To raise or Not to raise???

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mellynch08

mellynch08

Hatching
9 Years
Mar 17, 2010
1
0
7
Hello all, My name is Melissa and I have been for awhile considering raising chickens for eggs and for my daughters experience of raising them. I am taking a class about raising them on March 30th... I would just like to hear some pros and cons to raising them. I guess I am just scared that I am falling for the romance of the idea and not being realistic. I only work 2 days a week, and we live in a rural area, so property and neighbors are not an issue. I have also been researching coops, and I fell in love with the coops from greenchickencoop.com Its nice because they are built less than two hours aways from me in michigan! I would also only be raising 4-6 chickens. Thanks for your time, it is just nice to hear from people who actually do raise them!
 
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you won't get anybody here to talk you out of raising them!
 
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from Michigan. Please check out the link in my siggy for the upcoming Michigan Chickenstock. We had a great time last year and hope to meet more folks this year. Kids are welcome too.
 
Hi, Melissa! I am new to the BYC group but not entirely new to chickens... but I still have much to learn! How old is your daughter? I got our first small flock of 4 partly for my kids, too. Each child picked out a chick from the feed and seed store. The most patient man in the world picked up each child to peruse the chicks in the cage and carefully snagged the chick identified as "the one". Took forEVER for my middle daughter (poor man would come up with a chick and she would solemnly state, "That's not Cinderella. The OTHER one that looks like that.") Biggest drawback for me was the "ewww" factor, as in "MOM!! She pooped on me!" and the broken hearts when my birds were killed by neighbors loose dogs. And you just know that when cage cleaning time comes they will all be your birds.
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My youngest was of an age at the time that I needed to watch him closely and not let him put his hands in his mouth before I could wash them. But I loved my girls more and more as time went by, and so did the kids!
Take care!
 
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from Ohio. So glad you joined. ghillie is right! I don't think you will regret raising chickens. There is nothing better than fresh eggs or fresh chicken. My DD's have shown poultry for 13yrs and had a blast doing it.
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Some Pros:

1. Same as for all pets. Companionship, laugh at their antics, life lessons for kids, etc.

2. The poop makes a great addition to your compost heap.

3. The eggs

Some cons:

1. All animals tie you down. You have to adjust your schedule to feed and water them, lock the up at night for their own safety. If you take a trip, you need to find a sitter.

2. You have to do somethig with all that chicken poop.

3. Chickens, like most animals, can be destructive. They will do serious damage to your garden and will scratch away any mulch you might have around any of your plants.

4. Chickens are harder to train that dogs, or even harder than a cat, and usually not really affectionate. Some of that depends on how much you handle them, though.

5. Depending on your set-up, you can sink a lot of money into coops and runs at start-up. If you free range them a lot, you might get more back in eggs than you spend on food.

6. Like all animals, chickens can get sick or infested with parasites. They can die. This gows along with the life lessons in the Pros.

7. Chickens are more vulnerable to predators than dogs or cats.

8. Possible noise from a rooster, if you so choose.

9. Chickens have a reasonably short productive lifespan. If you want to keep the number of eggs up, you need to occasionally replenish your laying flock. If the eggs are not important to you and the predators don't get them, they can live several years.

I know I listed more Cons than Pros. I have chickens so they cannot be too bad. The first Pro covers a lot of territory. A whole lot depends on your attitude and reasons for having them. There are certainly worse choices you can make.
 

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