I believe it is spreading....

[FarmerJamie]

Locally, I'm seeing more free-ranging hens. Nearly hit two up the road on my way home from work. I convinced two coworkers to try raising chickens. No idea what to make of it.

 

[Farmfresh]

There were about five houses, besides mine, in our neighborhood last year with front yard veg patches. They have started a community garden in out area as well.

 

[~gd]

I think it might be a function of where our members live, most attempt to live in the places that other people with a SS mindset are searching for, places where you can but a small plot of land without paying a fortune for it. the full blown suburbs to the north and south of me are still ruled by home owner's associations. And I do mean RULED! They have RULES about everything from the colors you can paint your house to the type number and size of pets you can own. I have lost track of the number of poultry I have taken in because people never bothered to check with their HOA before buying chicks. ducklings, goslings or turkey poults. [Some places allow peafowl and swans!! because they are pretty and "classy" The local shelter won't accept poultry But will direct people to free holders like my self. I am a sucker for waterfowl but starting this spring no more chickens or turkeys.
If the birds are of a suitable hardy breed I tell them my Key West story. In Key West chickens are common pests. Years ago the cops cracked down on cock fighting and made the ownership of chickens illegal. The game birds used for fighting are tough so the owners just turned them lose and closed down their coops. The birds free ranged where ever they felt like was good. Without any control of their breeding only the most fit survived and they multiplied! Now Key West has an official chicken catcher. Being the nice law abiding man you all know I never TELL people to just turn their chickens and turkeys LOSE in the subdivisions. NUDGE NUDGE WINK WINK. But many lood their birds back up with a smile on their faces and never show up at other free holders whose name and address that I provide. Now if you have broad breasted turkeys they will not survive since they depend on AI to reproduce, but hunters are reporting all kinds of oddly marked birds running around in the woods. I guess a gobble means the same to a domestic hen as it does to a wild one. And it is funny how people that were dead set against their neighbors having chickens will feed the birds that they find searching for food in their lawns. I suspect that sooner or later some HOAs will have to do something about their wild chicken problem and the votes might produce some suprises~gd

 

[Avalon1984]

It is definetely spreading. We had loads and loads of people stop by this soring to get our horse manure and the mssage was all the same...using it for raised garden beds, creating their first own garden...and oh...you have chickens and bees too? Tell me more about that. I am happy people are waking up to what they can do on their own without having to rely completely on supermarkets, etc.

 

[Denim Deb]

I'm wondering if it's cyclic. I'm reading a fiction book from 1933. And they mentioned in there that people were becoming more interested in raising their own.

 

[moolie]

It's totally cyclic, it's just that most of us haven't lived through the cycles before.

My Mom keeps saying that she's seen all of this before in the 60s/70s, and it was all huge during the 30s/40s--especially during WWII when everyone was pretty much required to grow a Victory Garden. We've all had it with all the "me" focus of the 80s and all the high-tech and cocooning/house love of the 90s/early 2000s and now people are getting back to the earth like they did in the 60s after all the glitz and glam of the 50s.

People who grow up with something usually rebel against it, thus most of the cycles in life and society.

 

[Beekissed]

I feel that it is. Whenever the economy takes a dip and panic ensues there are always those who have the knee jerk reaction of "doing something" so they won't be caught with their pants down. I remember a big wave of back- to- the- landers during the 70s...my folks were amongst 'em.

Most people who try the whole gardening thing and raising animals in response to a vague feeling of unease over the economy soon find out that it takes work to raise food and preserve it....it's not as simple as they first imagined and they also find themselves spending more money trying to do all these things than any money they could save on them.

Check out "how much my first egg costs" threads on BYC and see how many people are moaning over the expense of keeping chickens...they almost seem proud of the money they have lost and always chime in that they "didn't get into it" to save money but to provide their families with healthier food choices. Wouldn't it have been cheaper and more expedient to just purchase healthy foods from the farmers that are already setup to grow it? I mean...how many eggs will a $3000 coop buy? I'm guessing a full on plenty!

Soon the chickens have succumbed to predators, often their own house dogs, the romance of "farming" in your backyard diminishes with time and people are right back to just buying the stuff. Every time they attempt to garden(again, at great expense of tillers, mulch, raised beds, grow lights) the weeds take over and pretty soon you can hear how it's just "cheaper" to buy it from the store.

When the grain is finally sifted, the chaff goes back to their old lifestyle and a few grains of wheat who really committed to finding a better system for their life will continue...but it's always just a few.

 

[rhoda_bruce]

Agreed Bee.....my coop costed over 2,000 but its a Coop Knox and is @ least 10X bigger than a ready-made kit would have given me. It used to aggrivate me to read BYC's topics that claimed its not possible to turn a profit, when I knew I was doing it. Now if I bought all my feed at the feed stores and incubated eggs, but let my extra roos get too old and not tend to them or sell them at a profit and I didn't even try to use things I already had as my equipment, then I'd never turn a profit.
You have to have a brain to make any business work and I look on all my SS projects in a business-like way. Even if it doesn't give me $, it saves me $, so best try and make your little business profitable.
Of course, when fear and suspicion is thrown into the mix, it can serve as motivation to get the job done faster and more religious than ever.