Elly, I apologize if you don't want me to ask this but I feel I must.To be honest with you, I don't really like having chickens, that's why I never talk about them or post about them. Don't worry though, I still like seeing pics of all your guy's chickens!
I used to ABSOLUTELY LOVE having chickens. I was absolutely crazy about them. I used to want to have one of every single chicken breed that existed. Not anymore. Now they're just another headache. The only reason I have them is cause mom and dad want to keep them. If it wasn't for them insisting on keeping them around, I would've got rid of them years ago.
I think it's great that other people have them and I'm glad that other people find joy in having them, but for me in particular, they're just not my thing. I'm not trying to put anyone else down for having them, I'm just saying they don't work for me. Honestly, if I lived in a different climate that was better for chickens, I think I might actually enjoy having them.
There are several reasons why they don't currently work for me in the climate\situation I'm in now.
1. They don't thrive very well in the climate I live in (in my opinion).
2. They constantly have lice AND mites.
I have tried to the farthest extent to get rid of them and I've never succeeded.
Seriously, for 8 years I tried to eradicate them!
Here are some of the things I did to try and get rid of them:
Gave each individual chicken a bath, used herbs to try and repel the lice and mites, dipped they're feet in gasoline and smeared them with Vaseline to try an get rid of the mites, cleaned they're coop daily, dusted them with DE, sprayed them with essential oils, fed them garlic, and sprayed their coop with neem oil.
Obviously, I've tried getting rid of them with no success. That being said, I think it's mean to keep chickens around when they're spending they're whole life suffering from parasites.
In my opinion, it's animal cruelty to keep around birds that are constantly being plagued with lice and mites, that's part of the reason I don't think we should have them.
I mean, think about how horrible that would be to constantly have lice and mites crawling all over you and biting you, you're WHOLE life! It would be itchy and annoying! I feel really bad for my chickens, since they have to deal with lice and mites.
3. I can never feed them exactly perfectly. I'm always either feeding them too much or to little. In 9 years I've never found the perfect balance. They're always either too fat or too skinny. In my opinion, that's not humane either.
4. They're not very hardy. Something is always happening to them, weather it's getting sick, they're combs freezing off in winter, or dying of unknown causes.
5. I have an extremely hard time getting my chicken eggs to hatch. The fertility rates are absolutely terrible. My best hatch rates with chicken eggs are 30% or lower. For example, out of the 10 dozen chicken eggs I tried to hatch this year, I only got 13 chicks.
6. They are bad mothers. They poop all over their eggs and smash them. They'll start sitting on eggs and then right before they're eggs are supposed to hatch, they completely abandon their nest.
7. My chickens are ALWAYS finding excuses to not lay eggs.
8. They get stressed out SOOO easily! If you walk into the coop to collect eggs they think the world is ending!
I could go on listing the reasons, but I think you have a pretty good idea of what I mean now, so I'll stop there.
Perhaps someday I will live in a better climate and then I will enjoy having chickens again, but for now, this is where I'm at.
Muscovies work very wonderfully for me. I'm content with them. They make great meat birds, and I don't have any of the above listed problems with them.
My biggest "problem" with them is that they're nearly perfect!
Then I have my new KCs, I got them in hopes of fixing my egg problem. Hmmm, we'll see about that.......
The last chickens I got from one of the best Black Australorp breeders in the United States were supposed to be good layers, too. Apparently, they're not.
In case y'all didn't know.......
DUCKS ARE WONDERFUL!!!!!
Have you considered giving permethrin a try? It is the best mite treatment on the market. Otherwise, you can try the extremely effective all natural method that I've used on my chronically infected bird for mites. You take a spray bottle and combine 1 part dish soap, 1 part water and 2 parts olive or vegetable oil. Non toxic to the bird and suffocates the mites. Spray to soak all infected areas and repeat in several intervals 4 days apart to catch new mites as they hatch. You can use for as long as you want.
