Not EXACTLY an unheard of --
-- idea. Heifer International will provide a poor family with a clutch of chicks for $20. Samaritan's Purse has been providing chicks for 'micro-enterprise' in poor countries. Bill's not being an ass about this. Other charities have been doing it for years.
Chickens are pretty common livestock in poor countries. It's easy for me as a first-world semi-domesticated wage earner to find fault -- what about mites? What about weasels and mongooses, and of course leopards and renegade Masai? What about the inevitable political turmoil, not to mention the threat of asteroid impacts? But in point of fact, rural Africans probably already know much, much more than anyone else about keeping poultry alive in their particular environs.
Chickens eat crickets and grasshoppers and other bugs. They glean millet from chaff. They eat melon rinds and mango skins. Crusty leftover porridge.
Give the peeps chickens. It can't hurt.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
