Anyone else not like The White House on The Hill?

[Whittni]

I don't like the white house on the hill youtube channel either. All of the chickens look scrapy and often clearly have issues with scaly leg mites. They seem to be hoarding too many animals trying to keep up with YouTube for views.

 

[cassandrapettersson]

*Warning, may be controversial*

I was subscribed to the YouTube channel The White House on The Hill for the past 4 or 5 months or so, but in the past 2ish months, some of their treatment of their animals has made me uncomfortable. Sure, they have a cool mobile main chicken coop, rare, pretty birds and cute kids, but they also refuse to acknowledge feedback and concern from their viewers, such as myself. They allow their kids to chase and harrass the chickens and baby birds, yell and scream when the birds do something they see as funny, terrifying them, and more. The worst thing so far is their treatment of the emus. First things first, they have 2 females and one male! Seeing as females emus are the dominant gender in emu behavior, this is essentially like putting 2 roosters with a single hen. Female emus will fight to the death over a male, as roosters will. We saw this in one on the past videos, where they found a massive gash on the chest of one of the females. They wrote it off as a dog attack, when an trio of emus could and would kill an attacking dog before it escaped the enclosure. No. This was dominance aggression. It will only escalate is things don't change fast. Hundreds of folks in the comments said this too, over and over, but did they address the responses in the next vlog? NO. They continued to blame it on a dog/coyote attack and have refused to talk about the incident again. Infact, on one of their stories, I expressed my concerns in a respectful but meaningful comment wich quickly took the place as the top comment on the story, and yet...nothing. Not a peep from them. And in the very next video, they installed a 'pool' for them. With a very slippery bottom wich caused poor bamboo to slip and fall. The family then proceeded to laugh and scream at him, startling him and making flail in an effort to get up. He could easily have injured himself in this incident, with the combined slippery bottom and panic. After this video, I finally unsubscribed.

Bottom line is, I no longer support this YouTube channel, and I was wondering wether anyone else feels similarly. Thank you for reading my little rant

Exactly!! I Just posted a thread about this haha

 

[cassandrapettersson]

I don't like the white house on the hill youtube channel either. All of the chickens look scrapy and often clearly have issues with scaly leg mites. They seem to be hoarding too many animals trying to keep up with YouTube for views.

they hit their roosters too, for example, the wife (I don't know her name) hits one of the roosters with a bucket when he pecks her

 

[Aethuviel]

I've followed them for three years, mainly because they're the only homesteaders I know that also keep exotics (emus, peafowl, pheasants). Sure, there were some blunders and mistakes (even fatal mistakes) from time to time, but we're all human.

Now, I have to unfollow because I got a really bad taste in my mouth and can't keep watching with their consistent refusal to admit mistakes.

I like the video formats, that you are just "following" them instead of what many homesteading channels do, "here's how to do X!", with poor camerawork by someone mouth-breathing into the camera. Unlike that, WTOTH has really nice filmography, and a ton of different animals, so that's fun. Also really competent at building stuff, that's impressive.

They do care for their animals, clear from how much time and energy they've spent on birds that have been sick or injured. I do recognize that.

But making human mistakes is one thing, another is to never really admitting to them or changing things. A turkey died on their flimsy net fencing, and several other birds (turkey and guineafowl, that I've seen) were caught on it, but didn't die. They made no effort or even suggestion to change the net, and this was years ago.

People used to complain about the constant peeking into the incubator, opening it and taking eggs out to show the camera, and then "surprise" as so few eggs hatch. That may have improved though.

The big thing now was the recent killing of the fox and coyote. I get killing a predator that is known to have attacked your animals and comes back again and again, habituated to your place, unafraid and nothing will deter it. Sure, shoot it.

Instead, they baited wild animals far away from their house and animals, basically in the woods, and killed those who took the bait (a dead chicken)... as literally any predator or scavenger passing by would. If they think that's predator control, they'll have to do nothing but kill animals passing by forever.
And he caught them in cruel leg traps, the fox was already in the process of chewing off its leg.

When the turkey and rooster got killed (probably by a coyote), they showed very clearly how they talk to their son who was responsible for putting those birds in for the night, because "we're not doing it to make him feel bad but to realize he made a mistake and own up to it" (paraphrasing). Yeah. Fine.

That's what the viewers are doing after Jake killed the fox and bobcat, and he will have none of it. No owning up to his mistakes, no taking responsibility for not containing his animals better, no, instead he calls the people who have a problem with this needless baiting and killing "privileged and entitled" (an instagram story)... even though a lot of them are farmers and homesteaders themselves.

That's just the last straw for me, and made me realize how much else disrespect of animals I've seen. When a problem happens (usually because of their improper care or management of the situation), the solution is a quick-fix to correct the symptom, not the cause. Never his fault, just the animals being difficult and needing "fixing".

The following is very much just my personal opinion: Further, I don't like the way they seem to view their animals, or animals in general, and which I realized with this killing.
They don't seem to really love animals for the beings they are, as individuals and as feeling creatures. I sound like a "bleeding heart vegan" here, but I'm actually the opposite, not opposed to hunting or slaughter and want to do it myself.

They don't have a single pet in the house, from what I've seen. The cat and dog were at most allowed in the mudroom, now they live completely outdoors. They bought a dog breed that's very much a family dog, and they keep her outside. Cats are pets, not livestock, but they keep them outside. It just feels so archaic, and shows their attitude towards animals. They seem to view them more as things than as living individuals.

Children chasing birds was commented on, but in general, I just see an attitude of "what the animals can do for us", or "look at the cool new colors/breeds". It's more about the "thing" of breeding and hatching, and not so much the animals themselves. Nothing about animal behavior as in the science part of it (would be great education for homeschooled children, and for the audience), or understanding how they think and feel, as the more sentimental side of it. Just... they're there, they're "fun" for us, they can give us things.

This in itself is not wrong (why I said it's my personal opinion), fine, keep your chickens just for the fun of breeding and hatching, keep your dog and cats outside, but I don't like it and don't want to watch it anymore.

The cow, Maisy, can't get pregnant? They're talking about slaughtering her. I get it, if you're a farm that needs to make a living... but they're not, they keep animals for fun, and she's a healthy animal that could be someone's pet. I'm sure someone would love to take a Jersey cow to just have, regardless of her ability to breed and give milk.

Oh, the cows... Dolly seems to hate being milked, she's always had trouble, and they have to resort to physical restraint after physical restraint to subdue her. If I had a cow like that, I would stop breeding and milking her, because she clearly hates it. She's suffering every day and she's potentially passing on bad temperament to her calves, perpetuating the issue. They have two cows, not a huge farm of dozens or hundreds, and still the cows seem more like wild animals that hate being handled.

We're not in the 19th century, they're not living off their animals. It's a lifestyle choice, not survival, and they owe their animals some respect and empathy.

Same with the predators. That fox and bobcat were trapped, terrified, stressed to the max, so what does he do? Push the camera in their faces, take his kids out to see them and say "They're pretty scary, huh?" Wonderful. Teaching the children that wild animals just out living their lives, are "scary creatures" that must be killed because they passed by, and showing all of this on the channel. Not a slightest bit of empathy for the animals that were scared out of their minds.

As I said, today, in our world, this is very much a lifestyle choice. And if you're going to live around animals, domestic and wild, and you can't do it without the attitude of "me me me", without respecting their lives and experiences, without owning up to your mistakes, then perhaps you shouldn't be doing it.

 

[gimmie birdies]

I only saw the youtube channel once or twice, I think they had hatching eggs, and one of the kids even dropped an egg. And they didn't get a good hatch but didn't know why. I stopped watching after that time, because I didn't want to be frustrated.

 

[BeefQuesoritto]

I watch a lot of homesteading channels and this is a common theme, unfortunately. Nice families, nice kids, nice family dynamic, but always very ignorant about something or other in their animal husbandry. Frustrating.
If I feel like they're simply misinformed, I leave a polite comment and hope they make adjustments (they never do). If I feel like it's from a place of maliciousness or lazy ignorance, I unsubscribe and move on.

This honestly is why I've stopped watching homesteading channels in general. There's a few I've tried to watch, but it just gets so difficult. There was one fella raising a "livestock guardian dog" by just throwing a puppy in with the poultry. Poultry are notoriously difficult to keep dogs off of, and the puppy killed several of them. And instead of blaming his own poor management of her training, he decided she just was a poor investment. The aversive methods he used to keep her from going after the birds was just hollering "No!". Bad for the dog, bad for the poultry. I don't even like dogs and I'm offended on her behalf!

Well, I won't keep on going about that kind of thing. It just makes me so sad. I'll recommend Just a Few Acres Farm for good, wholesome content. I don't always agree with him, but he's a smart fella.

For the fella who's the topic of the thread, I've only seen a couple hatching out vids from him, and I'll probably not watch any more.

 

[Aethuviel]

Sorry, I wrote coyote above - no coyote was killed, it was a fox and a bobcat. A coyote had been seen near the pens though, so it was probably the culprit, not the poor bobcat.

 

[The Birb King]

I like them, I'm subscribed to them, but yea I have found some things concerning. First of all, they are constantly hatching eggs and they are gonna end up with more birds that they have space for. They keep their peafowl in a small chicken tractor and have been trying to hatch their eggs for years. Same with the emus they don't have enough space for more. I get they are trying to make a large aviary for the exotic birds but they shouldn't hatch more until it's finished. Also is it just me or do they have a concerning amount of birds dying? I feel like almost half of their videos are about animals that get sick or injured, and usually end up dying. Also they don't seem to know or care how fragile baby chicks are. I mean, they encourage their young kids to "pet" them and one time the kid grabbed a chick by the neck and they did nothing to stop it! And they bring the newborn chicks out and grab them which can be stressful for day old chicks. Not to say they don't care about their animals, but they just don't seem to be very attached and friendly to them like say Cog hill farm is. When all their white peachicks died, they were just like "oh well we will get more next year". Not valuing their lives a lot. Some of their animals they don't pay much attention to and don't really do anything with them. The button quail are scraggly, a lot of the exotic birds have too small cages, the cow is too skinny, the pigs are too fat, they could do better for sure.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

To be fair, dairy cows are absolutely not built anything like beef cattle are.

the cow is too skinny,

 

[The Birb King]

To be fair, dairy cows are absolutely not built anything like beef cattle are.

True, but they could still be feeding her a little better, and not making her body produce that much milk