Dear editor,
I appreciated the response letter to the original one from last Wednesday’s paper and the time it took to write it.
His argument was that having chickens do not save you any money. There’s merit to it, but depends on what you use as a measure.
A closer comparison to farm fresh eggs would be organic cage free eggs which run at least $4 per dozen. He calculated based on $3 per dozen. That takes his stated net profit of $6-$11 a month to $13-$18 a month. Also you’d save on feed prices because chickens will eat food scraps that would just be thrown away so it would probably be more than that.
That’s a peripheral point though.
We have a garden and it probably doesn’t save us any money, especially if you count labor. The endeavor is about more than saving money.
Even if it doesn’t save a dime, it’s great to go into your backyard, grab some food, and cook it up a half-hour later. There’s something very natural and enjoyable about it.
Also anybody who eats veggies from the garden vs. veggies from the store knows garden fresh food is superior.
Fresh eggs are definitely higher quality than the lower-tier store-bought ones in the same way. Also chickens are fun to watch.
Even if it doesn’t save money to have chickens, which is certainly possible, we should be able to have them.
We bought our property and would like to decide what to do with it, within reason and without disturbing the neighbors. That’s the principal point. It feels like an arbitrary limiting of freedom on one’s own property, profitable or not.
Thank you again for your response.
Judiah Hawley,
Iola, Kan.
