** I would have a story but . . . .

Quailbuddy

Songster
10 Years
Jan 8, 2010
321
1
119
Sonoma County CA
I would have a story and pictures to share and i want to but . . .
My Parents dont want chickens
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My dad was looking thorugh an urban living magazine and saw that you could raise a small flock and get a decent amount of eggs. He told my mom ,my sister and I adn we all told him he was crazy for thinking of the idea and said no way . (
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in my defense i didnt know about this site then. . . ) and he tried to convince us but decided to give up on the idea. But every day i liked the thought more and more. About a week later I told him i actually thought that it was a good idea and me and my sister tried to get him back into the idea but by this point he thought " oh nevermind, it will never work and it will be too much work" and my mom doesnt like the idea because she thinks they will poop too much and make to much noise
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So at this point we Are in FFA and we can do an SAE ( supervised agriculture project) and we recently started raising Market lambs at our County fair but we both my sister and I want Chickens for laying eggs and because our lambs will be sold at the end on the summmer . . . How do i convince them . . .
we have the room and i have showed them i can handle the responsibblility . . . I am 15 and so is my sister ! But we think of the positive and they think of the negative such as Poop, Noise, Attracting preadators ( we have a small dog they think will get hurt:/ ) What do I do? please post why they are good and some things to try to convince them
You probably have heared this a thousand times but I have been a member on this site for months and have become addicted listening and reading to all your stories and i want to share pictures and stories with you all too, and a bonus is that we have made friends with our local feed store and they are getting chicks in this month and they have the breeds we want ( BR and EE )
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They are worried about :
1 attracting preadators

2 Too much noise

3 too much poop

4 being tied to the house when we want to go on vacation

5 money
please help
thanks Angie
 
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Maybe try talking them into one hen each for you and your sister. It doesn't get rid of problems #1 and 2 but it can sure mitigate the others. Two chickens don't take up much space and their living quarters can be built very tight relatively cheaply (since you don't need as much wire/wood/hardware to do the same as for 20 chickens). Built correctly, this little house could also be made in such a way as to a allow a house-sitter to easily take care of them on vacation, feeding and watering and picking eggs all through the side so that even someone who doesn't like birds can do it. And of course, 2 hens don't really eat that much and therefore don't produce a lot of leavings. A properly constructed house can be scooped every morning and the stuff composted (or bagged and thrown away).

Or you could just do what I did and announce that you have chicks coming in 6 weeks. But I wouldn't recommend that unless your parents are like mine and accept and take in whatever their kids dragged home.

I'm surprised they let you have the sheep and not the hens, though. Good grief... talk about poop!
 
I'm giving you a bump here Quailbuddy because I know there are others out there who can help you with your arguments FOR chickens! Uzuri has a very good point about getting just one chicken for each of you and your sister. Such a small number wouldn't be bothersome at all.

Do you have anyone in your neighborhood or in your 4-H group who is currently keeping chickens of an egg laying age? If so, ask them for a half dozen fresh eggs. Tell them that you want to give them to your mom so that she can see how wonderful truly farm fresh eggs are! And you sure won't find eggs like that in the grocery store! Nope! The only way to get those kinds of healthy, chemical and hormone free eggs is to raise the birds yourself!

Then work on mom about the poop. Chicken manure is one of the very finest there is. Very, VERY high in nitrogen! In fact, so high in nitrogen, it needs to be aged a bit before it is used or it will burn young plants. If mom is anything of a gardener, you could use that argument on her. Just think Mom!! All the free fertilizer we could ever need! In fact, with just two chickens, if you do any kind of gardening at all, you'll soon find yourself wishing that your chickens pooped a lot more!
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All of ours goes into one of the compost heaps. In about 2 or 3 weeks, it's ready to go into the vegetable garden. And you should see what it does for my roses!!!
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Hen's aren't all that noisy unless they're singing the egg song. And there, breed has a lot to do with it. Some are soft singers, some sing at the top of their little chicken lungs! Even roosters aren't as loud as some people assume they are. And no, they don't crow all day! Not all of them anyway. My roo crows for about 5 minutes in the morning. (Not even at the crack of dawn either) and anytime something exciting happens. Like when I bring them treats in the middle of the day. But just like people, roosters are individuals. What one does, is not what all do.

And you've been around here long enough Quailbuddy to know that you don't need a rooster to have eggs. So, you also know that you can just avoid that discussion all together.

Having chickens doesn't automatically draw in predators. No more so than having a dog or a cat will do. We went for years out here before we had our very first hawk attack. And they've been very few and far between thankfully. We've had more problems with neighborhood dogs than anything else. So, right there, that's not much of an argument.


Well, that's enough from me. Time to let someone else add to the pro's of having chickens. I honestly can't think of any con's. Good luck Quailbuddy and let us know how it goes. And when you get your first birds, be sure to post pics of them! I have feeling that before long, you're going to have chickens in your family!!
 
Thank you for your advice
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My mom is a gardner so i will have to use the poop fertalizer idea . . . . I took my dad into see the baby chicks at our TSC and he was all " awww and i like the barred rocks . . . " I was like YES
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but my dads biggest problem is the coop, i am mot too handy but do have wood and chicken wire and PVC pipe and ramdom things . . . . .
 
I f you are responsible enough for market lambs, you can definitely handle chickens.
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Try looking at something like a hoop tractor. They are very easy to build, even if you aren't handy.
 

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