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Raising Poultry vs. Backyard Pet Chickens, again? It's one thing to promote a biodiverse immune system in a few hens raised to live long and happy as pets, and another thing altogether to have groups of hens to produce eggs for profit. On both sides people intend their hens to be happy, and not have to suffer much. You'd possibly enjoy nursing 3 of 5 hens back to health if they get sick, but a poultry production facility might lose their shirts over 30 out of 50 hens recovering from the same illness. The above article references that 90% of free-ranging birds are infected with that particular pathogen, which could translate to "the normal flora" inherent in keeping hens.
A few of chickens' pathogens ARE communicable to humans, and to our household pets, but that's life in general with pathogens from EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE, not just chickens in your yard. Recently, science writers are increasingly focused on ADDING biodiverse bacterial loads to human gut and skin flora, in efforts to improve human immune function. So, reasonable fear of chicken poop in the yard reflects the current scientific discussion regarding human exposure to pathogens, and whether exposure to bacteria is a good thing or a bad thing.
Indeed, a neighbor recently quoted a science article stating that people who kept farm animals in their homes have better immunity and less allergy than people who never have exposure to all the livestocks' multitude of germs. In my household, asthma had disappeared 2 years after the chickens moved in. Ours freerange and give us many opportunities to wash the porch, the deck, the railings, the driveway...
Regardless of your goals for egg production vs happy pet hens-who-catch-illness-and-eventually-recover-immune-to-it, I think its best to heed instructions from the Property Owner, your Dad, whatever his wishes are. Unless its your own place and he's just puttin in his two cents?
, my husband says he knows what they are saying now bug bug bug and oppoopoop poop
