Raising chickens is not the answer

The sale of chickens has exploded since egg prices skyrocketed as a result of the recent avian flu, the consolidation in the egg industry, and inflation. In light of the sudden increase in egg prices, Americans have decided that the answer is to purchase chickens of their own.

As a result, hatcheries are now having trouble meeting the demand for chicks, increasing their cost by 18 percent this year.

This strikes me as an inefficient, knee-jerk solution to a small and possibly temporary problem.

In fact, it’s definitely temporary, at least to some degree. The average price of a carton of eggs is currently $3.40, down from a high of $5.54 a few months ago.

Also, how important are eggs that people need to begin raising farm animals to bolster their egg supply? I like eggs a lot, but if they became unaffordable, I could certainly use fewer eggs without too much consternation.

I don’t pretend to understand the economics of owning chickens, but does raising chickens really make economic sense? The cost of eggs has nearly tripled in the last two years, but that has amounted to an increase of about $3 per dozen.

How many dozens of eggs do you need to buy to make the purchase of actual chickens economically sensible?

Don’t you need to build an enclosure of some kind for your chickens? And chickens need to eat. How much does it cost to feed a chicken every week? And how much time will now be spent on the care and upkeep of your flock?

Maybe you could sell the extra eggs you don’t need, but now you’re in the egg-selling business. How much money per hour will you be earning selling surplus eggs?

This is not an argument against owning chickens, of course. Nothing wrong with raising chickens if you have the space and know what you’re doing.

This is an argument against purchasing chickens to offset the recent $3.00 increase in a dozen eggs.

Call me crazy, but unless you’re purchasing hundreds of eggs per week (and the average American eats less than one egg per day), I don’t think this makes a lot of sense.

You can probably find a different, far easier place in your life to save a few bucks. Perhaps two fewer cappuccinos each week makes more sense than building a chicken coop and adding a flock of flightless birds to your life.

Also, perhaps you should consider the amount of time required to raise farm animals before jumping into the egg game. Yes, you may save some money by avoiding today’s escalating egg prices, but when your saving-per-hour rate is well below minimum wage, maybe there are better, more profitable ways of spending that time.

My rule of problem-solving is this:

The simplest solution to a problem is almost always the best solution to a problem.

Also:

Not every thing needs to be a thing.

Becoming a chicken farmer to offset an increase in egg prices strikes me as a complex solution to a decidedly simple problem.

It’s also very much an example of making a thing out of something that need not be a thing.