What was your worst mistake as a chicken keeper?

[Noellereagan]

There are many. But I'll start with this.

1. Many, many years ago I bathed a hen that was covered in mites.
2. She died.
3. It could not be fixed.
4. I learned that bathing a sickly chicken could kill it.

Wow. She must have really had them bad. I know stress can be fatal for birds but we show so it’s bound to happen that you’ll bring home the dreaded parasites eventually. Or even if you don’t show. And no matter what precautions you take in advance. Anyway, we bathe birds all the time. That’s what I did all day this week. Every day. Getting ready for a weekend show. So I guess maybe ours are used to it. Thankfully. Because honestly, your post made me a little nervous. So sorry that happened to you by the way. Always hard.

 

[Brucey11]

1. I left my chickens unattended while free ranging one evening at dusk
2. A bobcat killed one of my chickens ten feet from my front door!
3. Not yet but we are working on it. My husband is going to put out sets and trap it. We are also only doing strict supervised free ranging now (always within ten feet of the birds)
4. I learned to never let my guard down or leave the chickens alone free ranging, especially where we live in the country. I learned how sly these predators can be and how they continue to revisit...

I also was fool enough to leave my hens with doors open in the dark .A-big no no

 

[JPenny]

Wow there are so many pages to read through. I'm a new chicken owner, and there have been a couple things so far... One I tried to avoid and still bit me. I ordered the coop less than a month after I got the chicks but it was damaged and back ordered for 2 months. they were cooped up in my bathroom WAY too long and I felt terrible for them. When I first had them I put a puppy pad under shavings and one of them scratched at it until it shredded and got wrapped around their foot SO tightly... was lucky I checked on them one more time or she might have lost the foot. No more puppy pads or anything shreddable for me. So far that's all I know I've done wrong... I'm still hyper sensitive when worrying about them and running out there a few times a week to improve stuff or check on stuff because they are my beautiful fluffy pets. I've had them since April.

 

[JPenny]

1. What did you do
We didn't start building a chicken coop before we got our first chickens. Chickens were a planned impulse buy for us last year. Planned because we bought our house with the intention of having chickens someday. Impulse because covid made us finally decide to get them. We had ideas and plans, but then changed them once we actually had our chickens.

2. What were the consequences
Our chicks were in the house WAY too long We loved being able to interact with them for hours and they are now all very friendly, but SO much "dust".

3.Did you fix it? How.
We eventually finished the coop after set backs due to weather and mistakes in the plans we bought - we should have followed our instincts instead of just using the measurements on the plans. We also fortunately used a room that we were planning to strip and remodel anyway. Did I mention all the "dust"?

4. What did you learn.
Start your coop before getting chickens - only partially learned. We started to build a bigger coop this year(chicken math), but stopped due to the crazy wood prices. We ended up moving a shed instead. This years additional chickens were only inside a little longer than we wanted
Learned successfully- take everything non essential out of the room before adding chicks. And carpet, make sure there is no carpet

I had a similar problem lol. I'm still trying to get the stains out of my bathtub where they slept...

 

[ladyhand]

1. What did you do
We didn't start building a chicken coop before we got our first chickens. Chickens were a planned impulse buy for us last year. Planned because we bought our house with the intention of having chickens someday. Impulse because covid made us finally decide to get them. We had ideas and plans, but then changed them once we actually had our chickens.

2. What were the consequences
Our chicks were in the house WAY too long We loved being able to interact with them for hours and they are now all very friendly, but SO much "dust".

3.Did you fix it? How.
We eventually finished the coop after set backs due to weather and mistakes in the plans we bought - we should have followed our instincts instead of just using the measurements on the plans. We also fortunately used a room that we were planning to strip and remodel anyway. Did I mention all the "dust"?

4. What did you learn.
Start your coop before getting chickens - only partially learned. We started to build a bigger coop this year(chicken math), but stopped due to the crazy wood prices. We ended up moving a shed instead. This years additional chickens were only inside a little longer than we wanted
Learned successfully- take everything non essential out of the room before adding chicks. And carpet, make sure there is no carpet

I feel this in my soul -- I got my chickens after wanting them for YEARS. One night I was in a really really bad mood and there was a lot of negativity surrounding the relationship with my parents. Amazon didn't deliver my dog food on time, and the dogs were out of food. My husband made me angry on the phone. It was a perfect storm -- if fire could be left in my wake, I would have.

So I had to go to TSC to get dog food and thought, I'm going to yell at people who deserve it. I was really pissed off about how TSC had started housing chicks in store and thought, I'm going to go off about that. Well, turns out TSC had already gone back to the big galvanized tubs for brooders and well... I thought, screw everyone, I want some chickens, I'm going to get some damn chickens.

I had ZERO idea what I was in store for. No coop plans, no idea how intricate it would become. I had chicken netting going up the brooder because they were getting out so frequently.

Luckily, everyone on this site has helped me. Other than the adoption of my daughter, that's the only thing I've "bought" that has made me happy.

 

[ladyhand]

1. At first, it was a choice, not a mistake. I chose kennels instead of 1/2” hardware cloth runs to house my flocks because I’m building impaired and budget crunched.
2. I figured my dogs would keep the flocks safe but didn’t count on the rat snakes eating eggs, killing chicks or killing two of my broody hens.
3. It had evened out last year. No deaths and no egg losses but so far this year I’ve relocated about 12 rat snakes just the past two months. There has been a lot of clearing surrounding my farm and the snakes and predators have come around. My dogs do not protect from snakes. I have coral snakes here too so it was never my intention to teach my dogs to guard from snakes.
4. I’ve learned snakes live here too. I didn’t move out to the country to destroy the natural balance so I’m still learning how to prevent tragedy. That many rat snakes living off of my eggs is not natural though. They found a buffet and need to move on. While I would love to say all my future coops will be in hardware cloth, they probably won’t be. Especially with wood being so expensive to purchase a coop, I’m looking at the TSC 10 x 10 right now. But I’ll probably continue to use kennels and put broodies in the few snake proof coops I have. My chicks are either with their adult flocks and therefore I’m alerted to predators during the day or they are in a snake proof grow out coop with regular supervised forays onto grass and sandy spots. And I collect eggs as early as possible several times a day while continuing to relocate snakes about 1/3 mile away.

OMMMMGGGGGG... I didn't think rat snakes could kill a fully grown chicken. Tuesday I went into the run to visit with my ladies during lunch for a few minutes. As I was getting ready to leave the run I notice this super long black thing -- it was the six foot rat snake I've seen a few times around my yard this year (I don't kill them because I'm terrified of mice and frogs (yes, there was a giant toad outside the run door and wouldn't leave until he did). The snake was coming through one of the gaps my husband and I will be fixing this weekend and I was throwing mulch at his face hoping it would stop him from coming in. Well of course that didn't work and here he comes and goes down to the back of the coop. My husband cut a bunch of bushes and stuff a couple of weeks ago and I had propped them up in the run to make it more "jungle like" and he was hanging out down there. Of course, one of my chickens had to run down there while it was there, and was less than 6 inches from it before I called her out and put them all in my backyard. I spent 15 minutes trying to get it out of the coop. I had a 3-4' branch I was using to pick it up (damn it was heavy). Didn't work, so then I'm like this snake isn't venomous and I've watched way too many Steve Irwin episodes... so I try grabbing it's tail while picking it up with the stick -- yeah that didn't work either. So, finally I got it out, of course I'm talking to it the whole time because I'm insane ("snake, I have no qualms with you, go eat the mice and frogs", "there are no eggs here", etc). I wanted it out because I was like I don't think he can kill them but this is a damn 6' snake! Now I'm freaking out!

 

[jt1950]

well i haven't make any mistake yet (no chickens yet) but i been know to kill as i learn , hopefully i keep reading someone else mistake and take as mine so wont kill my chickens , thanks.

 

[jt1950]

OMMMMGGGGGG... I didn't think rat snakes could kill a fully grown chicken. Tuesday I went into the run to visit with my ladies during lunch for a few minutes. As I was getting ready to leave the run I notice this super long black thing -- it was the six foot rat snake I've seen a few times around my yard this year (I don't kill them because I'm terrified of mice and frogs (yes, there was a giant toad outside the run door and wouldn't leave until he did). The snake was coming through one of the gaps my husband and I will be fixing this weekend and I was throwing mulch at his face hoping it would stop him from coming in. Well of course that didn't work and here he comes and goes down to the back of the coop. My husband cut a bunch of bushes and stuff a couple of weeks ago and I had propped them up in the run to make it more "jungle like" and he was hanging out down there. Of course, one of my chickens had to run down there while it was there, and was less than 6 inches from it before I called her out and put them all in my backyard. I spent 15 minutes trying to get it out of the coop. I had a 3-4' branch I was using to pick it up (damn it was heavy). Didn't work, so then I'm like this snake isn't venomous and I've watched way too many Steve Irwin episodes... so I try grabbing it's tail while picking it up with the stick -- yeah that didn't work either. So, finally I got it out, of course I'm talking to it the whole time because I'm insane ("snake, I have no qualms with you, go eat the mice and frogs", "there are no eggs here", etc). I wanted it out because I was like I don't think he can kill them but this is a damn 6' snake! Now I'm freaking out!

would love a vid. of your adventure haha.

 

[3KillerBs]

well i haven't make any mistake yet (no chickens yet) but i been know to kill as i learn , hopefully i keep reading someone else mistake and take as mine so wont kill my chickens , thanks.

Welcome to BYC.

Learning from others' mistakes is the best plan.

 

[ladyhand]

would love a vid. of your adventure haha.

So would a lot of people, thankfully my phone was inside and no one was around.