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

[StinkyAcres]

Illness. I get so stressed when I think my animals could be suffering.

 

[RaeofSunshine]

Other…for me it’s the WAITING! waiting for sexing…waiting for eggs….and I’m sure waiting for hatching is going to be hard too when I get to that point!

 

[SueT]

After one rooster got killed, I trapped 2 raccoons, and my daughter said she just saw 5 more crossing the road after sunrise. I am seriously considering not keeping chickens any more.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I've come up with another "other." Chicken math! I want more chickens and I don't have room for any more! So right now my least favorite part of chickening is that I just can't add to my flock. *sniff!*

 

[SueT]

I came up with this new verse to the old Joni Mitchell song,
Both Sides Now:

Rows of fluffy clucking hens
And baby chicks to show your friends
And piles of fresh eggs without end....
I’ve looked at chickens that way.

But now they only make me frown
They brood, they fight,
There’s a raccoon around,
And more and more they tie me down
They’re often in the way...

I’ve looked at chickens from both sides now
From up and down, but still somehow
It’s chicken illusions I recall....
I really don’t know chickens, at all......

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I came up with this new verse to the old Joni Mitchell song,
Both Sides Now:

Rows of fluffy clucking hens
And baby chicks to show your friends
And piles of fresh eggs without end....
I’ve looked at chickens that way.

But now they only make me frown
They brood, they fight,
There’s a raccoon around,
And more and more they tie me down
They’re often in the way...

I’ve looked at chickens from both sides now
From up and down, but still somehow
It’s chicken illusions I recall....
I really don’t know chickens, at all......

Well done, you! This was one of my favorite songs from that era.

 

[BauerWFarm]

Although cleaning up poo and coops isn't the funniest thing, my LEAST favorite thing about keeping chickens is having a limit on how many I can keep!

It's not that I can't keep more on our 15 acres, it's just that I know I'll have to add more coops and having more than 100-120 chickens seems overwhelming... it's so hard not to keep chicks or introduce new breeds! Lol

Agree, knowing when you need more coop or run space available is stressful especially when it creeps up on you and the spaces haven’t yet been built… being a single female I need to plan and verify I can have the man power to help build and get it completed.

 

[WingsysRoost]

I think truly my least favorite thing is dealing with illness and death. I hate seeing them be in any sort of pain and I hate not knowing how to fix it.

On a lighter note, cleaning the coop is terrible lol. Replenishing and cleaning waterers is not too fun in the winter either. Still worth it for the joy of keeping chickens, though I'm not sure my poor frozen hands share that opinion.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I think truly my least favorite thing is dealing with illness and death. I hate seeing them be in any sort of pain and I hate not knowing how to fix it.

On a lighter note, cleaning the coop is terrible lol. Replenishing and cleaning waterers is not too fun in the winter either. Still worth it for the joy of keeping chickens, though I'm not sure my poor frozen hands share that opinion.

Agree. Although cleaning is a lot easier now that I have remodeled the interior and actually have poop boards under the roosts! Whose idea was poop boards? Give that person a raise. A raise AND A medal. And a piece of pie!

 

[MROO]

There needs to be another voting option ... Limits! My personal pet peeve, st least at the moment, is the ordinance-imposed limit on how large my flock can be. I understand it ... sortof ... It's suppsoed to keep overall numbers down so there isn't a mess or smell, but I have VERY small bantams. A dozen of my liddle-biddies don't come close to matching the volume/mass/mess/noise of even five standards!