I'm so tired of losing!

bantiebabe1200

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Ok, I need to get this off my chest. I don't know where this problem will end up. We're suppose to talk more about this over the weekend. All he doe's is this
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and it's starting to get over welming.

I've raised chickens for most of my life up until about six years ago when I had move back to my home state of Montana. That's when I met my husband. I love him dearly, but he's driving me crazy with the chickens. He agreed chickens would be a good thing, and he wants to build a coop and get the eggs and meat. What I've always wanted to do is raise and show Brahma bamtams to standard. I took this opportunity to make it happen, since we would get both eggs and meat from them (in high quantity, but not overwelming) too, plus I would be fulfilling my life long dream. He agreed this would be ok.

Now he's suddenly panicking and he's decidided that we should build a very small coop for the first year and only get a few laying and meat birds to try this out! Not that that is a bad thing overall, I do understand that he's a causous person, but... I don't know how many times I have to explain to him that I know how much time and effort is involved with caring for chickens (I've done this nearly my whole life with alteast a hundred or more at a time). I'm fully preparded for it and he won't have to be involved. He also doesn't understand that I'm not planning on having a giant chicken breeding operation that will consum our lives! All I want is a smaller operation that will give us the meat and eggs we will need to be happy as well as let me breed and show, my birds. Now he's even insisted (after agreeing that the coop could be in place I chose that's fairly close to the house) that the coop should be put on the north end of our property.
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The negatives to this is, there are many more predators that move through there, my monther in law lives right by there, and she thinks everything I do with my animals is both wrong and mean in some wildly made up way and she's never even had anything more than a few dogs and cats, plus I'll have to carry large buckets of water far to long just reach my coop. Our hoses will only work very well for this in the summer when it's nice, but in the winter I really don't want to have to carry buckets of water to my birds through a white out ice/snow blizzard that far away from the house (about a hundred yards and I don't have a strong body)!
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We can't run pluming over there be cause it's on the other side of a grove of trees that's around a hundred years old and we don't want to kill them (they have a shallow root sytem due to hight ground water).
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Ok, I think I've said most of it, if I didn't cover all of it. Thanks for listening.
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Sorry for the flaming attitude, but I needed to vent this and I hope some one will have a solution to help me to help him understand why I planned things the way I did. Or atleast help me to understand him better?
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I don't know if I posted this in the right place, but I'm just hoping that someone will be able to help me out here?
 
I can only give you
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There is no changing your mind after you've agreed to something!
 
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Hmmm... not sure WHY he changed his mind? Mybe there is something going on that you don't know about yet. I just can't understand getting cold feet about chickens.
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Maybe... considering he wants to move the chickens so much further away, and make the flock/coop so much smaller... maybe someone has dropped a bug in his ear. Like what someone mentioned on here recently about people thinking chickens are for poor people.. dirty/smelly/ect.?
If so... I would tell him to 'Man up' and stop being such a sissy about what other people think.
Gee! When I, someday, get married... my husband and I will get along so well...
 
I wish I had some advise for you. Trust me....I do know how you feel! I keep getting critter ideas and have to slowly drag my hubby into it because I can't do a lot of the fencing, etc alone. First it was a show-quality Anatolian Shepherd from working stock (took 3 months to talk him into that). Then I need some stock so he would keep his working ability....I chose sheep(we are still working on the fence for them....getting them in 2 weeks). Then I decided that since we are raising our own sheep, might as well raise our own chickens too. Went from regular old laying hens to pure bred show quality stock. Now he has to help me build more fences, coops, barns, pens, brooders, whatever. Oh.....a few years ago I decided I wanted to keep koi (huge ornamental garden pond fish). So now my yard has 4 koi ponds in it. How that man humors me! lol! Best of luck to you. Sometimes men can be so hardheaded (sorry men
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). Make him realize how much you wanted to fulfill this dream you had of raising show quality chickens and how important it is to you.
 
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I don't have any real answers for you. I think maybe his mother has something to do with this change in his mind. She could have said something about the smell and what others might think. I would not change the plans on where to put the coop. Sit down and write down why you want the chickens you want and why you want the coop where you want it. Then right now the cons to where he said put the coop then sit down and talk about it. That is the best I can do. My DH just lets me have my chicken hobby because it makes me happy just like I let him have his train hobby because it makes him happy. DH always says my hobby makes him breakfast. Good luck and I hope you find out why he changed his mine.
 
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I have to say my first thought after reading the OP was "tell his mom to butt out." Sounds like she might be bending sonny boy's ear. Maybe you should find a way to point out to him that she doesn't have any experience with anything beyond dogs and cats. could you just "happen" to ask him one day if he ever wanted other animals as a kid? How did his mom react? why? You know, just start a casual conversation and try to get him thinking about the difference in experience so he'll have to concede that you are way more knowledgeable than he or his mom is on this subject.
 
Thank you everyone sooo much for the wonderful advice!!!!
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Ok, hugs for every one who replied!
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Everyone was a great help to me, truly! Thank you!
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I have an update on his attitude and I hope it remains this way, but we'll see for sure soon.
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I had a talk with him after he came home from work and realized that he suddenly became very depressed and wouldn't even hardly look at me. He said he thought he was a terrible husband. I don't know where that came from.
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Then he said that he had no right to tell me what I can and can't do about the coop and my chickens. So now he's being tottaly submissive (sp) and wants me to do what I want. Go figure, lol! He was just worried since this would be his first wooden structure (he's a welder and machinist) and was scared to try something to big, I ofcourse told him that I was going to help him so that we could say we built it together, wich was my plan anyway. Then I made sure he knew that it wasn't going to take up all the time we had to be together as well (the chickens), as that is one of his worries too. So now he's feeling better. We're taking the advice on doing a pro's and con's list and we're going to keep trying to find a good medium. As for his mother we've had this argument (about my horse) before as well, and he's learned to make his mother leave us alone for the most part. I just don't like hearing about what she's whining about and watching her give me the perced liped glare over the fence. The wierdness seems to be over for now.

Anyway, thanks again!
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glad things are going better. It helped that you really listened and heard his concerns. remind him that having something that makes you really happy will in turn benefit him because he will have a happier partner.
 

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