# Should cityfolk raise livestock? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 29, 2009, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-cityfolk-raise-livestock/491195 "2009-03-29T17:34:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-cityfolk-raise-livestock/491195/41 "2009-03-30T20:28:07Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > Fair enough, but in case you don’t know, there are a few Pollo Vivero places a few blocks from your apartment. I haven’t been inside them, but I am pretty sure the chickens are raised on the premises. I wouldn’t be surprised either. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-cityfolk-raise-livestock/491195/42 "2009-03-30T20:31:00Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > In theory it is. In reality, most meat-production facilities simply ignore the government regulations, and little attempt is made at enforcement. Ultimately I’d agree that a little bit of government regulation is a good thing, but too much is a bad thing. During the last forty years, government regulation of food has increased hugely, but food itself has become less healthy, and obesity has skyrocketed. A few weeks ago there was a big “incident” at some peanut butter company back east. As I understand it from the soundbites on the local news, the management knew the peanut butter was bad, but shipped it anyway. If you are producing your own food, for your own consumption, I doubt you will knowingly and deliberately put bad food in your own mouth. So, “self production” brings its own sort of vested interest in quality control and good storage. Knowing you might sicken or kill yourself, is one hell of a motivator. ---
**Author:** ![Caffeine.addict](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f475e1/32.png) [@Caffeine.addict](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caffeine.addict)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-cityfolk-raise-livestock/491195/43 "2009-03-30T20:39:03Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > I lived in Takoma Park, Maryland which is a suburb of DC. One of my neighbors kept chickens and more importantly for me, when I was trying to sleep in, a rooster. I moved into the District to be able to get some sleep. [Not so fast.](http://wamu.org/news/09/03/25.php#25740). I heard about this the other day. No to chickens. My grandparents had a few chickens and the damn things would make a racket early in the morning. That being said, Takoma Park is a weird place, and it doesn’t surprise me that someone there would be raising chickens. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-cityfolk-raise-livestock/491195/44 "2009-03-30T20:39:27Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > I wouldn’t be surprised either. I have been tempted to go and get myself a chicken, but I honestly don’t know whether they are fit for eating or just Santeria. Either way, these places have been around forever. It is an open question as to whether or not this is “ridiculous”. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-cityfolk-raise-livestock/491195/45 "2009-03-30T21:22:02Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Frankly, between my husband getting attached to easily to animals, and the sheer amount of _work_ involved in raising livestock, slaughtering, and butchering I’d just as soon pay someone else to raise and kill the beasties. Or I’d take up hunting. It’s still a lot of work killing and butchering, but at least I wouldn’t have to bother with the feeding and raising of the livestock. My husband hunts deer, or tries to. He and his brother have a farm/hunting lodge in West Texas. They have a couple of deer feeders out there. The theory is, the feeders attract deer and get them into the habit of frequenting the area. The reality is that the feeders are frequently vandalized or stolen. Or the damned deer ignore them, or only the does frequent them. Doe season is much shorter than buck season, and apparently does know when it’s NOT doe season. They will wander up to hunters, and flap their ears back and forth, taunting the hunters. Or so my husband says. At least a couple of my neighbors keep some sort of birds. I’m pretty sure that the people across the street keep pigeons/doves, because I hear the cooing. And I think that another neighbor keeps chickens. I live in an area that’s at least 75% Hispanic, so we have some cultural traditions here. The neighborhood is mostly small single family housing, with a few churches, convenience stores, car dealerships, and a large mall nearby. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-cityfolk-raise-livestock/491195/46 "2009-03-30T22:20:57Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > I have been tempted to go and get myself a chicken, but I honestly don’t know whether they are fit for eating or just Santeria. Either way, these places have been around forever. It is an open question as to whether or not this is “ridiculous”. No if it’s for Santeria there are mystical reasons for growing them locally. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-cityfolk-raise-livestock/491195/47 "2009-03-30T23:40:34Z")
> [@scr4](#): > > And how do you transport feed and other supplies to individual urban homes? Either it’ll be transported hundreds of miles on UPS trucks, or purchased at a “local” store and transported home in SUVs. Or people could do like the old days and feed them kitchen and food scraps (with some supplemental feed). Chickenfeed also has an advantage over meat in that chickenfeed does not require refrigeration. > [@](#): > > And keep in mind that it takes many pounds of feed to produce one pound of eggs or meat. About 6 pounds of feed for every 1 pound of chicken, live weight. In general, only about half the live weight translates into food on your plate. So… a chicken that results in 4 lbs of eatin’ chicken would require about 48 lbs of food to reach slaughter weight. Of course, many hens are kept for their _eggs_, not so much their meat. Although in the old days not only were laying hens past their prime slaughtered for the soup pot, but folks got some use out of the feathers, too. > [@](#): > > There’s also the problem of waste. It’ll have to be transported out, or add to the load on sewage processing plants. If I had chickens I’d add the guano to the compost pile out back. In fact, I _already_ compost the waste my parrots produce. Composted bird crap is good for your garden. Of course, if folks don’t have room for a garden they won’t be doing that, but if your space is that limited it’s a bit unlikely you’d be keeping poultry. > [@](#): > > I also imagine most urban dwellers wouldn’t butcher their livestock at home, but take it somewhere to get it done. Well, a chicken is small enough to do in the kitchen - my parents growing up in St. Louis (in the city center, not the outskirts) remember people keeping chickens and rabbits and doing their own killing and butchering - my dad’s family had a large enough yard to raise their own, my mother’s family would buy live animals and do the butchering in the kitchen. An alternative is to go to the local butcher store - people I know who hunt invariably know of butchers who will cut up and package you meat for you. In fact, last fall one of my friends gave me five pounds of neatly packaged deer on styrofoam trays and wrapped in plastic just like dead cow and pig at the local grocery store. > [@](#): > > And why exactly do we need to keep in touch with agricultural roots? You don’t _have_ to, but some of us either enjoy or feel a need to produce some of our own food. > [@](#): > > Amateurs controlling the conditions of their own food is not always a good thing. Store-bought food is at least produced in facilities run by professionals and inspected by the government. Uh… yeah? You mean the places that hire illegal immigrants for starvation wages for work in unsafe conditions? You mean the corporations that brought us spinach contaminated with _E. coli?_ Amateurs aren’t always bad. Corporations aren’t always good. At least if an amateur gardener or poultry farmer screws up the damage is limited to just a few people in a very localized area - when the big agri-businesses screw up the recalls can spread across a continent and involve thousands of people sickened. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2009, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-cityfolk-raise-livestock/491195/48 "2009-03-30T23:49:19Z")
> [@Maeglin](#): > > I have been tempted to go and get myself a chicken, but I honestly don’t know whether they are fit for eating or just Santeria. Most animals sacrificed in Santeria and Voudoun rituals ARE eaten after the ceremony (the main exception being those used to remove curses, if I recall - but I am not an expert in either religion). So… yeah, they’re probably fit to eat. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-cityfolk-raise-livestock/491195/49 "2009-03-31T01:23:25Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > A few weeks ago there was a big “incident” at some peanut butter company back east. As I understand it from the soundbites on the local news, the management knew the peanut butter was bad, but shipped it anyway. > > If you are producing your own food, for your own consumption, I doubt you will knowingly and deliberately put bad food in your own mouth. On the other hand, if you are producing your own food, you probably wouldn’t get it tested for salmonella. And from what I understand, FDA [outsourced](http://www.emrupdate.com/blogs/ducknet/archive/2009/02/06/peanut-butter-factory-inspections-were-outsourced-to-state-of-georgia.aspx) the inspection of this plant; the problem probably would have been caught if the FDA had proper funding to do the inspection themselves. > [@](#): > > Knowing you might sicken or kill yourself, is one hell of a motivator. Knowing your business can be shut down by inspectors is also one hell of a motivator. We keep our kitchen pretty clean, but my wife (who has worked in the service industry) still points out things we do that won’t pass inspections if we were a commercial kitchen. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-cityfolk-raise-livestock/491195/50 "2009-03-31T16:31:50Z")
> [@scr4](#): > > On the other hand, if you are producing your own food, you probably wouldn’t get it tested for salmonella. > > And from what I understand, FDA [outsourced](http://www.emrupdate.com/blogs/ducknet/archive/2009/02/06/peanut-butter-factory-inspections-were-outsourced-to-state-of-georgia.aspx) the inspection of this plant; the problem probably would have been caught if the FDA had proper funding to do the inspection themselves. > Knowing your business can be shut down by inspectors is also one hell of a motivator. We keep our kitchen pretty clean, but my wife (who has worked in the service industry) still points out things we do that won’t pass inspections if we were a commercial kitchen. Cleanliness is a MUST. Freshness is a MUST. As far as that one place goes, you say the inspections were outsourced. My answer has to be one of “yeah that’s one of the problems”. The inspection was outsourced. Then, the management knew the food was tainted (the inspectors did their job maybe?) and then the managers shipped anyway. That is hardly a good selling point for commercial food. They KNEW it was bad and shipped anyway. In my case with my birds, I was collecting the eggs. Each day, I’d get them. They were often still warm. If in doubt, I’d break them and toss them. Freshness was not an issue. As far as meat, I don’t butcher my chickens, even though I will “eat the hell out of” store bought poultry. ---
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-cityfolk-raise-livestock/491195/51 "2009-03-31T17:24:59Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > Only one? I once lived in an apartment of South Central L.A. that was surrounded by chicken raisers. I actually appreciated the roosters because I have to get up early anyway–but yes, roosters don’t know what a weekend or holiday or even what Daylight Saving Time is. > > We couldn’t choose; we got 'em both, but the gunfire is usually about 1:30am, while the rooster crows just before dawn. If only they could be coordinated somehow. Roosters make lousy alarm clocks, unless your idea of an alarm clock is one that goes off all day and all night long. The idea that they crow only to herald the approach of rosy-fingered down is a fable. The reality is much less charming. ---
**Author:** ![DagNation](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@DagNation](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DagNation)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2009, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-cityfolk-raise-livestock/491195/52 "2009-03-31T22:12:59Z")
Wow… so many people with negative opinions on Chickens… My mom has had pet chickens for about 20 years now, and most of the neighbors love them. She lives in an area with about 8 houses per acre, in the city of San Diego. From what she says, people can have 10 birds per house, and there is no species specifications. She has had a rooster at times, and the neighbors liked them too. I assume that if a neighbor complaned about rooster noise she would get rid of it. They have a coop, but they are free range in the yard. There are usually only about 6 of them so there is no odor issue. Over this past winter all but 1 were eaten by a racoon, and others in the past were eaten by the local coyote. Such is the circle of life, and that is what it costs to share the neighborhood with wild animals. When I stayed at her house I found the clucking and crowing to be a pleasant background noise, but it did take me a few nights to get used to. After a while the “I just layed an egg (and it is the best egg ever)” song would wake me up hungry. They help with weeding and bugs, they make calming sounds, and they give us the best eggs I have ever eaten. The seed we feed them draws wild birds. What is not to love about pet chickens? Dag ---
**Author:** ![Critical1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Critical1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Critical1)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2009, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-cityfolk-raise-livestock/491195/53 "2009-04-01T07:47:41Z")
keeping chickens would rock for the eggs. but a ROOSTER?!?!?!?!? the first time I wake up to some damn bird will be the first time the neighbors see me up on the roof with my rifle and scope looking like I am ready to kill something. ---
**Author:** ![StinkyBurrito](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b9e5f3/32.png) [@StinkyBurrito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StinkyBurrito)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2009, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-cityfolk-raise-livestock/491195/54 "2009-04-01T14:01:50Z")
I briefly looked into this last year and quickly decided that it was probably illegal. If I had known it was trendy, maybe I would have told more people about it and looked into it further just to show everyone how cool I am. I wonder what the best way is to find out if it is really illegal in my city or not. Is there a listing? Should I consult a lawyer? Call the police? Talk to city hall? Can chickens survive outside in freezing weather or do they need a little heater or something? ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2009, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-cityfolk-raise-livestock/491195/55 "2009-04-01T15:21:07Z")
> [@StinkyBurrito](#): > > I briefly looked into this last year and quickly decided that it was probably illegal. If I had known it was trendy, maybe I would have told more people about it and looked into it further just to show everyone how cool I am. > > I wonder what the best way is to find out if it is really illegal in my city or not. Is there a listing? Should I consult a lawyer? Call the police? Talk to city hall? > > Can chickens survive outside in freezing weather or do they need a little heater or something? Just ask the local ASPCA, animal control, or police. In the winter, the biggest problems are wet and wind. Chickens rely on their feathers for insulation, but they don’t work very well on a wet or wind whipped bird. So, the first thing is to build or get a coop that shelters them from the wind and rain, while still providing adequate ventilation. For heat, that all depends on how cold it gets. In California, I don’t have to provide any heat. In some places, people will use lightbulbs (the kind that give off heat instead of light - infra red). I doubt you will need to set up a space hearter or anything like that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-cityfolk-raise-livestock/491195.md?page=2)