This certainly has been a very interesting forum!I've had chickens for six years before my parents and I had to be forced to move into the city and had to sell them all. I sure missed them and gained more weight of non farm duties.
Fast forward five years, living in the city with a good job and met my bf 11 years ago and was dating. Once we got online internet, for some reason or another, a Scottish friend of the old BYC mentioned to my bf at that time that she has chickens. Bf and her exchanged information and then my bf told me about the BYC site. Well, that rekindle the chicken flame and wanted to have some but in the city??????
Off I went to do my phone calls and got the city to send me copy of the ordiance of having chickens. YAY! I can have chickens. I went out to do some of my chicken shopping and wish lists for at least a year and around that time I found out I was pregnant. Well, pregnancy didn't stop me and I approached to my bf at that time I wanted to have chickens. Well, with him being from a small rural city, but lived in city all of his life, asked me why would I want chickens and we can not have them in the city and they stink, blah, blah blah! I had gotten all the stuff for the chickens, lucky to have some of my old feeders and waterers when I lived on the farm and all we had to get is one of those Royal outdoor sheds. He kept looking for every excuses in the book and finally, I decided to do the work MYSELF and plan out how the coop should look like and so forth. In my advance pregancy, things were going along and I finally told bf that I am going to go ahead and get the stuff and start laying patio blocks for my foundation before putting on the wooden subfloor on the coop. I dont know if someone shot him or not, he got up and did all the work and I was so happy and when it was all done, I ordered some chicks from McMurray. I had some adult Faverolle pullets and one dAnvers hen (that bf called her Jenny and it was his pet). Not even two weeks later, a lamp fire caught the coop on fire and smoldered the corner but the fumes were deadly to the chicks (lost all of them) and three adults and the rest of them made it ok. Man, I was very upset and he was too, mostly because he thought he had made them so secure but underestimate the weight of the adult Faverolle LF hen that jumped up on the bin that the lamp was hanging from, fell in the bin and burned. He went and cleaned up the coop, and suggested that we get more chicks. I was shell shocked by the mess and was not sure if I wanted to do it again but not that soon. Well, it was only a couple of weeks, my interest in chicks picked back up again. Here we are, married for five years and I do respect his opinion as well he does with mine. I am the major breadwinner here but it is not the money issue that overrule the deciding factor in purchasing any birds I have here.
A couple of months ago, hubby received word that his job was cutting back and not sure if we should get any more chickens. I had my hatching Spitz eggs earlier this year. I did ask him if I can have more and he said no. I asked him why, he said my job and his hours are cutting back drastically that I had to sell some of my surplus birds that I planned on keeping. His reasonings are rational and sometimes he needed to remind me of the financial situation as well. I asked about having some chicks, he also reminded me about the work every morning, cleaning and feeding and keeping it checked to see if the heat lamp is secured and I was complaining about it it was getting old after a month or two of doing it. See, I see his reasoning behind his reminder and he would let me think about it for a while. If I still want it after a week, then I can have some more chicks.
I would do the same for him on his new motorcycle that he is upgrading and replacing his 1981 Honda Goldwing GL1100. Beautiful bike and we made a joint agreement that he would upkeep and pay for any replacement parts on money that he makes from his job AFTER bills been paid. He would confer me with any stuff he needs on Ebay, whether I would pay that much or pass it up. I don't know alot about parts but I sure do pay the bills around here and know how much money would be set aside for our "play" money. Not much I assure you!
I told him I will probably start hatching Welsummer eggs this fall, he was agreeable about that and reminded me of my complaints about having chicks. Well just hope those orp banty girls will start going broody again!!!!
CityGirl's topic hits home for me....well said!
