I have the exact reverse of this. People wonder why I keep pet chickens and don't eat them or get rid of them after their prime is over. It seems dummies come in all flavors.
I feel you here. It's hard to describe how cute and endearing little chickies are! They can be pets just as much as cats and dogs. And chickens are as addictive as crack, but 300,00,000% healthier.
Same with my girls. Thankfully our neighbours love the chickens!
I know! Chickens have such a bad reputation.X2. I never thought that chickens were so fun, sweet, and entertaining before I got them. I just thought they were "farm animals". After having them, I know that chickens are more than that. The annoyingest thing to me is when people say "its just a chicken".
. Besides, I put up with their dog barking for years, and babysit their pets, so he owes me.
Yeah, they're a good bunch. We're all around the same age ... only 2 of us still work and we'll be retired in another year. No kids live here, all of ours are grown, 2 never had any. Some of us play cards together. Most of us garden and exchange plants and know-how. We go in together when work needs to be done, like paving the top of our driveways because visiting citiots don't know how to climb a gravel driveway without destroying it - we couldn't get anyone to do the work on just one driveway. But, most importantly, I share my eggs! Bribery works and It's hard to complain about the chickens that are providing your breakfast. Besides, most of them feel the chickens add a bucolic touch to our neighborhood. As I said, it's a dead end street with only 6 houses, each on an acre of land. We're all move-ins, no locals, so have to band together. Many grew up with chickens as kids, so like having them around without having to care for them. I'm the second house from the end, so there's no traffic, except for the next door neighbor who's at the very end.
It's the perfect place for me and my girls!
PS. I've got 8 babies in the garage that will be added to the 5 mature girls in a few weeks, so I'll have plenty more eggs very soon. Plus, I have to confess that my next door neighbor (puts out the corn for the deer) gets mad when the girls scratch up his pine straw when the cheap-o puts a handful around the base of a tree, but his wife loves the girls and is their babysitter when one is needed, so she handles him. "Have another dozen eggs!"
but I hope if/when I move I get neighbors that nice or a more remote setting. I want like 5-10 acres or even a lot more but the care might be a bit much and I'm kind of nervous to be so isolated. Anyway, your neighbors sound great. Ours are pretty nice but we don't really talk to anyone. My girls always like to go into the woods behind the coop which is near the houses and I always worry they're going to go to the neighbors yard and go outside to call them back. Really I don't think they go very far, usually juston the edge of the woods/only a few feet in, but still. It's especially annoying because they could be going in the other side of the woods where there's no houses and they could go in as far as they wanted. They do hang out on that side too since there's 2 young but big pine trees there and the compost pile. If only they would just stay on that side and not go to the other side... but maybe the new coop will help, it's on that side.
she used to refuse to eat them because she thought that she would get sick
