Low Spouse Impact Chickens

[wren]

You know if money was no object and I wanted something with low spouse impact I would buy a children's playhouse and add a roosts and nests to it. They are so cute your wife is bound to love it! Plus you would have so many to choose from, and it will be less of an eyesore.

BTW, I laughed out loud when I read low spouse impact chickens.

 

[skatcatla]

I totally know where you are coming from. I am about as opposite of handy as you can get, and even the simplest plans just seemed sort of overwhelming for me (My tools consist of a ratchet set, a wrench, a hammer and an electric drill).

I ended up getting this Chick-n-hutch from Ware Manufacturing with the seperate run. Altogether it cost me a little over $300 with shipping. The instructions were somewhat confusing and there has been some delays because the hardware was missing from the run, but they've been very nice and sent me out new hardware. It was actually extremely easy to put together and for anyone that isn't, you know, a complete idiot like me, it would take about 10 minutes to put together.

If you want to spend a bit more, they have some REALLY nice ones that are made of nicer wood:

http://www.waremfginc.com/products.asp?p=6

 

[w8tn4fresheggs]

I bought the Henspa. I love it. It looks nice. Which is what we needed. You can go to my personal page and see all the photos of my henspa in the works. You can also look at my posts where I had talked a little about the Henspa. Works great. Put it together in 2 hours. It is a good product if you don't want to do it yourself. I move it every few days. You don't have to if you don't want to. I have little to no smell. I also use DE inside and in thier food so that it keeps down smell/flies and possible parisites. Which are few and far between. I don't regret it. It is my hobby. I have 7 standards and 3 banties. Plenty of room. I let them free range daily or I can leave them in if I have to.

The owners are okay. That is all I can say.

No matter what you choose, Chickens are very relaxing and lots of fun to have around. I am sure if you have a very nice coop set up that is pleasing and easy to keep up, she will come around.


You can email me if you have any questions.

 

[SunnySideUp]

What is DE everyone keeps referring to? How does it help with odor? Thanks

 

[rwcmick]

diatomous earth

Diatomaceous earth (DE) contains the fossil remains of diatoms, a type of algae which produces skeletons made of non-crystalline silica. Almost universally, the diatoms obtain silica from the volcanic ash which falls into the water in which the diatoms grow. Over time, these lakes have drained out, dried out, exposing volumes of these fossil remains, many feet deep. This material is now called diatomaceous earth.

This type of insect control is physical rather that chemical. The microscopic fossil damages the skin, joints and mouthparts of the insect and absorb body fluids. Insects die within one to two days from dehydration. Pests cannot and will not build up resistance to this method, which happens when using chemicals.

 

[SunnySideUp]

Ah ha! Thanks

 

[DonkeysandDucks]

When the 4 ducks came, my precious husband barely spoke to me for 3 days...

The pain seems to have passed now; when I started talking about chickens he just sighed...A LOT!

I now have 10...he really likes the bantam rooster.

Good luck! Chickens are great therapy and RELATIVELY inexpensive!

 

[Rosalind]

With respect to low spouse impact, you do realize that YOU will be doing the feeding, cleaning, medicating, etc., right? Not your spouse?

My husband doesn't mind my chickens. When they were fluffy adorable babies, he was diligent about handling them and petting them so they'd grow up used to humans, and he only complained occasionally of their smell (brooder box in the spare bedroom). Now he is willing to pick up a bag of food for me on rare occasion. He chicken-sits for a few minutes here and there when I let them range around the yard. He helps me chase them back into the barn when I am done letting them tear up the yard. Once in a while, he is willing to help with things like wing-clipping and nest box building. But if I ever asked him to, for example, actually shovel out the coop and put down new pine shavings, or refill their feeder and waterer, or medicate a chicken, forget it. He refuses to do the one chore he initially agreed to (slaughtering excess roosters). He especially does not clean out the fridge and feed the 3-day-old leftovers and expired yogurts to the chickens, and you would think that would be a simple chore for the person who does all the Tupperware-washing.

Ironically, he loves watching my noisiest two roosters, and he crows back at them sometimes to make them yell louder. Yeah, our neighbors love us.

 

[AccidentalFarm]

Quote:
Ha! It must be a guy thing..my DH does that, too.

In regards to a smallish-cheapish home for a few birds...why not a nice dog house with a chain link run around it (assuming predators are a non-issue). As for feeding for a few days at a time- there are plenty of large chicken feeders and waterers readily available. Just a thought.

 

[suburbanhomesteader]

I have a chicken tractor that I move every other day or so, and I still get a build-up of poop under the roost. Of course, the poop smells bad and draws flies.

I don't know what the inside of the henspa looks like, but if there was a way you could make a droppings board, and keep the droppings under the roost cleaned up every day, I would think you could 1) have a great compost pile, and 2) have a lot less smell and flies.

I have known hard-core animal dislikers in my day, and no amount of cute chickies and soft, lulling hen cooing have been able to win them over. If she already latches onto existing pets in the heat of arguments, it's probably not going to get any better, even if you were to buy a chicken taj mahal with odor scrubbers and automatic everything.

Good luck.

Meg