How many chickens would you need to keep to supply all the meat and eggs your family eats?

[Ridgerunner]

I think it was @Ridgerunner who introduced me to the term 'wiggle words'...
...I call them clarifiers and use them often because not much is absolute, espcially when talking about 'live animals'(another one I 'stole' from RR).

I cooked up a cockerel on Monday...part of 3-4 meals already and still some stock and meat left.

Probably was me. We steal back and forth all the time. Like "romance meets reality". I may have stolen those from someone else, maybe 40 years ago when I was working or from someone else on here. Or they may be original with me.

I don't even consider the quarts of broth I make when talking about eating chickens. Or the picked chicken meat from making that broth. I figure most people aren't going to go to that much trouble. If you don't know what you are missing you don't know what you are missing.

 

[Shadrach]

Probably was me. We steal back and forth all the time. Like "romance meets reality". I may have stolen those from someone else, maybe 40 years ago when I was working or from someone else on here. Or they may be original with me.

I don't even consider the quarts of broth I make when talking about eating chickens. Or the picked chicken meat from making that broth. I figure most people aren't going to go to that much trouble. If you don't know what yo are missing you don't know what you are missing.

Is broth what I would call stock?

 

[ChocolateMouse]

I mean, like, I'm confused too...
If you assume your assumptions are correct you're correct. That seems pretty tautological. Chickens are chickens. Good things are good.

This feels a little like saying "Well if you assume potatoes are peoples main diet and they need an acre for 10lbs, nobody could possibly get value from growing potatoes.". Er... Yes? But... What's the point in making that argument exactly?
So, ok. You're right under your parameters. Those parameters are wrong so you can't make any determinations based off of them. We don't live in that world. But you're right in this hypothetical world.

But then you DO try to make determinations based off of those. Your argument seems to be "Nobody raising chickens can ever make any sort of an undefined difference in anything and you're all delusional and my parameters prove it", and well... That that is just patently false. Cause it firstly ignores a lot of variables, your quantitative values are based on some really unrealistic parameters and you completely ignore all qualitative factors entirely. Which seems like a terrible way to determine a blanket discouraging and antagonistic statement like "people are delusional and will never make a difference".

And THEN you're not interested in hearing why those parameters are off, you're making weird arguments like "hatching out lots of chicks means you're a hatchery not ACTUALLY keeping chickens", you're ignoring qualitative value and ignoring things like food quality, education, individual value, building small efforts, changing mindsets, making lives better, and countless other benefits... So what's the goal here? Cause I'm also kind of getting the feeling of "I made this thread to be judgey"... So if that's not your goal you're not meeting what your goal IS and I have NO idea what the goal was.

I think nobody would have a problem with your arguments if you weren't using really unrealistic expectations to heck on a whole swath of the chicken keeping population. As a thought experiment it's fine. As a method for judging a whole community it's garbage. And it REALLY seems like you're just doing the latter...

 

[Chickassan]

Honestly playing devil's advocate for a bit I don't think a large percentage of keepers are trying to make a dent in the industrial meat/egg market.
Myself nor my family ever did, the main reason for our own birds was simply due to market products being disgusting and flavorless.
When you see the condtions provided and understand the very basic needs of the birds you're quite certain that wont be improving so you have your own and do your best for them.
Paying for inedible food and having it suffer to boot was and never will be a card on the table

 

[Ridgerunner]

Is broth what I would call stock?

Definitions again!!! Basically yes.

 

[Shadrach]

I mean, like, I'm confused too...
If you assume your assumptions are correct you're correct. That seems pretty tautological. Chickens are chickens. Good things are good.

This feels a little like saying "Well if you assume potatoes are peoples main diet and they need an acre for 10lbs, nobody could possibly get value from growing potatoes.". Er... Yes? But... What's the point in making that argument exactly?
So, ok. You're right under your parameters. Those parameters are wrong so you can't make any determinations based off of them. We don't live in that world. But you're right in this hypothetical world.

But then you DO try to make determinations based off of those. Your argument seems to be "Nobody raising chickens can ever make any sort of an undefined difference in anything and you're all delusional and my parameters prove it", and well... That that is just patently false. Cause it firstly ignores a lot of variables, your quantitative values are based on some really unrealistic parameters and you completely ignore all qualitative factors entirely. Which seems like a terrible way to determine a blanket discouraging and antagonistic like "people are delusional and will never make a difference".

And THEN you're not interested in hearing why those parameters are off, you're making weird arguments like "hatching out lots of chicks means you're a hatchery not ACTUALLY keeping chickens", you're ignoring qualitative value and ignoring things like food quality, education, individual value, building small efforts, changing mindsets, making lives better, and countless other benefits... So what's the goal here? Cause I'm also kind of getting the feeling of "I made this thread to be judgey"... So if that's not your goal you're not meeting what your goal IS and I have NO idea what the goal was.

I think nobody would have a problem with your arguments if you weren't using really unrealistic expectations to heck on a whole swath of the chicken keeping population. As a thought experiment it's fine. As a method for judging a whole community it's garbage. And it REALLY seems like you're just doing the latter...

I mean, like, I'm confused too...
If you assume your assumptions are correct you're correct. That seems pretty tautological. Chickens are chickens. Good things are good.

This feels a little like saying "Well if you assume potatoes are peoples main diet and they need an acre for 10lbs, nobody could possibly get value from growing potatoes.". Er... Yes? But... What's the point in making that argument exactly?
So, ok. You're right under your parameters. Those parameters are wrong so you can't make any determinations based off of them. We don't live in that world. But you're right in this hypothetical world.

But then you DO try to make determinations based off of those. Your argument seems to be "Nobody raising chickens can ever make any sort of an undefined difference in anything and you're all delusional and my parameters prove it", and well... That that is just patently false. Cause it firstly ignores a lot of variables, your quantitative values are based on some really unrealistic parameters and you completely ignore all qualitative factors entirely. Which seems like a terrible way to determine a blanket discouraging and antagonistic statement like "people are delusional and will never make a difference".

And THEN you're not interested in hearing why those parameters are off, you're making weird arguments like "hatching out lots of chicks means you're a hatchery not ACTUALLY keeping chickens", you're ignoring qualitative value and ignoring things like food quality, education, individual value, building small efforts, changing mindsets, making lives better, and countless other benefits... So what's the goal here? Cause I'm also kind of getting the feeling of "I made this thread to be judgey"... So if that's not your goal you're not meeting what your goal IS and I have NO idea what the goal was.

I think nobody would have a problem with your arguments if you weren't using really unrealistic expectations to heck on a whole swath of the chicken keeping population. As a thought experiment it's fine. As a method for judging a whole community it's garbage. And it REALLY seems like you're just doing the latter...

I can't help myself. Try not to be offended, but you could have saved yourself an awful lot of typing by just typing "I don't like your attitude!".

 

[Shadrach]

Definitions again!!! Basically yes.

It's something I should do here but don't. I make bone an bits stew occasional. I don't have canning equipment here. How long does it last in a sealed jar?

 

[Chickassan]

Shaddy, sometimes you are a cheeky fecker.

I can't help myself. Try not to be offended, but you could have saved yourself an awful lot of typing by just typing "I don't like your attitude!".

 

[Shadrach]

Shaddy, sometimes you are a cheeky fecker.

I know Chickassan.
I can't help it. it's the troll in me.

 

[NHMountainMan]

I'll try and address this.
These are 2014 figures. 21,917,808 chickens per day in the USA.
Roughly 8 billion per year.
As can be seen from some of the replies in this thread, some people may eat one chicken per week from their backyard flock, many much less.
If you believe that has any impact on the commercial production that's up to you.
I don't think it does. I've looked for reliable figures on how many chickens are eaten by backyard keepers but there is no reliable data.
My point is you are not feeding your family with the chickens you keep. This is what the numbers prove. The contribution to the food a family needs from backyard chickens is very very small unless, over the year, unless you have killed the numbers mentioned above.
There are lots of reasons for keeping chickens. Believing you are making a difference to the amount produced by the commercial concerns is in my view delusional.

Not sure of your data source, but assuming it's accurate - that's approx. 25 chicken each year for every American- one bird every other week. More than I would have guessed. Thanks for pulling that #.