Chicken (or other fowl) Confessions:

[PirateGirl]

I got this idea from my post on another thread. Use this thread to voice your chicken confessions. Share your stories, good and bad, and just get it off your chest. Do you love your chickens a little too much? Do you hate them sometimes? Are you afraid of being responsible for another living being? Do you wonder if you are cut out for this or if raising fowl is a mistake? Have you gotten in over your head? Have you made mistakes? What have you learned? Spill your guts here.

Confession:
As much as I wanted chickens and planned for chickens, once I actually got chickens I would occasionally have a moment of panic and wonder if I'd made a terrible mistake. At times it is overwhelming. At times it is scary. At times you fear you are messing up. Over time it gets easier. I am now almost exactly a year in. I did not give up. I would not want to go back to the early days and the getting up to check on the tiny little ones outside at 3:00am in a blizzard and the antibiotics every 2 hours around the clock to save a sick chick, but it gets easier. They grow. They get established. You get the routine down. Now I can go out of town for a week and not worry about my flock. Yes I still have chickens on the brain while at work, but I know my girls are safe at home. I know their food will last the day. I know the water shouldn't freeze. I know they are relatively secure in their run and have learned to huddle in their coop when the wind starts howling. I know when I get home I can just sit and watch the chickens and ducks and be calm and my blood pressure will go down and I will be smiling. I know most days I come home to at least a few eggs. Over time they will transform from anxiety inducing little balls of fluff to pecking scratching egg laying smile producers. Good luck and enjoy your journey, and every time you feel a little crazy, visit BYC and know you are not alone. Raising chickens can be scary, raising chickens can be overwhelming, raising chickens can make you wonder if you are in over your head and if you are doing the right thing, but it can also be incredibly rewarding. Love, responsibility, patience. It will all come together.

 

[Cluckingham palace capers]

I’ve had chickens my 56 years of life including my travels having spent a considerable time in South America in which the family I lived with had dozens of fighting cocks, stuffed in cages on top of each other in crates smaller than milk crates. I spent my spare time sitting up on the rooftop studying and talking (English, which they wouldn’t have understood) to each one feeling so sorry for them, knowing if they they were to be defeated they would end up in the pot that night and I would be presented with a bowl including beaks and feet, in fact everything. It was so tempting to let them out though I knew their fate would be sealed by the many people below struggling to even dream of a chicken dinner. I also thought of smuggling them into my backpack and taking them on the bus along with many others, some tethered, some caged, some held even some tied upside down by their feet dangling and jam packed protruding from the bus windows or teetering on the bus roof as we wind up and down mountains for 8 hours until we reach the tiny villages on the outskirts of the jungle. They may have some sort of life there if they could dodge the inhabitants of the jungle. I never really got over the sadness for those birds, which is probably why I’m struggling to let go of my cockerel ( now living in suburbia and can’t have roosters )

 

[PirateGirl]

@Cluckingham palace capers Thank you for sharing your story. I wish I could help all the animals in the world that need better living conditions. There are a lot of cultural differences around the world. People keep chickens for different reasons and in their eyes their reasons are valid and acceptable, whether it's pets, eggs, meat, fighting. It is the same with other animals. In some countries they eat cows, in others not. In some countries people eat dog, in others they are pampered pets. People keep fish in tanks in their living room while other types of fish are factory farmed. Exotic animals are put in zoos or circuses. As humans we certainly have evolved unique relationships with different kinds of animals around the world that are all deemed acceptable by one culture or another. I hope going forward, as humans, we can all learn to live respectably with the animals of the world. That animals are not abused. That animals can continue to live in the wild safely. That animals that live with humans are provided with sanitary living conditions, adequate food and water, and treated with kindness.

 

[robinwhiskers]

CONFESSION: My chickens are too spoiled. lol

 

[PirateGirl]

CONFESSION: My chickens are too spoiled. lol

How so? Do they sit on the couch and watch soap operas with you? Do you cook better meals for them than your family?

 

[igorsMistress]

This isn't my first time with chickens, but first time starting my own flock with chicks. It's been over a year and I've added and subtracted birds a few times.

At first I washed the feed bowl all the time and kept their brooder really clean. Too clean. I obsessed over getting their feed fermented just right and worried over every little sneeze. Kind of like that first kid...by the time they get a little older you realize you made it through the first one, the next won't be so frightening.

This forum has helped tremendously. I had a girl that was egg bound. I knew exactly what the problem was because I'd read about others experiences and I could help because I already knew what to do.

I too must admit my girls are spoiled. They know what time it is and are all waiting outside the back door at snack time. I make them unflavored gelatin with herbs, veggies and fruit. They get live mealworms once a week, sometimes I buy produce specifically for them, or a can of salmon or a pound of hamburger. My backyard is being landscaped with them in mind, ie is there enough cover from predators that also provides good deep shade? Some of that is just being a responsible flock master, some is spoiling.

 

[PirateGirl]

This isn't my first time with chickens, but first time starting my own flock with chicks. It's been over a year and I've added and subtracted birds a few times.

At first I washed the feed bowl all the time and kept their brooder really clean. Too clean. I obsessed over getting their feed fermented just right and worried over every little sneeze. Kind of like that first kid...by the time they get a little older you realize you made it through the first one, the next won't be so frightening.

This forum has helped tremendously. I had a girl that was egg bound. I knew exactly what the problem was because I'd read about others experiences and I could help because I already knew what to do.

I too must admit my girls are spoiled. They know what time it is and are all waiting outside the back door at snack time. I make them unflavored gelatin with herbs, veggies and fruit. They get live mealworms once a week, sometimes I buy produce specifically for them, or a can of salmon or a pound of hamburger. My backyard is being landscaped with them in mind, ie is there enough cover from predators that also provides good deep shade? Some of that is just being a responsible flock master, some is spoiling.

You mentioned cleaning. Confession: I don't remember the last time I really cleaned the feeder and water bowls. They get fresh food and water daily, sometimes twice a day, but I don't know the last time there was a serious scrub down.

 

[igorsMistress]

You mentioned cleaning. Confession: I don't remember the last time I really cleaned the feeder and water bowls. They get fresh food and water daily, sometimes twice a day, but I don't know the last time there was a serious scrub down.

Yea, but I said At first...

I do scrub the waterers with vinegar once a week because they get dirty, but that's pretty much it.

 

[PirateGirl]

Yea, but I said At first...

I do scrub the waterers with vinegar once a week because they get dirty, but that's pretty much it.

I definitely noticed the "at first" and it made me think back to how often I used to clean them vs now