10 Things I Hate About You (poultry version)

[thecatumbrella]

It's Thursday. We're all irritable. Let's vent.

1. What is your dreaded chicken chore? The one you sometimes (or consistently) put off until guilt eats away at you.
2. What's the worst aspect of chicken keeping? Social media makes it look like a stroll in the park. Let's give a dose of reality.
3. Least favorite chicken breed. They're fine until they're not fine. You couldn't pay me to add more to the flock.
4. Worst ailment. Worms? Mites? Reproductive issues? Fly strike?
5. What's the worst season? Summer, with the heat and humidity? Or winter, with the snow and frostbite? Maybe spring with it's... sogginess? Let those seasons have it! Surely there's someone who hates fall, right?
6. Most time consuming aspect. Are you fussing over your incubator? Changing out the medium in the run again? Looking for parasites around a butt hole? Dusting your chicken coop?
7. Worst part of raising baby chicks. Those pasty butts? Waiting to see if they'll sink or swim? Running to the brooder when you hear distress peeps, only for said chicks to disappear back under the heat plate (Haha, joke's on you, human!)
8. Tell me the BYC question that grates your gills. You know the one, like "How many chickens can I fit into this prefab coop that's the size of a piece of paper and sealed like a coffin?"
9. What is the most irritating chicken behavior? Yes, they're chickens. That doesn't mean they're not annoying as heck while you're trying to _____ (fill in the blanks).
10. Name something standardized in the chicken world that needs a remodel. Something that you'd pay handsomely for the solution to.

Please ramble and answer as many (or as few) as you'd like. I will read all responses while nodding my head in acknowledgement. Chickens are great, for sure, but they're also a giant pain in the cervical spine. I'll go first (unless you beat me to it!).

 

[thecatumbrella]

1. Chicken dishes. I do a lot of experimenting with different products, which amounts to a lot of clean up. It seriously takes me 45+ minutes.
2. Unpredictability. The flock are like peas in a pod until they're not. I've watched a chicken go from lover to fighter overnight.
3. Yikes. I'll go with production reds.
4. I don't have enough firsthand experience, but fly strike sounds pretty brutal. Merek's in second place.
5. Summer.
6. Cooling them off in summer!
7. Failure to thrives. Of course I want to rehabilitate them. It's a lot of effort for what's potentially a lost cause.
8. "Should I kill this chicken that's mildly inconveniencing me?"
9. Taking a shot at my hand whenever possible. I will scream like a 6 year-old, and the chickens seem to take pleasure in this.
10. For the love of chicken, please make more feeders that can't be beaked out!

 

[Livia Ammon]

1. I hate refilling the 1 gallon water feeder for my pullets. They always jump in it and get poop everywhere.
2. My white hens and pullets keep getting dirty and there aren’t enough dust baths in the world to keep them clean.
3. Unpopular opinion, but RIR tend to be aloof and/or aggressive, their eggs are boring, and their coloring is common. Especially the roosters; The only bad rooster experiences I’ve had were roosters.
4. Anything with pus. I can deal with organs, blood, and other chicken fluids, but not pus.
5. Spring 100%. Where I live, the snow all melts into the dead grass in one day and then freezes into an ice rink, gets snowed on again, melts, freezes, melts again and then turns into mud. Most of spring is spent with grey and brown and dead plants and mud.
6. Chasing my nosy leghorns out of my garden. Those two are never satisfied with what they have.
7. When one does for any reason and is cannibalised.
8. Any question that could be answered with a quick google search.
9. When my leghorns or Whiting TB escape at top speed when I want them in the coop.
10. Commercial coops are all flimsy.

 

[MillyMare]

1: When I have to fill up water our chicken pen is on a old cotton trailer so I have to literally throw up the stupid water thing
2: They don’t show you how nasty they are
3: White Leghorns for some reason I just hate the little snakes
4: Mites definitely
5: Winter we have lost too many toes and parts of combs
6: cleaning out the nesting box
7: I feed you I water you I provide a heat lamp for you I make sure you don’t get eaten or die yet you still have the audacity to either run away or peck me for no reason
8: How long will the roosters who were supposed to be hens survive out by themselves in the pasture
9: When they lay eggs where they are not supposed for example the back of the truck under a tree behind a pallet randomly in the middle of the yard or driveway
10: Better built coops

 

[kattabelly]

1. Dreaded chore? Hand plucking more than one culled bird at a time. One of last year's broilers weighed in at almost 11lb after plucking and processing, because I kept putting off dealing with the final batch. I need to build a plucking machine.
2. Worst aspect of chicken keeping? Cecal droppings.
3. Least favorite breed? Silkies, frizzles and similar looking breeds. I don't understand the point of them.
4. Worst ailment? Failure to thrive and other random mystery illnesses. I don't like problems I can't solve. I've been lucky enough to never have to deal with a lot of seemingly common ailments.
5. Worst season? For the chickens, probably winter. I like all the seasons though!
6. Most time consuming aspect? At the moment, getting past the planning stage of the housing and run repairs / rebuild I really need to get on with.
7. Worst part of raising baby chicks? They grow up! I'll have older hens by next spring and I'll try to let them raise any future chicks if they go broody, but I genuinely love everything about the first few weeks of raising chicks myself. I'm planning to start hatching some for other people who don't have an incubator at the moment, just so I can have baby chicks more often without needing to find space for more grown birds.
8. Tell me the BYC question that grates your gills. It's not a question but the introduction threads are annoying. I'm used to other boards where that's not something people do.
Edit - thought of one that is a question: "I have a dozen 9 week old chicks living under heat in an empty margarine tub. It's 80F here with nightly lows of 65. How many more weeks until they can go outside?"
9. Most irritating chicken behavior? Chickens doing chicken things that make sense to chicken brains but are stupid and infuriating to my human brain. Oh, you're still hungry? Have you tried *not* stomping your mash into inedible cement? Aaargh
10. Name something standardized in the chicken world that needs a remodel. All the larger scale, more intensive commercial operations - whether that's hatcheries, egg production or meat birds. The practice of sending day-old chicks by post is pretty horrifying too if you're not from somewhere that does that.

 

[thecatumbrella]

2. My white hens and pullets keep getting dirty and there aren’t enough dust baths in the world to keep them clean.

7: I feed you I water you I provide a heat lamp for you I make sure you don’t get eaten or die yet you still have the audacity to either run away or peck me for no reason

2. Worst aspect of chicken keeping? Cecal droppings.

I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be laughing at responses, but I legitimately laughed at these!

 

[newchickychick]

We're still super new to chicken keeping, so there's a LOT left for us to experience! But I thought it'd be fun to answer now then again in a year and another year after that to see how my answers change.

1. There isn't really one SO far for me. I do have to put my hands on my hips and stare at the chicks when they kick *poop bedding* into their waterers though. I was bedridden for an entire year due to bad health issues and so I've only really just started to get back to a semblance of "normal." Taking care of the chicks has really helped 'make me' be up and about even on a poor health day, so I appreciate that. But yeah, the poop.

2. SO FAR from what I can see, I feel like keeping the peace will be #1 for me. I get anxious when people don't get along, and animals are no different. We've had a few fusses that really worried me, but thankfully as they're all still pretty young, it's been nothing deadly or awful. Or chickens getting themselves into predicaments. The feeders for the chicks have an open top, and they keep jumping to perch on it then falling in. And sometimes they make NO NOISE. They sit there and accept their fate. Like, help me help you! How long have you been in there?!

3. Still SUPER new to this, but we have a HUGE variety in our flock, so I have no doubt I'll have an answer to this in a year.

4. So far we've only dealt with FTT and wry neck. </3 But I'm SURE I'll have an answer for this in a year.

5. We've only had spring to summer so far, but summer will always be my answer, I know that. We get HUMID summers and pretty darn cold winters, but I can handle the cold a little better than the heat.

6. So far, trying to spend time with all the chicks. There's... a lot. Some really took to me immediately! Others? RUN. SCARY SKY HAND. RUN FOR YOUR LIVES. It's so hard with our brooder setups being on the floor. So I know it's our fault that we're "scary aerial predators" but man, it can get a little frustrating. I'm just trying to gently interact! Or goodness forbid take care of your pasty butt!

7. FTT has been heart-wrenching! But for a "PLEASE no" rant-y side? Definitely how much trouble they can get themselves into. Ours love to perch on the feeders and waterers DESPITE having lots of little perch toys. So they'll fall into the feeders and then sometimes not even make a noise, as mentioned above. Drives me bananas! Then I have to worry about how long they were in there and keep a close eye on them to be sure they are hydrating/eating just fine. DEFINITELY the "SHRIEKS OF TERROR" that make you RUN in to see what's wrong, and it's nothing. Nothing at all. They look at you like they're confused as to why you are there.

8. Again, I'm too inexperienced to have an opinion on this. I'm sure my questions have grinded some gears! I will say this though: Wattles, not waddles. That's just me being retentive about spelling though.

9. Jumping all over each other. We've got one Turken that's a meat bird cross that EVERYONE uses as a pillow. Everyone. Now, it's cute, right? The Turken seems to be content to let smaller chicks and even some of the ones their age (which are smaller being not-meat-crosses but still). Poop. Poop all over its back. Or the SQUAWK as a chick jumps on another and they act like they're dying just from being startled.

10. I'm sure I'll have an answer to this one day!

 

[Mother of Chaos]

We're still super new to chicken keeping, so there's a LOT left for us to experience! But I thought it'd be fun to answer now then again in a year and another year after that to see how my answers change.

1. There isn't really one SO far for me. I do have to put my hands on my hips and stare at the chicks when they kick *poop bedding* into their waterers though. I was bedridden for an entire year due to bad health issues and so I've only really just started to get back to a semblance of "normal." Taking care of the chicks has really helped 'make me' be up and about even on a poor health day, so I appreciate that. But yeah, the poop.

2. SO FAR from what I can see, I feel like keeping the peace will be #1 for me. I get anxious when people don't get along, and animals are no different. We've had a few fusses that really worried me, but thankfully as they're all still pretty young, it's been nothing deadly or awful. Or chickens getting themselves into predicaments. The feeders for the chicks have an open top, and they keep jumping to perch on it then falling in. And sometimes they make NO NOISE. They sit there and accept their fate. Like, help me help you! How long have you been in there?!

3. Still SUPER new to this, but we have a HUGE variety in our flock, so I have no doubt I'll have an answer to this in a year.

4. So far we've only dealt with FTT and wry neck. </3 But I'm SURE I'll have an answer for this in a year.

5. We've only had spring to summer so far, but summer will always be my answer, I know that. We get HUMID summers and pretty darn cold winters, but I can handle the cold a little better than the heat.

6. So far, trying to spend time with all the chicks. There's... a lot. Some really took to me immediately! Others? RUN. SCARY SKY HAND. RUN FOR YOUR LIVES. It's so hard with our brooder setups being on the floor. So I know it's our fault that we're "scary aerial predators" but man, it can get a little frustrating. I'm just trying to gently interact! Or goodness forbid take care of your pasty butt!

7. FTT has been heart-wrenching! But for a "PLEASE no" rant-y side? Definitely how much trouble they can get themselves into. Ours love to perch on the feeders and waterers DESPITE having lots of little perch toys. So they'll fall into the feeders and then sometimes not even make a noise, as mentioned above. Drives me bananas! Then I have to worry about how long they were in there and keep a close eye on them to be sure they are hydrating/eating just fine. DEFINITELY the "SHRIEKS OF TERROR" that make you RUN in to see what's wrong, and it's nothing. Nothing at all. They look at you like they're confused as to why you are there.

8. Again, I'm too inexperienced to have an opinion on this. I'm sure my questions have grinded some gears! I will say this though: Wattles, not waddles. That's just me being retentive about spelling though.

9. Jumping all over each other. We've got one Turken that's a meat bird cross that EVERYONE uses as a pillow. Everyone. Now, it's cute, right? The Turken seems to be content to let smaller chicks and even some of the ones their age (which are smaller being not-meat-crosses but still). Poop. Poop all over its back. Or the SQUAWK as a chick jumps on another and they act like they're dying just from being startled.

10. I'm sure I'll have an answer to this one day!

#8. Preach!!!!!!

Of course, now that two of three of our pullets now have wattles that grow visibly on a daily basis and definitely move, I can see how wattles waddle, so to speak.

 

[Livia Ammon]

3. Especially the roosters; The only bad rooster experiences I’ve had were roosters.

7. When one does for any reason and is cannibalised.

I meant that my bad rooster experiences were RIR Roos, obviously they were roosters.

7. When one DIES for any reason and is cannibalised

 

[kattabelly]

Like, help me help you! How long have you been in there?!

This cracked me up

When they were smaller I had one chick from my most recent hatch who'd insist on wiggling into the tiny gap at the side of Brinsea ecoglow plates where the wire goes in. Every time I walked in the room:

"I'm not stuck, I meant to do this! And I'll —ing do it again if you try to 'help' me "