Chicken Math

[ThomWV]

A neighbor our ours, young married couple, had a child late last fall. They had a healthy girlchild, born without complications at the hospital in a nearby town. He works for the city as a mechanic and has health insurance. When I asked he told me that the total bill, by the time his wife was back home and all was done it came to right at $4,300.

A good sized laying hen will weigh about 7 pounds, but a meat chicken would be slaughtered young and at a lighter weight. With home raised birds you're generally pretty lucky to get much more than about 3 pounds of meat out of one after all is done. At the local grocer whole chickens are selling for $1.19 per pound.

The question this information presents is obvious, how many chickens does it take to consummate an equitable trade in chickens per childbirth? Its just grade school arithmetic, one child birth cost divided by $1.19 to see how many pounds of chicken we're talking about and then its up to the hospital to decide if they want it in laying hens or gutted chicken.

3,613 pounds of chicken is what it comes out to, that being 516 laying hens or 1,204 ready to cook whole birds.

So that's the math, but on a personal note I have to tell you something. As a person who has raised and slaughtered a good number of chickens the most I'd pay would be 400 on the hoof and maybe 800 cleaned.

[Mari333]

1. brilliant I knew a post like this would appear! knr

[sinkingfeeling]

2. Ah, but you're only calculating the parents' part of the bill. The good candidate is saying we don't

need health insurance via the recently passed HCR because all health care can be bartered. How much does a typical hospital bill for the birth of a child and care actually come to, if one had no insurance? Then figure out how many truckloads of live chickens it would take.

[Mari333]

3. this might cover one hour of lab work

[samplegirl]

4. Maybe a few black angus cows and throw a few

chickens in for good will.

[rocktivity]

5. If I were THAT desperate, I'd barter something of REAL value

like my jewelery.



:headbang:
rocktivity