to eat some bugs.
Grand Rapids recently made it legal to have chickens within city limits. From what I've been told, people thought it already was, and many have had theirs for a long time within city limits. Other towns in the area are considering making having chickens legal, too
Damn proggies! Next thing you know, people will be allowed to marry their chickens!
Beware the man who has one gun, he probably knows how to use it.
rickymouse, My bud used to raise free range chickens, he only spread feed in a futile attempt to keep them in the yard. That didn't work to well. A church a mile down the road started bitchin' about them and the county made him either build a fenced in area or get rid of them.
So off they went. While he did like the eggs, he didn't like the way they tasted off the grill. Strange, I ended up with five of them and they were delish!
Beware the man who has one gun, he probably knows how to use it.
Well, I went to the store yesterday and bought two cut up Gerber fryers for a buck sixty six a pound on sale. That brings up our chicken supply to four whole chickens, ten pounds of hind quarters, and two cut up fryers. We also have two packs of chicken breasts. Now we can float through the high price time I think. We will continue to buy them and rotate them in the freezer till they start going up. Most of our chickens are from Walmart, the tyson chickens. They are big tasteless birds. I like locally grown free range organic birds better but they run about three bucks a pound. The taste is heavenly of these real chickens though. Especially when cooked in the kitchen woodstove oven. For some reason all meats taste so much better cooked in there. Pies taste great too, but many things do not increase in flavor much. Pizzas taste better in the electric oven.
I suppose I should get ahold of the cow people to make sure we have a half a cow for this winter, the burger is down to about twenty pounds. I give beef for Christmas presents.
To me it is about getting the best quality product at a reasonable price. I do not consider the commercial eggs that do not have a good flavor as being of high quality. I am kind of picky with foods, trying to find naturally good tasting products instead of chemical treated attractants added to the food.
Last Edit: Aug 7, 2015 10:49:00 GMT -6 by rickymouse
Humans are more scavangers than anything. The smartest and craftiest of animals are scavengers. Scavengers eat foods that are aged, they do not possess excessive enzymes to eat everything fresh. The aging creates neurochemicals and actually some of the glutamates are used to form memories. So scavengers can remember things and learn easier.
When we cook food we basically age it or quickly rot it and we can eat it better. We do need some fresh foods though, they are powerful medicines for us. Too much fresh is no good and neither is too much aged. We need to moderate consumption based on cravings. Now remember, the neurochemicals that are added to foods or unnaturally boosted can cause antigens to form against the food if they are excessive meaning that we can become allergic to foods if we eat them excessively and this is a problem with all the attractant chemistry added to processed food. Our bodies will stick the chemicals into fat cells till it can properly detox them. Too much of this chemistry can make us unnecessarily fat.
Good eggs help us to detox things just like some sulfur veggies. All have a little negative effects, but eggs can help calm us and unless you are sensitive to them, they are not a problem if eaten moderately. Two much can effect the methylation cycle and cause problems with folate for many people. But all you need to do is drink coffee with your eggs to keep this from happening as it is a methyl donor. Eggs themselves have a lot of folate but have cysteine which needs to be converted to be utilized and some things dampen this problem. Many people have problems with this so I guess it leads to hair loss if you do not eat certain veggies containing TMG.
So we are not tigers or lions, we are not cats. Some of us are foxes while others are old buzzards.
Mine all run freerange ...... too lazy to build coop ...... plus tiger would think it bento box and eat even more ....... as to meat ....... go fishing...... bag wild boars ....... and at times the yards butcher waterbuffalo and bring some by ........
Though not look forward to the shape my garden be in by time get back out to boonieville ........
Mine all run freerange ...... too lazy to build coop ...... plus tiger would think it bento box and eat even more ....... as to meat ....... go fishing...... bag wild boars ....... and at times the yards butcher waterbuffalo and bring some by ........
Though not look forward to the shape my garden be in by time get back out to boonieville ........
Free range doesn't mean they have to be totally free, they can live in a coop and they can be in an area that is surrounded by a fence. Up here the fences need to have certain systems so the hawks can't swoop in and get them. Something that breaks their flight path. You can leave them outside the penned area when you are out in the garden and yard though. You just have to keep the windows open and listen if the chickens are squawking a lot then get the twenty two and shoot at the coyotes and chase off the foxes.
The eggs yolk is more yellow when they are out in the sun. Better than the Canthaxanthin that the big egg producers feed to the chickens so they get a yellow yolk. That can cause some problems with people's eyes. phys.org/news/2010-01-chemical-additives-food.html
Not all of what man steers production of is bad, it is what they do to trick us to believing something is right that can cause problems lots of times.
Last Edit: Aug 7, 2015 12:08:28 GMT -6 by rickymouse
rickymouse, I've found good prices on natural & organic chickens at Meijer. I think the last natural we bought was around $1.40 a lb, and the organic was about $3, versus the roughly $1.10 for conventional. And yes, even the natural ones are a world of difference in flavor by comparison.
Oh, and there's a chance we might rely on this coworker for the foreseeable future for the eggs. Not just based on their price, but OHMYGODTHESEAREGOOD. For starters, they're huge, a good third bigger than the conventional larges & some bigger than XLs/jumbos. And the yolks are just amazing. Big, beautiful deep golden yolks. I haven't had such richness in an egg yolk in years. They have many acres of fenced land, and just let their chickens roam and do their scavenger/forager thing. He said they don't even use grain feed, just let them wander the fields & woods eating as they go. No wonder they taste so frakking good, a natural diet does a bird some good!