- English translation
Anyone who counts every cost of keeping poultry will never raise it.
- Literal wording
Whoever reckons up the cost of the birds will never keep them.
- Meaning and lesson
In its household image, keeping domestic birds can seem uneconomical when every feeding cost is counted separately. The saying holds that a genuinely needed thing may not justify itself item by item, yet still be worth keeping or providing.
It urges leniency toward modest recurring costs when strict reckoning would obstruct a real need. It does not say that costs never matter, or excuse waste and unexamined spending; rather, necessity can justify not scrutinizing every small outlay.
- When it is used
Use this when someone balks at a necessary household resource because recurring costs appear to exceed its return. It supports tolerating modest, needful expenses rather than demanding exact item-by-item justification, not ignoring costs altogether.
Cite or copy proverb
How this record reached us: Editorially sourced.
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