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

[CEO]

Scraping poop can also be annoying, especially if your coop and flock is big.

 

[saysfaa]

Hostile-to-chickens local officials. I think it is legal for me to keep them but it is due to a loophole in the zoning - they didn't consider some residences are in the commercial zones so the zoning doesn't forbid them like it does in residential or restrict them like it does in rural non-ag zones. I think they would close the loophole if they noticed it.

I would like to have a rooster and to give the chickens more space. I'm not willing to risk a fight over it or to take much risk of losing them.

Second least favorite thing is the cost of building the coop this spring and summer.

 

[Crzy Chi Lady]

Dealing with unnecessry deaths, illnesses, lice and mice Predator attacks too
I was going to say The same thing.

 

[Crzy Chi Lady]

Death, that is my least favourite part of keeping chickens. Even if you didn’t have an attachment to the chicken you lost it’s just heartbreaking listening to your others chickens cry out for them. It’s even worse when one of your mother hens loses her child and then they sit around crying for them.

I experienced the crying in particular with a bantam roo I once had. He had been around a long time. The hens loved him. He was a sweet guy. I even heard them crow. Which they never did before. As if they were calling him after he was gone.

 

[Geckolady]

So far, I haven't experienced an adult chicken's death, but I have had some chicks pass. I came close to losing a pullet a few days ago, then got some advice from this board. She's doing fine now. I chose clean-up as my least favorite. While I enjoy all the chickens, the roo is my favorite. He's a friendly character, and if he were to pass, that would be the hardest.

 

[JedJackson]

Illness, parasites and deaths are my least favorite part of raising chickens. I'm also not a fan of roosters that feel the need to crow all night long.

 

[Padfoot22]

How do you put them down?

My husband either breaks their neck (quickly) or chops their head off with a hatchet. I can’t watch or do it myself .

 

[Bertha2]

JoY: When the follow me around and want to be petted.
SaD: Death of a chicken. RPI Red.

 

[Idaho Chicken Bungalow]

The fear of loosing one. My heart stops every time I immediately don't see one or if one is headed for danger, well what I think is danger. Bubble wrap mamma here.

 

[mthrclckr2]

My least favorite part about keeping chickens is that I can't leave town unless my one daughter is home from college to chicken-sit. It's impossible to find chicken-sitters where I live.