Theres still some kinda difficult ethical problems with those. People generally want female chickens, since that's where the eggs come from (and I think there are problems with having multiple males in a flock). Unfortunately naturally you get a 50:50 ratio of males and females in the eggs. The males are usually killed shortly after hatching.

Its worth pointing out that there are methods for avoiding this, by detecting the male chicks when they're still essentially a foetus in the egg. These work so well that France, Germany and Italy banned culling chicks a few years back. Unfortunately they're more expensive than determining the chick's sex after they are hatched so other places don't do it.

"The males are usually killed shortly after hatching."

Not necessary. https://www.soos.org.il/

Not necessarily, but certainly usually (unless you're in France, Germany or Italy as I mentioned).

Are there? I think that all animal suffering is bad. And I think that in general more living creates is a moral good. But I'd argue the right to remain alive once alive only really kicks for animals that can make plans about the future. So I'd feel qualms about euthanizing a raven or parrot, but not a chicken.

I think that in the absense of a "god" to tell us, everyone has to come to their own conclusions about where they draw moral lines. For me specifically I think that being able to make plans about the future is a superficially appealing but pretty bad way to decide. For a start there are humans who (because of brain-damage or whatever) lack the ability to make meaningful plans.

I thought that the traditional way, with traditional breeds of chicken, was to allow the male chicks to grow large enough to be slaughtered for their meat.

Industrial farming use different breeds for egg-laying and meat, so they would find early culling more economical.

I believe that is how things traditionally were, but I think it is rather rare today. It will depend on the specific breeder what they do with them. I'm sure some smaller breeders keep the males around but this is not the case with large-scale breeders.

This isn't unique to keeping backyard chickens, it's an ethical issue with factory farming as well.

Of course, I strongly agree.

Eggs aren't fertilized (no roosters :|). If you really want to get down to the ugly truth of eggs, you're essentially eating chicken menstruation...And there's no ethical problems when it's in a backyard or the chickens are free ranging. I agree that commercial poultry operations are gruesome and psychotic but that's what happens when you build these things out at scale and it's largely a result of the great-depression and the new deal machinations to end hunger. Good intentions pave the path into hell.

> And there's no ethical problems when it's in a backyard or the chickens are free ranging.

I believe there are. The people buying the chickens for their lovely free range or backyard thing are specifically only buying female ones. The males get killed, usually in somewhat gruesome ways shortly after hatching.

That might not be an ethical problem for you but it is for me.

While I agree with you, as already mentioned by other poster it is likely that the practice of killing the males will be banned in most places and it will disappear, because now there are means to detect the sex of the eggs, so the male eggs can be selected for egg consumption.

What is the cost differential?

I'm very far from qualified to talk about the economics of the egg industry but quoting from Wikipedia

> On 18 July 2021, French Minister of Agriculture, Julien Denormandie, announced chick culling would be banned from 1 January 2022.[70] Both maceration and gassing will be prohibited, and the French government would grant chicken breeders subsidies of 10 million euros combined in order to acquire in-ovo sexing machines instead (leading to extra consumer costs of about 1 eurocent per box of six eggs).

My 3 big hold-ups are not wanting to annoy my neighbors, since I live on a corner and behind my house would be next to their back yard. Then not being sure how my dogs would handle the chickens. One has a lot of herding instinct and the other has guardian instincts, but they both react to wild animals strongly. And finally the current bird flu going around bird populations worries me.

I live in a 30 story apartment building. Tell me more about this back yard

I’ve been doing this for a year and it’s been great. 3 currently laying hens, which means about 3 eggs a day. 4 younger hens also. Getting an automatic coop door is helpful.

What back yard?