Getting the flock out of here - a diary of a crazy chicken man

[Rnbwbrite1207]

My kids run barefoot through our backyard with the chickens all the time. I suspect that because of our areas very high rate of precipitation most waste is broken down before it gets messy. If you don't have much rain I bet a sprinkler would work as well and serve double duty

...

Curious...how do you deal with the inevitable chicken waste + children running around?  I would let my birds free range, except my four kiddos run all over the property and usually they are barefoot.  (Nobody around here wears shoes in the summer, lol).  

 

[Tomtommom]

Curious...how do you deal with the inevitable chicken waste + children running around? I would let my birds free range, except my four kiddos run all over the property and usually they are barefoot. (Nobody around here wears shoes in the summer, lol).

My kids track enough dirt into the house, I would not love to have bird poop tracked in, too.

Ours free ranged in the backyard on their own invitation. We had a 4 foot fence and quickly found out it was not enough. Eventually they invited themselves to the neighbors yards, front yard, one crossed the road (I know!

) and one decided to sit on the window AC unit to complain about who knows what. We have two kids too and they really didn't get to play outside much anymore because of the yuck factor.. and the chickens apparently like to each Nerf darts and foam balls

Needless to say, a few months of that and they have a 6 foot fence now.








They were mad to the point of a week with only 3 eggs a day, instead of my usual 5-7 eggs (sometimes 9!). They miss their weeds and grass, but the kids are enjoying the yard again.

I had to make a 'dog yard' before (the chain link with the electric fence in the background) because the dogs chewed up EVERYTHING, pooped everywhere and would jump on the kids (we had 4 beagle/havanese mix pups and their mom at one point).

Gotta share that living space!

 

[Jucknath]

Ours free ranged in the backyard on their own invitation. We had a 4 foot fence and quickly found out it was not enough. Eventually they invited themselves to the neighbors yards, front yard, one crossed the road (I know!

) and one decided to sit on the window AC unit to complain about who knows what. We have two kids too and they really didn't get to play outside much anymore because of the yuck factor.. and the chickens apparently like to each Nerf darts and foam balls

Needless to say, a few months of that and they have a 6 foot fence now.








They were mad to the point of a week with only 3 eggs a day, instead of my usual 5-7 eggs (sometimes 9!). They miss their weeds and grass, but the kids are enjoying the yard again.

I had to make a 'dog yard' before (the chain link with the electric fence in the background) because the dogs chewed up EVERYTHING, pooped everywhere and would jump on the kids (we had 4 beagle/havanese mix pups and their mom at one point).

Gotta share that living space!

Your place looks nice. I bet the chickens love it.

 

[ozexpat]

A little chicken poop between the toes is part of building up ones immune system

It can also be used for a fund raiser

 

[lindz8504]

A little chicken poop between the toes is part of building up ones immune system

It can also be used for a fund raiser

Around here we use cows and call it "Cow Pie Bingo!"

 

[Sweetpea3829]

My kids run barefoot through our backyard with the chickens all the time. I suspect that because of our areas very high rate of precipitation most waste is broken down before it gets messy. If you don't have much rain I bet a sprinkler would work as well and serve double duty
Quote: We don't get a tremendous amount of rain...we get some lake effect stuff from the Great Lakes, but it's usually a quick shower and then done. A sprinkler won't work for us...lol...we have three acres on which the kids freely roam and I imagine the chickens probably would do the same if we allowed them.

Edited to clarify...its not like we don't get rain, lol. We get about an average amount.

Ours free ranged in the backyard on their own invitation. We had a 4 foot fence and quickly found out it was not enough. Eventually they invited themselves to the neighbors yards, front yard, one crossed the road (I know!

) and one decided to sit on the window AC unit to complain about who knows what. We have two kids too and they really didn't get to play outside much anymore because of the yuck factor.. and the chickens apparently like to each Nerf darts and foam balls

Needless to say, a few months of that and they have a 6 foot fence now.








They were mad to the point of a week with only 3 eggs a day, instead of my usual 5-7 eggs (sometimes 9!). They miss their weeds and grass, but the kids are enjoying the yard again.

I had to make a 'dog yard' before (the chain link with the electric fence in the background) because the dogs chewed up EVERYTHING, pooped everywhere and would jump on the kids (we had 4 beagle/havanese mix pups and their mom at one point).

Gotta share that living space!

Now see...we have two dogs and believe it or not, we managed to train them to only poop in one section of our property. It's a large section, we call it the lower field because it's slightly downhill from the rest of our property. Eventually, we'd like to put a horse in there but I digress. Took awhile to train them, though. First we started by taking them out to do their business only on leash and only in that one area. Then, when they had free run of the property, if we started to see them circling and preparing to do their dog business, one of us would go running after them like a maniac shouting "NOOO!!! BAAAAAD DOOOOOOG!!!!" Pretty sure that was what convinced our Mennonite neighbors that we're a bit nuts. ;-)

And also, when you wrote that your chickens weren't laying for you because they were mad, I had to laugh because it reminded me of Farmer Brown and his friend Duck. Click, Clack, Moo!

Around here we use cows and call it "Cow Pie Bingo!"

HAHA!!!!!!

 

[SilkieSensation]

All of this talk about kids tracking in bird poop had me laughing. All of my birds are penned yet I still get poopy footprints all the way across my kitchen floor. I can't entirely blame it all on the kids because I have been known to walk into the coops in my bare feet myself so can't yell at the kids when they do it. They have at least learned to try to hose their feet off afterward.

 

[Tomtommom]

'Mad' is me anthropomorphizing chickens, because hey, that's what us crazy folks do. In reality, chickens simply HATE change.. you change something drastic, they stop laying. Changing their routine from nibbling yummy grass and hiding under the shed to being fenced into a dirt pit... would make for some upset chickens

They got over it, they enjoy the change of amenities.

LOVE the chicken poop bingo. That's hilarious.

Our dogs are frankly unwanted...

Not long after my fiance moved in, he realized his ex-wife had stopped feeding their dogs (she said they stopped eating). So I got a beagle and a havanese, both skinny as could be. He had always assumed the havanese to be fixed, as she had what looked to be a scar on her belly (she had been found as a stray). Needless to say, half a year later I had a litter of 5 pups in my living room

One pup didn't make it, died at one day old. One got rehomed. The other three we tried and tried but could not rehome. Dad dog had become extremely food aggressive from the previous neglect and ended up biting my step-son (our own fault, NEVER let a kid touch a dogs' food). We chose to have the dog put down, rather than the city put him in rabies quarantine for 3 months and send the bill. Mom and remaining three boys lived in the backyard for two years. I finally found a havanese rescue willing to take the mom and one of the pups that looked 90% havanese......

End result. I have two inbred beagle looking dogs living in a section of the yard. They're pretty much unsocialized, one has food aggression too (we think it may actually have been a genetic thing).... they won't walk on a leash, freak out every time you come near them, have zero training..... Yeah. One of them is pretty sweet, the other isn't... I tried to get my fiance to put that mean thing down, and let the other one live inside, but he doesn't want to. It's sad, they're both beat up looking from fighting (food aggro dog starts fights..

)

Our home is 800 sqft, I have two kids sharing a bedroom... pretty much, there is simply no room for dogs to live inside. Heck, my cats have moved out when I went from zero kids to having two. They only come in for food and if it's cold/wet.

Wow, that was a long story about nothing. Back to the Oz show, his stories are way more entertaining

 

[ozexpat]

Our kids love to be barefoot but we have an outside shower near the path from the beach. It takes care of sand, poop and all sorts of goobies.

 

[perchie.girl]

Our kids love to be barefoot but we have an outside shower near the path from the beach. It takes care of sand, poop and all sorts of goobies.

I have plans for an outdoor shower.... Just a french drain and an on demand water heater... Part of my Master bath plan.... LOL. But it would be easy to put up some sort of floor mat with holes in it and a sprayer underneath to step on then scruff the feet on the mat.... Or maybe some Mexican river pebbles.... those are pretty smooth on bare feet

I would be more concerned with transferring parasites ....

this link is not graphic but describes the mode of infection..... to people

So it would be wise to keep up on Worming scheduals for Dogs and cats and any other livestock you have when you have kids running about.... LOL.

deb