Official BYC Poll: What Is Your Least Favorite Thing About Keeping Chickens?

[Little Baby Bean]

Keeping chickens as pets can be a rewarding experience, plus it ensures a regular supply of fresh eggs, keep pests under control and fertilize the garden. However, raising chickens also requires some effort from yourself. So we would like to find out: What is your least favorite thing about keeping chickens?

Place your vote above, and please elaborate in a reply below if you chose "Other".

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Further Reading:

• How To Raise Chickens
• Common Mistakes Poultry Keepers Make (And How to Fix Them)
• Chicken FAQs - The Frequently Asked Questions Of Raising Chickens

(Check out more exciting Official BYC Polls HERE!)

My least favorite part of keeping chickens is cleaning out the poopy coop! Also dealing with aggressive roosters is really annoying. Also like @topochico225 said when I either put them on my lap or on my hand and their feet have poop all over them.

 

[Shadrach]

Deaths are something one has to come to terms with. It’s a natural event that is unavoidable. Reducing population while unpleasant is usually necessary, sometimes for the benefit of the chickens, sometimes for the benefit of the keeper. I don’t like it but it’s one of those things that are unavoidable if one keeps chickens.
But, there are a few other things that leave me tearing my hair out.

Broody hens breaking eggs in their nest. It’s a complete disaster and it can take hours to sort out.
If for example you’ve limited the number of eggs the broody can sit on and hatch, that’s one less possible hatching.
The underside of the hen gets covered in sticky egg and if you don’t get her clean the other eggs stick to her underside. Not only can she not turn them, when she adjusts her position in the nest any eggs stuck to her now act as a wrecking ball and smash into the remaining eggs as they swing about underneath her.

The hen has to come out. She has to be cleaned off and thrown in a dust bath and kept there until the worst of the egg is soaked up. The nest has to be cleaned out and this means the eggs are disturbed; some of them will have to be cleaned off.
The really annoying thing is I have never had to do the nest and hen cleaning when the hen has nested away from a coop.

The dust bath disaster is another one that can send me into a fit of rage and then deep depression for the next couple of hours. It happens like this.

I’ll be sitting at the kitchen table with a few chickens wandering in and out of the house. One of the tribe will be missing and I go to find her. She’ll often be just outside the door in one of the favourite dust bath spots by the fence. I go back to my chair by the kitchen table and get on with whatever I happened to be doing. The hen that was in the dust bath wanders in. I leap up off the chair knowing in an instant by looking at the hen that she hasn’t shaken the dust off. I cover about half the distance between the chair and the recently arrived hen in semi crouched stumble shouting at the hen to get out; then she shakes! Dust goes everywhere. It travels three meters sometimes in all directions and that incudes up.

The hen of course stands there looking at me with that what’s your problem kind of look and gets most indignant as I propel her back out the door in a most undignified manner.

It’s out with the broom and duster, clean off the pots and pans, the cooker top, the sink, not to mention extensive floor sweeping. I’m very particular about how often I dust my house; once or twice a year is quite enough.


I smoke. I know I shouldn’t but I’ve established a very understandable excuse for it. As you may be aware, smokers lose to some degree or other their sense of smell. Frankly, despite all the health warnings I would be tempted to recommend to anyone who has broody hens to take up smoking.
Broody poop! It’s the most vile smelling concoction I have ever had the misfortune of assaulting my my olfactory glands.

 

[K0k0shka]

Finding out my favorite chick is a cockerel

 

[EmmaRainboe]

Death/illness is by far the hardest part. I only have about 1/10 of the amount of birds my coop could comfortably hold, so the poop really isn't that bad.

But the stress, anxiety, and heartbreak from lose and illmess is practically unbearable.

 

[Sally PB]

I look at the poop as the "other" reason to have chickens: Poop for the garden! So when I clean it up, I'm thinking about the rich soil it will help build.

I had to cull two unruly cockerels. That was the worst thing I had to deal with. I haven't had a serious illness (yet), but I know that will be hard for me. Having to decide if/when to put a bird down is the pits.

 

[Everose]

I chose poop (it's everywhere!) and feeding/watering because both of these chores must be completed regardless of how hot it is. Feels like hell down here in Texas most of the time.

My other is their mischief. Don't get me wrong, it can also be a favorite but sometimes I just want them to behave.

You want eggs? Too bad I'm going to hide them in the woods. -Tweety

You want sleep? Too bad I'm going to crow all night because the neighbor's dog barked. -Hulk

You want to sit outside and enjoy your coffee this morning? Too bad I'm going to crap on your chair.
-Squeaks

Luckily I deal with very few health issues. Health is a natural state of being and I do nothing to compromise that.

 

[ElimAcres]

I love caring for my chickens/animals but I hate having to get all bundled up in the winter and go out in the cold to do so.

 

[21hens-incharge]

For me it's also losing a flock member.

Second worst is the coop cleaning however it IS satisfying to have a nice clean coop and the bossiest hen informing me that she is ok with the job I did.

 

[warmth]

Having birds I raised by hand act like I'm a boogeyman. God almighty, I'll never understand how a bird can go from falling asleep in your hand as a chick to shrieking bloody murder upon being caught.

 

[HeatherKellyB]

Chicken math, the subtraction part of it in particular. We all know that having too many cockerels/roosters is going to be problematic at one point or another. Having to figure out how to keep peace in the flock is difficult sometimes. If all of the cockerels grow into well behaved respectful roosters, I find it impossible to select who goes and who stays. We certainly cannot let our pullets and hens be abused, overmated, injured, etc, so subtraction is a MUST. My personal answer is to have roosters free ranging during the day, but making sure all of the boys get along isn't always easy either, even free ranging.