Cleanliness of coop, water, feed - me vs neighbor

[Chris_HV_NY]

I have a debate going on with a neighbor who also has chickens. I am stringent about cleanliness and she makes fun of me for being too fussy. Maybe I am or maybe she is being foolish.

In her coop the chickens roost in the rafters above her nesting boxes, her water supply, and feed supply. She uses the water and feed containers that rest on the ground and due to the small size of her coop everything gets covered in droppings from the rafters. To me, this looks like a potential source of disease, droppings in the water and feed especially, but her nesting box tops are also covered in droppings which maybe get scraped off once a month. I have tried to encourage her to be more considerate, I mean who wants to eat literally where they shit? But she says chickens don't care and she has only loses a few chickens to disease each year.

I made a water from nipples and a five gal. bucket and studiously try to keep the droppings away from food and water.

So my questions:

Am I being silly and overly concerned?

How dangerous is it for droppings and food/water to mix?

Once in a while one of her flock or mine will go visiting. Should I be more concerned about communicable disease spread?
(Taking a lesson from our current world wide virus woes)

 

[sloanbychoice]

I’m no expert, so do with this what you will, but I’ll offer this:
1. I would cease all visits with the neighbor’s flock, as it is possible, even likely, that yours will catch something; whether it be disease, mites, etc.
2. Chickens don’t care. But we do! And that’s why we raise them. We know better and should do better by them.
3. To each his own, and all that. But me, I have some areas I should work on, but I would never allow them to roost above food and water. To me, personally, that’s inexcusable.
4. People like to throw out that “in the wild” chickens.... whatever. The fact is, they’re not in the wild; they’re caged and kept like the domesticated animals they are. And that makes us responsible.
I’m sorry you have a neighbor who feels it’s okay to “only lose a few each year.”
I feel differently. I don’t want to lose any.

Like I said, to each his own.
Perhaps this neighbor has a different goal in chicken keeping than you and I do.
Perhaps, they truly don’t care about how they’re kept.

Keep doing what you’re doing.
Side note: I wouldn’t be going over there for dinner too often.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

Two thoughts:

-There hasn’t been a “wild chicken” in thousands of years. If there were, I’d wager they wouldn’t poop where it ate/drank.

- Losing a few chickens a year to disease, unless you’re talking a flock of hundreds or more, is a lot. I don’t consider myself too crazy with cleanliness, but I’ve lost 1 chicken to disease in 7 years.