I thought sure I'd love chickens by now...

[elizabethbinary]

Since you seem to be more logical and less emotional, I'll give logical reasons:

1. Scraps, chickens eat all those nasty ends and peelings and bits you never know what to do with. Put them in a compost pile and the chickens will eat some, miss some and scratch up the compost so it's all turned for you.
2. I used it above already, but they turn compost!
3. Manure is excellent for your garden.
4. You can sell excess eggs and your chickens can provide for themselves.
5. If you decide to get a rooster, you can teach your child about the birds and the bees using actual birds. Imagine when your child gets her first chick!
6. If you decide to get a rooster, you can start using your chickens as food, making roasts and stews.
7. If you decide to get a rooster, you can sell the baby chicks or raise them for food in a very economical way.
8. If chickens are low on calcium, they make their own! Just grind their eggshells and feed it back to them.
9. Ducks will solve the fly problem and provide the same as above.

 

[tinychicky]

first let me tell you, this is the wrong place to be saying chickens are stupid.

are you actually spending time with them? watching them interact with the world? there's more to chickens than eating and pooping, ya'know! and, no matter what people think, CHICKENS AREN'T STUPID! they have the ability to learn, not only directly but from each other! why is it that owls are "wise" and chickens are "stupid"? in the end, they're both birds! they're as smart and smarter than many animals on the planet! take some time to learn their language! i know some of it by now! while I was sitting inside the coop, the chickens OUTSIDE the coop told me that there was a predetor outside, but not one that seemed to be stalking them, just one to be wary of and that it was on the ground, not in the air. yes, i knew all that from what they said before i looked. it turned out to be my cat which fits the description perfectly!
chickens have individual personalities! anyways, what animal that has the ability to love and hate be stupid! surly you've noticed that a chicken that gets along with one hen might not get along with another! chickens have complex relationships and communities just like people. also like people, the males are more likely to fight each other, but once it's done, it's done and they can be friends again, while the females don't actively come to blows, but pick one another one they don't like in little ways, constantly. chickens have emotions too. one of my hens, tiny, gets jealous if i hold another chicken on my lap, so she flies up and pecks or pushes the other chicken off! chickens are a whole lot like people: intelligent with complex communities and the ability to learn from one another and the world around them.


no offense meant to you, AnaD, i just have to rant sometimes

 

[AnaD]

Quote:
1. We compost most everything, but maybe leftovers we never get to would be alright to give them...
2. NEAT!
3. We have a good collection on poop now
4. We'll see...
5. I think we have one now and we are deciding whether or not to break the law and keep it or just eat it....Poor Harriet...I mean Harry!

6. As above.
7. An exciting idea
8. I'll be doing that
9. I'd love ducks, but we'd have to make a pool or something for them :-/
TY!

I sure do enjoy having the birds as entertainment, but they are making a lot more work right now for me than fun. I don't invest enough time handling my chickens to make them cuddle and they are stinky anyway.
I too have a bench next to their coop and favorite napping bush and when I am not looking over the yard at the mess they have made I find much peace and amusement in them. Ah,well. I am a dog person and am just coming to the realization that chickens are not as decent as dogs

We will be keeping them no matter what due to the fact we want to grow as much of our own food as we can.

 

[AnaD]

Quote:
LOL And no offense to you chicken people! My chickens have personalities...and maybe they are not totally stupid they just act like they are!

 

[domino7]

Believe me, my wife doesn't get it either. She would love for me to get rid of the chickens lol. I totally enjoy them though, and they will stay. Some people don't get why anyone would want a dog, cat, canary, gerbil, or any other animal that many people love dearly. We're all a little different, and that's ok.

 

[ChooksChick]

I didn't read the other responses, but I wanted to point out that some feeds have pork protein which makes the poop sticky and stinky, plus grain by-products, which have had the good qualities removed for other products, so it's more of a cellulose quality- bulk feed and plentiful poop.

I feed my birds a mix of 80% scratch and 20% Farmer's Helper Ultra Kibble from TSC (you have to ask them to special order it, $22.99 for a 15# bag) and no other commercially prepared feed. I get about 3/4 the poop and it's nice, cohesive, non-stinky stuff when they do it.

Garbage in, garbage out- fact is most brands of prepared food have a guaranteed analysis that shows they'll have the minimum/maximum of certain qualities, but the ingredients don't actually tell you what's in the bag. They don't have to eat all day to get what they need if you give them higher quality, whole food. They digest whole grains fabulously.

I prefer this feeding regime and they eat less, so it saves money.

 

[Ema]

I have always loved chickens, since I was a little kid and helped my grandmother with the family flock. But I truly hated roosters because the one andalusian we had used to fly at me all the time until he really hurt me and he became soup after my grandmother caught him.

anyhow, I think they are great, I watch them do their chicken thing and I feel so at peace watching them. I love that they provide me with eggs and good manure to fertilize what ever I may want to fertilize. I hung their feeder so they cannot poop in it and they are pretty good at not pooping near their water. I enjoy watching them sunbathe and dirt bathe its kind of funny, and when they get a new treat they way they run around all excited or scared because they are being chased...ahahaha its hard to tell which one sometimes.

I guess sadly chickens aren't for everyone, my SIL hates them, one of my coworkers doesn't mind buying eggs and chicken from the store but being around a live chicken or getting fresh eggs freak her out...I just think its silly but she just thinks I am nuts for having chickens, so I guess we are sort of equal. Anyhow, I cannot free range my chickens because of year round predators, they have a large pen and this spring they will have a movable tractor so I can allow them the free range while still being protected. I do not keep them near the dog pen and they do not have access to the front yard where my kids play. I have plenty of land for them to range so I do have the luxury of having different areas for us, the other animals and a whole big area for the kids playground equipment and other outdoor toys.

Stick with it, maybe after a few changes things will get easier.

Ema

 

[Sassafras]

How smart can dogs be if they eat chicken poop (or pretty much any poop)?

 

[Country Heart]

I enjoy my chickens more than I can say - Chicken TV, there's nothing like it. And now that my kids are all grown and gone, the chickens own the backyard, which they share (nicely for the most part) with the cats. I have a garden too, but I prefer to fence it off - rather than the chickens.

 

[Mak]

As others have said, getting totally into chickens is not for everyone. Some people are more inclined to just keep the animals as animals, for food and not as pets. I tend to be on the side of those who like to interact with the chickens, but at the same time, they are ultimately food- eggs or meat.

Regarding the mess- mine are enclosed most of the time. We built the run extra large so they would have the space to be kept inside it. I do let them free range some, but our property is not fenced, and I am not sue that the neighbors want chickens in their yards. They don't mind that we have them, but I am sure they would change that if the birds were all over their yards. And I do have a large garden which will be fenced this year, but I will still only let the birds out when I am there. I do have shoes that I only wear out in the yard and they get cleaned when I am done. The dog? Well, yeah, he eats chicken poop. I stop him when I can, but I can't be on top of him all the time. As for his feet, he knows to stop at the door and let me wipe his feet before he comes in.

The smell and flies- did you build a poop board into your coop? Idid and I scoop it every day and have very little smell, and what is there is not unpleasant, really. The shavings on the coop floor absorb a lot of the smell. I add a layer every week and change it out completely about 3 or 4 times a year. And I just don't get flies in the coop. Maybe it's because we put screen as well as hardware cloth over every opening, but the pop door is open all day and so is the coop door a lot when I am out there. I did not have a single fly in the coop all summer. I didn't really see more than the usual number in the rest of the yard, as well. Maybe I'm just lucky?

One other thing the chickens do is help control ticks in the yard. A bonus for those of us who live in "tick territory" and have dogs!