Official BYC Poll: Which Challenges Did You Face in Getting Backyard Chickens?

[BlondieSoup]

You’re welcome! Good luck on your hunt! This is my new one, and it was close to $900…but this thing ain’t going anywhere haha. It’s a solid wood beast and the chickens love it.

So pretty!!! Looks great! And not a bad price given what other coops are going for. You've given me hope!

 

[Angel07]

Remember how I said the hardest part of chicken keeping was trying to convince dad to let me hatch more ducks? Well, I have 14 duck eggs in the incubator. And yesterday one of our ducks started going broody on 8 eggs. Now today the other duck started sitting on another 8. I think dad might be outnumbered . That's 3 to one.

 

[Silexian]

I live in a rural, livestock and grain producing area. So with no restrictions, having an agricultural background and working in the building trades. Getting set up to have chickens, plus various other farm animals was easy. There is a small (six houses on 3 plus acre lots )subdivision on the backside of the property my house sits on. Other than a discussion with the their HOA president. When I first moved in. My neighbors and I get along very well. Actually they have changed their HOA bylaws and they are now allowed to keep chickens (even roosters) and horses.

 

[TooCheep]

My biggest difficulty was the fact that I was bootstrapping from nearly zero when I started. I had no friends/neighbors who had chickens. No previous personal experience. No farming/livestock background.

I spent a *lot* of time reading, viewing videos, and searching for online resources. BackYardChickens was a big help here. I had to learn about breeds, housing, general care, health, etc.

5 years later and I'm now an old hand at it. I'm glad I took the journey.

 

[RubelliteRose]

Other - time and money. First had to buy a rural property($$$). Then had to fix boring things like new heat pumps, water softener, various appliances... (more $). Then kids went off to college - 4 and 6 hours away ($$ and time). Finally got chickens in 2020. Then fell in love with chickens and wanted all the chickens, so back to time and $

 

[Artichoke Lover]

Finding a coop was somewhat difficult but all ended up working out pretty easily. Our biggest problem was the chick shortage in 2020 and 2021

 

[swampfox440]

It was so long ago I can't remember ?

 

[jklhgyfhg]

Other - Deciphering information before even getting started!
deciphering the squabbles over accurate and inaccurate information (not this blog, this one, not this youtuber etc).
Deciphering the squabble between those who do things conventionally vs those who like to try new things differently. (If we never tried something new, we would never progress to make changes in the world.)
Deciphering between those who have high standards most likely for breading purposes and keeping lineage or keep chickens as pets, and their opinions and standards coming down very hard on those not doing exactly like they do vs people who have chickens as an addition to their farm/for eggs or meat production and most likely just use what they have to make it work.
And then of course there is deciphering information from people (or businesses) who really don't know what they're talking about (like looking at a conventionally made pre-fab coop said to house up to x number of birds when really it can house less than half that number, which then leads to its own problems...).

 

[Amateur-chicken-mama]

It has been a relatively easy go for me after I managed to convince my parents (only took six months haha) though it started off kind of bumpy when the first 5 chicks a friend gave to me turned out to be all roosters

 

[Girlmomx3]

We’re in a rural area and have lots of wood we repurpose but we definitely under estimated the will of a predator!!! We lost an entire flock to a determined raccoon that tore through chicken wire that was going across the top of one side about 5’ high (still not sure why it’s called chicken wire, it doesn’t protect chickens!!!) it was awful! You could see where the raccoon pulled them up the wall and through the wire. Now our coops are Fort Knox!

I have had and continue to have more learning experiences but that was definitely the most heartbreaking one.