jasper
Rotten DM
Hong’s 7.5 billion Chicken rant
Hong likes to post the following about chickens. While discussing the illogical of having players try to force the dm to make something available just because the city gp limit is large enough for an magic item to be there.
…According to the DMG a community with 30,000 adults will
have 7,500,000,000 chickens. [DMG p 137] …
0.5 x the GP limit [100,000] x 0.1 x the population [30,000] is the total value available. Thus at any given time the metropolis will have 150,000,000 GP's worth of chickens available. At 2 CP/chicken this will be 7.5 billion chickens….
1 pd of wheat is 1 cp, a bucket weights 2 pds is 5 sp and a chicken is 2 cp.
A normal chicken matures in six months requires two pounds of starter feed for the first six weeks of life. Cornish (meat type) chicken matures in two months required eight pounds of feed the first six weeks but can be eaten at eight weeks. I stick with the normal egg laying chicken.
A twenty five pound bag of feed should last ten hens ten days if no waste. So figure eighty to ninety pounds per layer per year. Feed is mixture of grains, grin, protein and other stuff but just figure 1 cp per pound of feed.
An arce of grass sod can handle about four tons of chicken manure per year. That's the output of 80 chickens. So, unless you want to kill off the grass and pollute the area with runoff, you can't have more than 80 outdoor chickens per acre. Also as any one who has raise more a few chickens know around their pen it becomes a mud field.
So let me be nice say 200 chickens per acre with feed is population limit and feed is 1 cp per pound but cut the feed needed by half to represent the grass being eaten and table scraps. Forty pounds of feed times two hundred is eight thousand cp or 800 gp. Two hundred chickens times 2 cp is four hundred cp or 4 gp. Chicken City is losing money already.
Sixty percent grass and forty percent feed which gives us thirty two pounds of feed per chicken or six thousand four hundred cp which is 64 gp. Hate to ruffle the feathers but the city still has the accountant’s feathers ruffled, it still in the hole. Even at 1 pd of feed a year the city is only making 4 gp per acre.
Now factor in the buckets. Say a bucket could hold 25 pounds which would feed one hundred chickens per load. The result is seventy five million. Say a person could do one hundred loads a day you would need a bigger city. Ok try one thousand trips still need a bigger city. Ok try ten thousand buckets loads, only a quarter of your population is busy feeding chickens and that many buckets 7500 are three thousand seven hundred fifty (3,750) gp. Back in the red again.
Just consider the manure and acres needed. 7,500,000,000 chickens need 37,500,000 acres of space and produce 150,000,000 (one hundred fifty million) pounds of waste. The town would be 58,593.75 square miles which is just smaller than state of Georgia. This gives new meaning running across town to see a show. Even if all the townspeople try to clean up this no horse town it would take each person to shovel five pounds a day. eww eww stinky poo.
Sources Lionsgrip.com/pastured.html
www.plamondon.com/faq_freerange.html
Hong likes to post the following about chickens. While discussing the illogical of having players try to force the dm to make something available just because the city gp limit is large enough for an magic item to be there.
…According to the DMG a community with 30,000 adults will
have 7,500,000,000 chickens. [DMG p 137] …
0.5 x the GP limit [100,000] x 0.1 x the population [30,000] is the total value available. Thus at any given time the metropolis will have 150,000,000 GP's worth of chickens available. At 2 CP/chicken this will be 7.5 billion chickens….
1 pd of wheat is 1 cp, a bucket weights 2 pds is 5 sp and a chicken is 2 cp.
A normal chicken matures in six months requires two pounds of starter feed for the first six weeks of life. Cornish (meat type) chicken matures in two months required eight pounds of feed the first six weeks but can be eaten at eight weeks. I stick with the normal egg laying chicken.
A twenty five pound bag of feed should last ten hens ten days if no waste. So figure eighty to ninety pounds per layer per year. Feed is mixture of grains, grin, protein and other stuff but just figure 1 cp per pound of feed.
An arce of grass sod can handle about four tons of chicken manure per year. That's the output of 80 chickens. So, unless you want to kill off the grass and pollute the area with runoff, you can't have more than 80 outdoor chickens per acre. Also as any one who has raise more a few chickens know around their pen it becomes a mud field.
So let me be nice say 200 chickens per acre with feed is population limit and feed is 1 cp per pound but cut the feed needed by half to represent the grass being eaten and table scraps. Forty pounds of feed times two hundred is eight thousand cp or 800 gp. Two hundred chickens times 2 cp is four hundred cp or 4 gp. Chicken City is losing money already.
Sixty percent grass and forty percent feed which gives us thirty two pounds of feed per chicken or six thousand four hundred cp which is 64 gp. Hate to ruffle the feathers but the city still has the accountant’s feathers ruffled, it still in the hole. Even at 1 pd of feed a year the city is only making 4 gp per acre.
Now factor in the buckets. Say a bucket could hold 25 pounds which would feed one hundred chickens per load. The result is seventy five million. Say a person could do one hundred loads a day you would need a bigger city. Ok try one thousand trips still need a bigger city. Ok try ten thousand buckets loads, only a quarter of your population is busy feeding chickens and that many buckets 7500 are three thousand seven hundred fifty (3,750) gp. Back in the red again.
Just consider the manure and acres needed. 7,500,000,000 chickens need 37,500,000 acres of space and produce 150,000,000 (one hundred fifty million) pounds of waste. The town would be 58,593.75 square miles which is just smaller than state of Georgia. This gives new meaning running across town to see a show. Even if all the townspeople try to clean up this no horse town it would take each person to shovel five pounds a day. eww eww stinky poo.
Sources Lionsgrip.com/pastured.html
www.plamondon.com/faq_freerange.html
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