Help my DH is encouraging me to do chicken math

[Darklingstorm]

Back when we first discussed having chickens I wanted to start out small and stay small. We live in town so I didn't want to get too many. My original plan was to build a coop big enough for 6 hens thus insuring that I wouldn't get more than just the 6. Well DH decided while building the coop that he should build it bigger in case I wanted more.
Right now we have a mixed flock of 13 hens/pullet and 1 cockerel. This was my first flock since I was a kid and didn't really know the breeds and things. I read a lot but still learned even more after I got them. I very much love to spend time with my chickens. Its been an avenue of teaching my 3-year-old son a lot of things.

We have been talking about our future flocks. Do we want to breed the ones we have or go with a pure blood? Buy every year or hatch our own? We decided that we would like to hatch our own chicks instead of buying them. We also decided on Rhode Island Reds, instead of having a mixed flock. So after researching again, this time about breeding programs and their requirements; I again informed DH what it would take and the options out there. So he is like, I guess we can convert the backside of the garage into a bigger coop, that way we can put lots of nest boxes in.

Me: WHAT!!!!! How many do you want to have?
DH: However many you want to raise.
Me: I was only going to get 12 hens and 2 roosters. We can split the coop and run to make two out of what we have.
DH: OK but I might still convert the garage just in case you change your mind and want more.

He is not helping me. I don't need anymore encouragement to get animals. I love animals and would build an Ark in the backyard if I could. Buying feed now is difficult at the prices it is at.

How do I keep him from "helping" me?

 

[dirtsaver]

Quote:
Sorry Dark it just won't happen! For several years my wife kept mentioning getting chickens. I never paid much attention,I didn't really think she was serious about it. Two winters ago she mentioned chickens in passing, how she wished we had gotten some several years ago. Suddenly I was off! We started talking about chickens...what kind,how many,all those things. I don't think she thought I was serious! We talked about how many to get,she thought maybe three or four, I said maybe six. We ended up with ten,then went back a week later and got a couple more. So now we had a dozen chicks in a box in the utility room...AND NO COOP!!!!

Not to panic.....I started rummaging through my scrap piles to find materials for a coop. Between my salvage piles and what a friend gave us from a barn rebuild we built a pretty nice "old school" coop, one that looks like it came from the 1930s or 1940s and would hold....more chickens

. This spring we added eight more and then gave or sold a few to other folks that were starting their own flocks. Oh yeah....I did build a "grow-out coop" this spring also.

Now our flock is at thirteen but plans are to add more chicks this spring as well as a third coop and some meat birds. My wife wants to know when the madness stops. STOP????? STOP???? Never!!!! When a man gets chicken fever the best you can do is stand aside or get caught up in the rush!

added: To understand how much I like our girls,you'd need to see me with our Buff Brahma Blondie sitting in my lap here at the computer when she had the accident and stayed in the house a few weeks to recover. She enjoyed watching me surf BYC every evening! I mean she really stayed glued to the screen!

 

[crazyhen]

Tell him you need more coops and not in the garage. Sometimes having to build discourages them.

gloria Jean

 

[TroutsChicks]

you want him to be discouraged? I wanted chickens super bad, told dh. I was like we should get 3 and he was like well we should get 8 and then it was 10 and we came home with 16 ( still have them all from 4 day old chicks ) and then I got 2 roos. He wants our favorite chicken to be a house chicken..I caught him snuggling his face into her feathers and kissing her? muhahahha I grabbed her and burried my face into her feathers also! I say encourage it!! more birds more variety!! more fluffy butts...more coops ...maybe even some peacocks and then ostrich....

 

[gryeyes]

Awww, sweetie, you can't. He's got his own addiction to chickens going. Cherish it!

 

[Darklingstorm]

Quote:
That is sort of the problem. He doesn't do anything with the chickens and even gets bored watching them. I feed them, water, clean, chase, pet, etc. But I do hear him tell others "Yeah we get around 7 eggs a day from my chickens". HIS chickens?! Oh he loves to tell everyone about the chickens and loves to bring people over to see them. He crows proudly about the girls and even shows everyone at work the website I put together. Yes he built the coop but he wasn't happy doing it. It so sad that I have to be the strong one and say no, when all I want to do is bring home every fuzzy butt I see.

 

[Wimberleytexaschick]

My husband is the exact same. I do ALL the work, feeding, watering, cleaning, getting up in the dark (while he is snoring) to take care of the chickens before I get the kids ready for school. I even build the coops! But he is always the first to tell me to buy more, hatch more....how I wish he would say NO more....Guess we need to exert our own self control! Perhaps it's our house rule- "I won't ask how many guns you have, if you don't ask how many chickens I have!" Hang in there, you are not alone!

 

[Mommy 2 Wee Ones]

I guess I am lucky, hubby goes out in the morning to let the girls & guy out. My oldest daughter lets the silkies out. We take bets on how many egg we will get that day, and he like to race our girls to the coop to see how many have laid their eggs before noon. At night, he will take a cup of BOSS and shake the cup and the girls flock to him from all points of the yard. My job is to put the silkies away, because his girls are more fun than those fluffy things. I did build the coops, and put up the fence for the run, and sew the netting over the top. But hubby just gets such a kick out of the hens, he will sit & call them over, and they hop onto his lap.

I also want to get more, we have 15, not including the 2 silkies, (who don't count, because they are not real chickens).

I also want to hatch out some chicks, but so does hubby, and our girls, who want fuzzy butts in the worst way.
So I know I will be building another coop in the spring, just have to figure out how bit it will be.