Convincing Mom to Get Chickens: Part 2

[catwalk]

A chicken's period, really? Does she eat baked goods? I had a conversation the other day with a woman who thinks dishwashers and bar soap are disgusting!

Chickens make wonderful pets! They're fairly self-sufficient, they put themselves to bed at night, they're adorable, etc...

 

[Katy]

I don't know if this may be an issue or not, but if you don't have coop or building to keep them in at your mom's and would have to build or buy one she may very well feel like this is something financially she can't do.....especially as a single mom. Unless they are totally free range and you never feed them anything, the eggs you get from them really aren't free.

 

[cobrien]

Quote:
Not sure if this film is the same one you saw, but it could have been "the natural history of the chicken". it is a HILARIOUS documentary, one of my favorites of all time!

 

[BabaYaga]

I'm a mom, and I understand how you feel and maybe how your mom feels. My friend had chickens and I loved to go see them, but was afraid to get my own. I thought I'd do something wrong or predators would get them. A year ago, I finally decided to get some half grown pullets. Baby chicks just seemed too fragile to me. My BO hens are all still here and laying eggs. Another friend gave me three silkies. I thought they would be more delicate because they're banties, but they do really well. It's not nearly as much work as I thought it would be and I really enjoy them so much.

I know it's a lot of fun hatching eggs and picking out baby chicks, but I might suggest asking your mom if you could try a pair of adult banty hens to begin with. They're small, quiet, sweet, but not tiny vulnerable chicks. Their eggs are small, but good! Also, maybe let her know that if you change your minds, you could sell them pretty easily. Maybe even line up someone (your dad?) who would guarantee to take them if she is unhappy. You might also promise not to add more and more chickens without her agreement. With no roo, you'd have a set number.

It sounds like she was a tender-hearted child who had to find a way to dislike the chickens she grew up with because they were for food. She might be hesitant to start liking them now, because she'll have to re-examine her childhood experiences, and now, what if she likes them and then they die? Anyway, that's how my mom was. She really thought I shouldn't get chickens. When she was a child, they were for food, so she only remembers the bad things about them. Now I'm letting her know how much I like them and what great, sweet pets they are, so she's remembering some of the nicer things about them.

It took me years to come around. I'm really glad I have my birds now. I hope it works out for you, too.

 

[Quailbuddy]

Quote:
Thank you 77horses

i have been keeping up with the reading of your thread to look for further advice

Good luck to too

 

[Bantimna]

Here's my story:
We had to go to Jo'burg for some type of thingy. My sister Yvonne had told us about Pet Masters, and that they had Parakeets and finches and a variety of different bird species.
(By that time I didn't really have a "want" for chickens, but deep in my heart I loved em'.)
Why I had interest in Pet Masters was because I am a bird addict. (and now more of a chicken addict.)
So they had a chicken section where there were silkies and mutts. I knew I have to check chooks out for sure!
So I jumped on to the Internet and typed "feather footed chickens" in my Google search engine.
Then I came across a lot of links but never bothered to click on Backyardchickens.com/. I started telling my mom about them and how wonderful they are, my mom is a strict ovo-vegetarian so she didn't like the idea and I just kept on telling her.
Finally she said "Where will the money come from for keeping chickens, they aren't free." so that hit me and I knew we don't have the monies for more expenses. So I didn't say anything about a chicken to anyone and I started to wonder if I really needed chooks.
As this thought kept running back and forth in my head, I started to think of something that happened 2 years ago. (this was in 2009 when I started thinking about chickens)
Before I began Home-school, I was in a school, at school you earned 'merits'.
Merits are a system where if you did, something right then you got 1 merit. You needed 12 merits to get a prize at assembly.
So when my mom started HSchool she also introcouced the "merits system" but this time I earned some monies.
As I thought about it, I could sell hens' eggs and use that money and my merits money to pay for my chickens.
I got up and told her about it and she still had something that was not right about chickens.
Later that night I heard my parents talking and this is what I heard:
My mom and dad were discussing my chicken interst and my dad said to my mom that we should get me chickens or I'll keep on nagging.
My mom agreed, but on one condition, that I boiuld my own coop and take care of them my self.
It was difficult at first but payed off.
I'm busy building my coop now and I can freely talk to my parents about chickens.

I hope you can keep chickens.

A few points I would like to point ou to you:

*Your mom might not be able to afford chickens
*Tell her about the merits system and ask her if she could allow you to earn some money and pay for your chickens
*She might not like the smell of chickens
*If you have to go away she doesn't want to worry about them.

 

[Siler]

Quote:
My second grade teacher and her best friend and next door neighbor had an incubator in the classroom. They would keep it in the other classroom mostly, but I had my first experience with chickens from them.

Joining this forum might be good. She can learn on her own. No adult wanted to be told again and again by a child why they should do something. BabaYaga has a point...maybe your mom has some bad association with chickens that might be bad. People have their reasons for things, but sometimes that can change for the better.

Draw up a plan of what you would like to accomplish and how you would get that done by yourself with little involvement on her part. Type of chicken, housing, feeding, care on a daily basis, local law, removal of waste, and where will they go if you fail or move away. How will you earn the money to care for them on your own? What is mom willing to help out with if at all? Can this experience also be channeled into a 4-H program or other useful project for school/future college?

 

[Siler]

Quote:
I'm not really sure. It could be. There were some funny parts but I was interrupted a few times during the show then at the end we suddenly realized we never put the girls away and it had been dark for an hour or so. We ran outside to find all the girls roosting and looking at us like "Turn that light off. We're going to sleep. Go away!"

 

[77horses]

Bantimna wrote:

A few points I would like to point ou to you:

*Your mom might not be able to afford chickens
*Tell her about the merits system and ask her if she could allow you to earn some money and pay for your chickens
*She might not like the smell of chickens
*If you have to go away she doesn't want to worry about them.

1. I'm sure she can afford them and if I'm not sure, I can ask her. I would also help pay for feed and other expenses if I could. And at our local feed store, layer pellets/corn is pretty cheap, especially if we only want a very small flock (maybe 4 bantam hens...Silkies?

...we wouldn't need a rooster)

2. I get an allowance, so I could help pay for feed/the chickens in general instead of her. I have over $200 saved up from Christmas and allowances, and I could easily buy a couple chicks+food+supplies to start and I could help build the coop if supplies were provided, which would work because my step father knows where to get a lot of cheap lumber we could use, etc...

3. This could be true. But I can do a good job of keeping their coop clean so the smell is not so bad.

4. If I were to go away, we could easily give them away to a new home if she didn't want to care for them. But it's possible that she might like them so much that even when I go, she might want to keep them.​

 

[PaulaJoAnne]

You mention eating liquid eggs.
THose fake egg products are full of oxidized cholesterol. Very bad news for your heart. And a very good reason to raise your own. Commercial eggs have rather high amounts of cholesterol in them, but home grown, as long as you are feeding them naturally, will only have 1/3 of the cholesterol. And its good cholesterol that our bodies need to make all our hormones.

Quote:
She, and I, know all about the horrors of battery cage hens, slaughterhouses, the meat/egg industry, etc...etc...etc...It is an atrocity, really. I've seen the videos, I've written essays for school about it, I've read all about it and there's no way I would ever stop being a Vegetarian. In fact, if I tried meat, like my friends say I will someday (yeah, right...

), I would probably puke because it's just horrible and disgusting to think where it came from and what happened to it. It's not based on whether it tastes good or not, because whether it does or not, it was still killed in a despicable, terrible way and most likely lived a very abject life.

But anyway, I've told her that even though we buy "liquid eggs" (the ones that are "egg substitute"...not all egg but has some egg in it), they even most likely came from battery hens, just like other store-bought eggs. We would buy the free range ones normally, but they cost over $4.00 a dozen here and the egg substitute costs a little over $3.00. I told her today that people who own chickens get free eggs and you know that they came from happy hens (notice that I didn't say, "If we had chickens, then we would get free eggs...blah blah blah...", because if I had, she would have immediately not listened). She didn't say anything back to me about it, but I think she might have thought about it...possibly. But I'm really not sure.

I've shown her a bunch of chicken pictures, but she never seems interested at all. In fact, sometimes when I show her a chicken picture that I think is cute or something, if I say it's a chicken picture, she will sometimes not look at all.

Thanks for the suggestions!