I really want to raise chickens. It sounds like it would be fun to hear the sounds of the birds in the yard. Plus, FRESH EGGS! Do you really need another reason? As with idea #10, this idea isn’t exactly about cooking or sitting down and connecting over a plate of food, but more about knowing and appreciating where your food comes from. Having a connection with your food really is as important as connecting with people. For instance, the price of certain items in the store might seem arbitrary to you, but I assure you there is a reason.
The price of your food
Here is a common situation to demonstrate this. You go into the grocery store to buy eggs. You just grab a package, probably the cheapest, and don’t give much thought beyond that about where your eggs come from. Then prices go up and now your eggs are fifty cents more a dozen and this seems astronomical to you. I mean you just bought eggs last week, so what could have possibly changed in a week. Now let’s say you are raising your own chickens. You are going about your days feeding the chickens and all of a sudden the feed price goes up because there is a drought and corn prices go up. Now it makes sense that egg prices might go up because imagine the increase in feed for the big chicken farmer. Someone has to absorb that cost and usually that is you the customer. This is just one of the scenarios that could happen. There are plenty of other things that can affect costs.
While as a grocery store customer you don’t give much thought to how the egg gets to the store, as the keeper of the chickens you notice these changes in price at a different point in the food chain. Now it makes sense that egg prices might go up because imagine the increase in feed for the big chicken farmer. Someone has to absorb that cost and usually that is you the customer. This is just one of the scenarios that could happen. There are plenty of other things that can affect costs like illness of the birds, a loss of birds, weather or short days that makes them not lay as many eggs.
Feeding chickens, housing chickens, and cleaning up after them are all tasks involved in raising chickens. All of these tasks have time and money associated with them. That is what gets built into the price. But when you go to the store you likely don’t give it a second thought. As a matter of fact, you probably forgot to check to make sure none of your eggs were broken before you put them in your cart. You certainly aren’t stupid, you know these things happen you just may not really connect them all in the moment, even when you are complaining to your friendly grocery clerk about the ridiculous price increase. Knowing the steps it takes to get your food to the store might make you less irritated when the price goes up. You will at least appreciate all the effort that goes into that job.
So this wasn’t as much about raising chickens and was more about knowing where your food comes from. To make it up to you tomorrow’s podcast with the crew from The Agrarian will answer a lot of the questions you have about actually raising chickens. SPOILER: It’s not has complicated as you think.
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