If I received a comment at when I started researching chickens, it was usually "Why?" or just a look of placating the insane. My husband went along with it even though he was initially pessimistic about the smell, the noise, the mess, training the dogs, what of many things would kill them, etc. He thought they were cute as chicks in the basement brooder, but we both quickly tired of the immense dust level that produced; still I forged onward. Then came the building of the coop, my DH had a ball. The first few nights of having to catch them and put them in the coop was not overly fun, but they adjusted quickly & now all I do is change their water every other day, fill the food when necessary, open & close the pop door, feed them treats, love on them and clean out their coop once every other month. We have a separate droppings pit that I scrape the roost droppings off into every other day & sprinkle on a little DE...whala, virtually zero smell (unless I miss a day of cleaning off the screen, then it can get a little gamey). Even with the massive amounts of rain, no smell. And my DH, he absolutely loves the chickens roaming around the yard foraging and what not. He also enjoys when they surround him when he's working in the yard. I suppose he would enjoy it less if they weren't free range, but we'll never know!
Keep plugging forward, before you know it you'll both be so hooked you won't even notice the reactions of the lay public when you start waxing nostalgic about your chickens
