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Hi everyone, been quite a while since I posted here, but things have been busy living "on my own". Got a job, got fired etc. Blahblahblah.

The point of the thread: My boyfriend was watching videos one day of cows being slaughtered. We were both drunk, and somehow we started yelling at each other about how cruel it is, and how going veg isn't something that will stop it. Since we were both on the same side, I don't know why we were yelling, lol. Probably the wine. But anyway, I was yelling about how if we all ate food from local farms where we could see where our food came from, not just produce, but meat as well, then we could insure that we weren't eating 'mistreated meat'. And he said, well why don't we do that? And I said because we can't afford it. And he said that we can afford it. So I said, if we can afford it, then we're doing it. And we made an agreement, and we're pretty much going to be slowly phasing out grocery stores all together, since we live in Florida and the majority of the produce we buy already is straight from the farm. It's pretty exciting, and I'm glad that my big bad republican boyfriend has a heart too and feels the same as I do about eating well without causing undue suffering. And hopefully someday when we're better off financially, we can have our own little homestead. We already have chickens, but they're just for pets. Someday we will raise our own chickens for meat as well as eggs. They'll be treated with kindness and love from the egg to the table, and they won't be filled with artificial hormones and all of that other crap that commercial chickens get.

I am planning on having (3) chickens when we get a house. The maximum in my current town is 4, and I think only in certain zonings, so it might be tricky.


I wouldn't be able to eat my own chickens though, they would be for eggs.
I have heard that they live a lot longer than they lay eggs though, so I haven't figured out how to deal with that inevitable hurdle.

I do want to find happy chicken/beef to buy, but right now we aren't even making enough for rent so it really will have to wait. We're certainly not able to get as much as local farmers set as their minimum (half a cow? LOL)
And as for eggs, prices here are just ridiculous for home-raised. FIVE DOLLARS for a dozen eggs? Maybe more people will get home chickens and slowly the price will become a bit more reasonable, because that's way over my per-meal budget by the time my boyfriend gets full!

We can't eat our own chickens either right now, since we don't own our property and we're within the city, we don't want to push it so we only have two and they're my babies. But land here is cheap, so when we can afford it we're buying property in the agricultural district and then we plan to raise chicken for pets, eggs, and meat. Also possibly goats, a pig or two and a cow.

Where are you looking for farm raised eggs? Around here if you go to the actual farms, eating eggs are cheap, like $1-$2 a dozen, which is about the same as grocery store factory eggs.

Congrats! I'm vegetarian, and want to go vegan when I move out of home (At the moment my parents are happy eating mostly vegetarian meals, and sometimes vegan, but they prefer cheese).
Though if I ever do eat meat again, I'll be going for cruelty free. Though I ate meat again for a week, and after being vegan I found meat very boring lol.

Chickens are great. We get about 4 eggs per day, though sometimes not all the chickens lay. We always have enough, free range, cruelty free, organic eggs to make meals out of them, give the dogs one each, and share with our friends lol.

Do you have room for a veggie patch, or even some herbs in some pots?

Aah, yeah, I would never go vegan, it goes against my beliefs, but to each his own. I would very much rather that my meat came from reputable sources (or myself) though. At the moment, I don't think we'll be getting enough eggs to completely not rely on stores or farmers, because we only have one (presumed) hen and she's a silkie, so they don't lay every day. But like I said, they're more for pets than they are anything else at this point.

I do have a vegetable patch, but due to the drought and my hose always mysteriously getting it's self hooked to the hot water heater (which I don't know how to unhook without shooting scalding water everywhere) I've been slacking on watering. My herbs are dead, most of my peppers and I've only got one good tomato plant still going. A bit difficult since all of the hose hook-ups are very far from my garden area (which has the best sun and nutrients, so can't move it), and our sinks/bath tub make it difficult to just fill my bucket and use that to water. We've been getting a lot more rain lately though, so hopefully that helps.

Choosing meat more carefully is still great. I didn't know silkies didn't lay much... almost got two the other day, but we didn't know how they would go with out chickens.

Hope the rain does help smile

I think the rain was too late for my tomatoes. Did a water change on my fish tank and brought the dirty tank water (Best fertilizer evar) to my garden plot, last tomato plant was all black and withery =(

Silkie hens are supposed to lay like 3 eggs a week or so, I'll give you an accurate count if Claudie ever starts laying, lol.

Hmm so not to many eggs hey? I do want silkies, but I actually didn't want to many more eggs, since we're getting plenty as it is. More then plenty. Should probably wait until the current ones start slowing down their egg laying