Backyard Chicken Farming: Economics and Ethics

Tove Danovich is the person to talk to about raising backyard chickens — at least if you want to talk about the culture and discourse swirling around raising backyard chickens. When the current administration started messaging that everyone should consider countering rising egg prices by raising some chickens in their backyard, Tove and I wanted to do an episode about what people are really talking about when they talk about getting backyard chickens. This is an episode about chickens, in other words, but it’s actually an episode about ‘wellness,’ regulation, MAHA, homesteading, the very real joy of being a steward to animals, and so much more. If this doesn’t immediately strike you as your thing, I hope you’ll give this nuanced discussion a chance.

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Show Notes:

• Subscribe to Tove’s newsletter, follow Tove on Instagram, and buy Under the Henfluence! You can also see Tove’s chicken influence Instagram account here, temporarily (we hope) on hiatus

• Read my interview with Tove from back in 2023:

• Data sources re: increase in people keeping backyard chickens

• Write-up of the Secretary of Agriculture encouraging people to keep backyard chickens as a way to a) combat avian flu and b) afford eggs

• Tove mentioned Martha Stewart’s first book, Entertaining, as inspo for a wave of chicken popularity. Here’s a story of how people clamor over old copies of it, driving the publisher to re-issue it later this year (NYT gift link)

We’re currently looking for your questions for future episodes about:

• What 2000s pop culture did to women’s understanding of themselves

• What’s going on in AMERICAN PARENTING CULTURE (broadly conceived) right now (with Melissa Wenner Moyer!)

• TEXAS Culture, MONTANA Culture, and MONTREAL/Québécois Culture for our ongoing culture-of-place series (different eps don’t worry)

• Evangelical Summer Camp, past and present

• How/Why Private Equity is Fucking Everything Up

• The intersection of technology and parenting

• Katy Perry?? Maybe??

• Anything you need advice or want musings on for the AAA segment. You can ask about anything, it’s literally the name of the segment!

• As always, you can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here

For this week’s discussion: What gives you the same vibe as the push/urge to raise backyard chickens???