Dumbest Things People Have Said About Your Chickens/Eggs/Meat

[buttercup95]

Yeah I had the same thing asked about my horses once. I had to explain that they were simply chest muscles and where the mammary glands were.

 

[write2caroline]

Okay - I have actually heard that same initial conversation with my brother in law, his wife and their two kids who insisted fresh eggs were not sanitary because they came from a chickens butt. I explained that chickens don't actually have a Butt per say - they have a vent and all eggs are layed the same.

My brother in law is actually educated - I still think he is a Dumb @## but then he heard we had a rooster from my gossipy mother in law and called my husband - his brother - at work and yelled at him about "what was I thinking....now that we had a rooster...we would be up to our necks in unwanted chicks and would not be able to control the birth rate and that we should have that rooster fixed immediately"

My husband - Laughing and realizing his brother is certifiably a Dumb @## - replied:
A) they are chickens and not Cats so there will be no unintended pregnancies with the chickens because they lay an egg in a hard shell and have to be pregnant on the outside not the
inside so we are sure that their will be no surprise offspring.

B) We plan on eating the eggs so we will actually control the eggs and will be able to thwart any attempt at unintentional offspring

C) if he wants to catch the rooster and turn him into a capon - he will need to come out and do it but we have decided to have the rooster un altered because he protects the hens.


Then when they came to stay with us for a week - they actually suggested I go out and kill one of my best laying hens to cook for dinner! So not happening! I explained that meat birds are processed when the hens are much younger and the older birds are not good eating..

I have also had people tell me that if I got more roosters then my chickens would lay more eggs. And when I asked them about if they knew that ovulation occurs with or without a male around they didn't understand what I meant.

I don't profess to be an expert but when people make these statements I count backwards from 100 and do my best not to sound snarky but try to set them straight without smiling and by simply stating the facts and letting them connect the dots. In the case of my brother in law - just plain hopeless!

Caroline

 

[buttercup95]

Okay - I have actually heard that same initial conversation with my brother in law, his wife and their two kids who insisted fresh eggs were not sanitary because they came from a chickens butt. I explained that chickens don't actually have a Butt per say - they have a vent and all eggs are layed the same.

My brother in law is actually educated - I still think he is a Dumb @## but then he heard we had a rooster from my gossipy mother in law and called my husband - his brother - at work and yelled at him about "what was I thinking....now that we had a rooster...we would be up to our necks in unwanted chicks and would not be able to control the birth rate and that we should have that rooster fixed immediately"

My husband - Laughing and realizing his brother is certifiably a Dumb @## - replied:
A) they are chickens and not Cats so there will be no unintended pregnancies with the chickens because they lay an egg in a hard shell and have to be pregnant on the outside not the
inside so we are sure that their will be no surprise offspring.

B) We plan on eating the eggs so we will actually control the eggs and will be able to thwart any attempt at unintentional offspring

C) if he wants to catch the rooster and turn him into a capon - he will need to come out and do it but we have decided to have the rooster un altered because he protects the hens.


Then when they came to stay with us for a week - they actually suggested I go out and kill one of my best laying hens to cook for dinner! So not happening! I explained that meat birds are processed when the hens are much younger and the older birds are not good eating..

I have also had people tell me that if I got more roosters then my chickens would lay more eggs. And when I asked them about if they knew that ovulation occurs with or without a male around they didn't understand what I meant.

I don't profess to be an expert but when people make these statements I count backwards from 100 and do my best not to sound snarky but try to set them straight without smiling and by simply stating the facts and letting them connect the dots. In the case of my brother in law - just plain hopeless!

Caroline

HAHAHA he wanted him fixed in case your chickens were overbreeding? Oh that's fantastic! As for the getting more roosters will make the hens lay more eggs I've heard it before too, and I'm like do you need a man to ovulate? (different word usage same point)

 

[write2caroline]

I buy bugs for my chickens... is that wrong? I go down to the reptile store and buy them some mealworms. They love them! I've also been known to come back with some crickets and watched the chicks chase them all over.

I have purchased bugs for my chickens too! And someone advertises freeze dried chicken treats - I have purchased them too! Previously, I was a little squeamish about bugs but since having chickens - when I find a nice bug I pick it up and give it to the chickens.

Truth be told - I have even purchased bait worms for the purpose of treating my chickens!

Caroline

 

[Michelle82]

Quote:

Count backwards from a hundred. I will have to learn to do that...

This week I asked an 'expert' for advise, who ignored my question and started ranting about the evils of commercial chicken farmers.... I am a commercial chicken farmer...

Dumb things people have said. --- Do we hack of the heads of all the two year old hens.... really hack.....and then doesn't it really stink after a while
so what he meant was 'we' would be like a gang of people with axes or something, would storm into the hen house and start chopping left and right, like a village
plunder in the Viking age and then just leave the dead corpses to stink... I should have counted backwards from a hundred instead of saying YES, I'm getting a lot of practise for the coming zombie apocalypse...

So I got my slaughter lady an axe, next time someone asks me if we hack the heads off I can tell him about the huge cool axe my slaughter lady has...

I get that we have to educate the public, but since smacking someone is now illegal, can't we have some fun instead..

 

[cassie]

I have two comments. One, I have personally known several people who had academic degrees out the gazoo and who still didn't have one iota of common sense. One of the most ignorant guys I ever met, bar none, was an orthopedic surgeon. It is a mystery to me how that man ever made it into medical school, let alone graduate. As for your brother-in-law who thinks your home produced eggs are unsanitary because they come out of a chicken's butt, if you are in a puckish mood, you might point out to him that many creatures have dual purpose organs. He has one and he uses it every day. His, um, male organ has more than one purpose. And just for fun, ask him please, just where it is he thinks store eggs come from and how they are produced. The answer might prove interesting.

 

[loveourbirds]

Count backwards from a hundred. I will have to learn to do that...

This week I asked an 'expert' for advise, who ignored my question and started ranting about the evils of commercial chicken farmers.... I am a commercial chicken farmer...

Dumb things people have said. --- Do we hack of the heads of all the two year old hens.... really hack.....and then doesn't it really stink after a while
so what he meant was 'we' would be like a gang of people with axes or something, would storm into the hen house and start chopping left and right, like a village
plunder in the Viking age and then just leave the dead corpses to stink... I should have counted backwards from a hundred instead of saying YES, I'm getting a lot of practise for the coming zombie apocalypse...

So I got my slaughter lady an axe, next time someone asks me if we hack the heads off I can tell him about the huge cool axe my slaughter lady has...

I get that we have to educate the public, but since smacking someone is now illegal, can't we have some fun instead..

i myself am more commercial in nature. just because we are commercial does not make us bad, my chickens are kept in pens; they get rotated to pasture. we have very little death due to predators, our hens are happy and healthy. they get one of the most nutritionally complete feeds available, along with treats. the barn is open in the summer allowing tons of airflow, and heated in the winter. several people hold it against us that we dont "free range", but most of those people are uneducated in the dangers of free ranging.
keep in mind when chickens are kept penned, the caretaker usually pays more attention to their diets and overall health. a responsible caretaker will make sure they have plenty of ventilation, more feed than they can eat, all the water they can drink, plenty of bedding, and kept free from predators and violence. each day we spend several hours caring for our flock of about 550 birds.
i am in no way saying that free ranging is wrong, if its done properly it is an easier method. the main reasons we dont free range ourselves is predatory issues - keep in mind we have a few $100 chickens here (not game fowl) next year we will have some (hopefully) that will be worth far more at nearly $2000.00 per chicken. we also sell hatching eggs and baby chicks, so keeping breeds straight in a free ranging application is nearly impossible.
for the person who has 25 chickens, free ranging may be the best way to go - but my number 1 piece of advice "watch out for neighbor's dogs". the second piece of advice "dont hate us because we are commercial. not everyone can kill and process their own meat, not everyone can deal with broody hens and hatching with incubators. until every consumer can become responsible farmers, commercial chicken farming will be very important to this country."

edited for typo.

 

[sepaditty1]

We live in California and had similar conversations. Offered some fresh egggs to a friend at work and she replies, "I just don't think i can go there." Go where????? I also want to be a pioneer woman or a rancher!

In my heart, I'm a pioneer woman. I was just born too late.

 

[Michelle82]

Quote:
Thank you for that! My chickens started out as a backyard flock, but grew and grew and became part of the farm. Now they represent half my income. I have a little over 400 chickens. We use pins -- second hand parrot aviaries for special breeding pairs and larger pins for 10-20 birds in flock. I feed green food (from our huge vegetable garden) and layer feed and have started a red-wiggler earth-worm farm for the chickens.
We love our chickens and take good care, while still making money.

Quote:


So do we and I hardly advertise anymore. People come back again and again and word of mouth is all the advertisement we need.

I think adding a few commercial practises to backyard farming is a good idea. 1.) Inoculate 2.) Cull unproductive birds 3.) Deworm on regular basis

 

[hogster160]

My mom informed me that she would not be eating my eggs when she come to visit, as they come straight from the chickens butt. Nor would she eat our chicken meat since it was raised where they can walk in their own poop. I about lost it. She has no clue. When I started to tell her how it really is for egg/meat chickens, she stopped me and told me that ignorance is bliss and changed the subject.

Don't get me wrong, I love my Mama dearly, but I am so very thankful that I got a lot of my smarts from my daddy. Who took us hunting and fishing as kids and let us learn as we went. Which taught us an awful lot about life.

Deb