Official BYC Poll: Why Do You Have Chickens - Select All That Apply

I raise chickens for (you can choose more than one):

  • Pets

    Votes: 1,736 71.6%
  • Eggs

    Votes: 2,258 93.1%
  • Meat

    Votes: 640 26.4%
  • Fertilizer

    Votes: 924 38.1%
  • Bug Control

    Votes: 1,018 42.0%
  • More interesting and/or easy than other animals

    Votes: 642 26.5%
  • Other (please specify in reply comments)

    Votes: 257 10.6%
  • Showing & Exhibition

    Votes: 219 9.0%

  • Total voters
    2,426
My other was 4H showing also
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I also got the chickens for my dog as well. She's a Border Collie trained to herd sheep but she's gotten too old (eyes, ears, and back all degenerating) for safely herding sheep, so... . Also, I can blame some of it on my Dad and stepmother, who have had backyard chickens for a while.
The dog and I are both quite happy to watch the chickens for quite a while. However, I always have to go work on something; my dog thinks watching the chickens is her work and she loves every minute of it! She LOVES her chickens!!
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Therapy. For the short time I went without chickens my anxiety was worse than it ever was. They give me something to care for, something to hold with nice soft feathers to hide my face in when I can't look at the world, and something to watch which is so much more relaxing than anything else I can think of. I suppose most people have dogs and cats for that purpose, and I do have dogs, but in my case it's the birds that help me the most. That's in addition to the other things I marked on the poll, but for me the therapy is the biggest thing.
 
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I love to cook...I love to garden...I love colorful birds...
Chickens are the perfect pet- they are beautiful to look at, relaxing and funny to watch, fun to feed and observe their antics. They add bountiful fertilizer to the garden, they add delicious eggs to the table, they are living garden art, they eat our kitchen scraps. What's not to love? OH- and they don't go on barking or meowing escapades at 2 in the morning.
 

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