Want to raise chickens but have heard they are "very messy and stinky"

[cheshie]

Thanks to everyone who posted! I can't tell you how glad I am to have found this forum. I really am trying to research thoroughly to ensure that this is a reasonable endeavor...and I think it is super manageable. I have 4 small dogs who require lots of clean-up, so a few chickens should be an easy task (with some effort of course).

If anyone has additional information that they would like to share with me, such as coop design, where to buy supplies online, what to feed, how to raise happy, healthy chickens, etc, please feel free to post or send me a e-mail. I would be forever grateful for any and all help.

 

[CityChook]

I was a little afraid of chickens (all birds, really) when I decided to start a flock. Not any more! They are wonderful pets and I think they are very easy to maintain. Keep 'em clean and you won't have any smell. Spend some time on this forum and learn all that you can. Use the search key up above. Check out the coop design pages. Do your homework. Check in with city hall to make sure you're allowed. Start small. Be smart. Have fun!

 

[carriehelene]

This is just my 2 cents, avoid hay and straw in the coop. I use pine shavings, but for a couple weeks used hay in the nest boxes. That's when my silkies decided the nest boxes made a fine new home. Man did it stink

after a couple of days. Doesn't dry out like the shavings do. Now I'm back to using shavings in the boxes, the silkies are still there, and it doesn't smell bad at all.

 

[teach1rusl]

It's funny, but much of my DH's family has commented about how pretty and clean my chickens are, acting amazed. His nephew said "The chickens I've seen before were always kind of ragged and dirty." This may be the experience of your family.
If you take good care of your chickens and their coop, your chickens will look nice and be healthy (for the most part), and if you clean your coop regularly, it will not be a smelly place. It's no different than when you see people's dogs. Some people have beautiful, clean, healthy looking dogs, and some folks' dogs look like something the cat dragged in. If you take good care of your animals, it will show. If you don't, it will show.

 

[calicokat]

The only suggestion I have is that you might start small. You'll learn that chicken math doesn't work like regular math

Also, you might want to start with a few hens that are already laying and older. They are a little hardier and might be more forgiving of beginner mistakes than those tiny day-old babies

I started last April with 2 older hens from a neighbor, which became 3 in less than a week with another neighbor's cast off. Two chicks from the farm store put us at 5 before summer even started. Then one more adopted one and I bought 4 from Craigslist in the fall-- OH MY! THat's 10 and I only planned on a "few" LOL!!

 

[rhoda_bruce]

When my chickens look like filthy, dirty, creatures, it is after a 3 or 4 day rain and I have probably been working. I get this wild fear that someone who knows more about chickens than me might show up for a visit and see a slop and I let them all loose and start raking up leaves and pine/cypress needles and completely cover their ground area in their coop with a nice thick 'carpet.' Actually after doing that I feel happier with myself and with my coop. Very soon thereafter, my birds physical appearance begin to improve rapidly. I live in a flood zone, so sometimes I do have a stink, but fortunately that is not often.
Now the roost room stinks now and it is time for me to remove the litter and replace it (past time). Once I am doing that, I actually enjoy that also and I start thinking about how great the garden will grow.
A chicken education is an easy thing to obtain around here. Just browse through all the different sections and read all the latest topics and the responses. It won't take you long at all to feel you know everyone and obtain a general knowledge of almost every aspect of poultry keeping. I would start with familiarizing myself with the idea of Coop Knox. That will save you a lot of heartache in the future. The rest is pretty much negotiable.

 

[cheshie]

After reading all the posts, I am more sure than ever that I want some new family members. I think that I may only start with 4, then if things go well I'll plan to expand in the future. After all, it should be much easier to expand then to have to try and downsize. That would be inhumane to my chickens and heartbreaking for me. After all, these will be well loved creatures, just like my dogs.

So I have some additional questions that maybe you fine folks can help me with. Please forgive my ignorance, but as I said, I am just starting the research process. I currently live on 2.89 acres in South Central PA, and the area I live in is considered agricultural. I figured it wouldn't be a problem for me to have chickens because I am surrounded by farms. As a matter or fact, the Mennonite folks who live just down the road have many animals, including chickens that sometimes wander into the road. It's always fascinated me how they just stand and look at my car approach, as if to say, "who do you think you are". Anyway, if I want eggs, do I have to have a rooster, or can the hens produce eggs without a rooster present? This seems like a very stupid question, but I guess it's better to ask then remain dumb forever...

The chickens my daughter and I find extremely beautiful are the silkies. The others I thought I might consider are Ameraucana, Araucana, or Easter Eggers. I understand that these varieties tend to be easily handled, quiet, and do well in confinement, so I am hoping maybe they would make good little family members who will look forward to us interacting with them. As far as the eggs, I am not particularly concerned with getting an overabundance of eggs, but I would hope to get at least a dozen a week. Does that seem reasonable? I'm not sure what the best way to obtain chickens is, but I thought it would be really neat to hatch them from eggs. This way I have the pleasure of helping them make the transition into this world, and as I interact with them each day, hopefully they will come to rely on me and become very people friendly. Of course the down side to this method is that I may end of with hens or roosters. So if I start with four chickens, how big of a coop should I have, and what are the necessary components of a coop? Should I build a bigger coop from the start so that if I expand there will be room, or should I just add a second coop if my flock grows? How often should I plan to clean the coop, and what exactly is involved in "cleaning"? Do I also need to scoop the poop off of the ground and dispose of it...or use it as compost?

I have many more questions, but this is a place to start. Again, I hope you don't think that I am a complete idiot, but I find it easier to ask questions to experienced people, then try and make things up or rely on possibly erroneous information that I have come across. Thank you in advance for all you help and support...and please feel free to contact me anytime on the boards or via email.

 

[KKatknap]

To answer a couple of your questions...you don't need a rooster to get eggs. They will lay them regardless - they just won't be fertile. As far as how many, I have 6 laying hens right now, and they lay @ 4-6 eggs per day. These are not the high production breeds, either (I have EEs, Australorps, a Wyandotte and a Dark Cornish), so it won't take many to get your dozen/wk. Three or four would get you there easy. I don't think silkies lay very much, but I don't have any experience with them.

I didn't read your whole thread, so it may have been mentioned already, but putting a "poop shelf" under the roost bar in the coop makes an amazing difference in ease of cleaning. I just scrape the poop shelf every day and put it in my composter - it NEVER smells in there. The shavings have been on the floor for two (rainy) months and still look/smell fresh! The poop shelf is the way to go!!

ETA - You want to plan on 4 sq ft of housing space per standard size bird...so, for 4 you would want @ a 16 sq ft house. I would build a little bigger...you will want more.

Good luck!

 

[Siler]

Quote:
This forum is categorized quite well. If you're looking for some good coop or run ideas then check the Coop & Run - Design, Construction, & Maintenance. Someone posted a thread recently about run designs. They just asked for pics of people's runs and that gave me so many ideas it's not even funny. There's also an archive of coops. At the very top of your screen you will see BYC Home/Learning Center/Breeds/Coop Designs etc. Click on Coop Designs and you'll find the archive of people's personal pages.

You'll find everything you need here. I certainly have. I started my chickens without the knowledge I've read here 6 months after first getting my chicks. I know more now, but I've also learned that I was doing just fine as well. None of my girls have a single health ailment and yet their living is such primitive conditions. I learned here how to build them a better coop, run, etc. I'll be working on that this summer.

Good luck and also use the search function. You'll find so much more that way as well.

 

[Warthog]

Get your chicks and enjoy them, but do the research first, and build a bigger coop than you think you need, you will get more.

Chickens like everyone has said are very clean birds, but like any animal if you let their surrounding become dirty, they will smell and be dirty.

My belief is when you get any animal you take on a responsibility to make sure the animal is healthy and well cared for, and if you do that, they will not smell.

They are such amazing and funny creatures to watch and you will always wonder how you lived without them.

And the BIG bonus is lovely tasting FRESH unadulterated eggs. I never used to eat many eggs, and if I did I would sometimes feel quite sickly afterwards. Now I wonder if I eat too many, they are so delicious, nothing like what you would buy in a store, even the ones the stores sell as ORGANIC cannot compare to one straight from under the hen and still warm.

Hmmmmmmmmm feeling hungry, scrambled eggs anyone!!!!!