My wife wants chickens

   / My wife wants chickens #21  
We have 12 barred rock and one leghorn that we picked up in the woods as a stray. We keep them in their 10x14 coop all winter and in the spring open their small door and let them out into their large 5' paige wire fenced yard. They go in every night on their own. We keep dogs out of the yard and an eye for raccoon and skunks. The cats keep the weasels, rats, mice away. The horses nearby scare the dogs off. The wire stops a lot. If you hear a racket- good to get out there. I had a young fox once trying to find a way in. I hollered at him and he has never been back. Neighborhood dogs are the worst. We lock them in every night.

We get 8-9 eggs daily. My wife dropped 5 dozen eggs off at the local pantry the other day. Store eggs often sit on the shelves for 3-4 months before they are sold as "fresh eggs" Your own eggs will taste better. And the cats like the eggs as well.

When we want to let the chickens out onto the lawn, we do. They take themselves back in when it is dark. We lure them with popcorn, bread, cat krunchies, etc..

We enjoy our chickens. Two of ours are about 9. Started with 13 + a rooster at that time.
 
   / My wife wants chickens #22  
When my wife wanted chickens, I thought she was insane. But its been OK, and it's been "her project". In the beginning, I noticed the stench, but now I don't. I wonder if visitors notice. It was a LOT of work in the beginning to rat-proof the coop. Currently every spring, the baby rats get in thru the chickenwire, and live inside until they get too fat to get out, then after a couple months they're full-size rats, fat on feed & eggs. I locate their hovel and "dispatch" them.

We have about 6 and 8?). We are lucky the neighbors don't mind the noise, in fact they tell us they like it. Lucky. In the beginning, the kids treated them like a pet, carrying them around, having picnics. Was pretty cute but that's over now.

Now the chickens are pretty well neglected. We take almost all of our food waste to them, they are certainly good for composting. Moldy bread, wilted lettuce, leftover spaghetti, even leftover chicken,,,,, OUT!!! But when they let them out in the garden, they shred it,. Digging for bugs they shovel dirt onto the walkways, eat every seedling or shoot. They leave scorched earth. And this is only 6 (or 8).

When we go away, someone has to come feed/water them, but not too often, just once every 3 or 4 days. But they are neglected for sure, just sit out there in the coop. In the springtime and summer we get eggs if someone pays attention.
 
   / My wife wants chickens #23  
We have 8 hens and 2 ducks. Only get sexed chicks, unless you are going to eat the roosters. It's kinda fun, relatively cheap (unless you build a chicken palace) and I don't think they stink much as long as you don't let the coop get much rain into it. I recommend a auto waterer of some sort. I had the chicken bowls, and they where a miserable failure. They either wouldn't fill or would leak all the time. Now, I have a ball valve and a 1/4" hole drilled in 1" pvc, over a large bowl. Turn the valve on for a few seconds at night, fresh, semi poop free water.

Edit: semi poop free is the best you can hope for with chickens... they are nasty animals. They poop in there own water; heck we had one that would lay eggs in the water bowl a few times....

Re-edit: auto or semi automatic feeder is nice. I use a 4 ft tall piece of 4" pvc, a 90 degree sweep, 24" pice and a cap. Took a 2-1/4" hole saw and cut 3 holes in the horizontal bottom pice for them to eat out of. They waste a lot less than from a bowl or just fist fulls on ground. Plus, once again, semi poop free
 
   / My wife wants chickens #24  
I don't smell anything after the 1st few weeks ( now that I've gotten used to it :D )

Good idea automating the watering. Seems it ought to be raised up so it would take acrobatics to get poop in the water,,,,hmmmm. But they don't seem to mind drinking pooped water, haven't made their preferences known.
 
   / My wife wants chickens #25  
It helps if you elevate the water and let them drink from a nipple drinker. A chicken can't swallow like a cow or horse with its head down. So if gravity waters them the also don't poop in it if you cover it. Also raising feed to where they can just reach the bottom of the empty pan will cut down on the waste.

You guys sure have some nice chicken coops.
 
   / My wife wants chickens #26  
Just say no.

Chickens are a PITA. I said no for two years, eventually said yes because the youngest and wife wanted the chickens and constantly hen pecked me. It was fun for about a year but then letting the chickens out in the morning, giving them food and water, bringing in the eggs, cleaning stuff from time to time, chasing them down and putting them back in the run when the escaped, and at night locking them in the coop got old.

The hens were fun to watch, the lady at the community college called watching them Chicken TV. One of the hens was like a dog, was super friendly and would follow us around. Of course that was was bullied and hen pecked by the head hen, got sick and died. :( That head bully hen then started on other hens and we gave her away. I wanted to eat her but it was not allowed. :mad: Another hen got taken by a fox when they flock got out of the run. With three hens we were not getting enough eggs to be worth it.

At the time, chicken feed did not cost chicken feed. We were buying some expensive feed because it had a better mix of grains/seeds than the cheaper brand. When we tried the cheaper brand, we got less eggs. Bottom line, is that we could buy the better brands of eggs in the store cheaper then buying chicken feed. I eat eggs almost every day and I did not taste the difference in our eggs vs the good store brands. Also you have to buy them grit which is just and added expense and when it is cold out we would run a heat lamp for them.

For me, the biggest PITA was having to pay for someone to check on the chickens when we went on vacation. One person did not even show up and which almost killed the chickens.

Save yourself some time and money and stay away from chickens. Maybe it would be different if she will let you eat the hens when they get old but I doubt she will....

A foster home took in the hens and we not longer have those PITAs. :cool2::cool2::cool2:

Later,
Dan

What he said.
 
   / My wife wants chickens #27  
No offense to anyone, but I have to respectfully disagree on the "chickens are a pain to take care of" point. We've found them to be incredibly low-maintenance, and all of them are healthy and happy. A few things that made a big difference between "daily care" and "when we can get to it care" are:

- Automatic waters made out of 5 gallon buckets. 2-3 of these will hold over your chickens during a vacation. Add a few more if you're going to be gone 2 weeks -- they only cost like $5 to make.

- Multiple feeders spread around the coop and run. We use the large metal ones, but plastic works, too. Chicken's won't overfeed themselves to death like a horse will. It's kind of odd actually... when we put out multiple feeders, our chickens don't increase the amount of food they eat. Instead, they focus on ONE feeder until it's empty, then move to the next feeder, then the next, etc. Total feeding time per feeder is the same whether we put out 1 or 5.

- Attach an enclosed run to the coop that's big enough for them to stretch their legs, and you don't have to free range them unless you feel like it. If the run is critter proof, you don't have to close the coop door -- just leave it open and let them come and go as they please.

- Use SAND for the coop floor and run, and build a good drainage system into your run. Sand drains well so they won't get bumble-foot if it rains a lot, and it is SUPER easy to clean, even if you miss a few days. We fashioned a "super kitty litter scoop" out of an old lawn rake and doing the entire coop floor and run takes less than 7-10 minutes every few days.

- BUILD A POOP BOARD under the coop roost. This will cut out 90% of the cleaning problems and you can either take off the board and dump it, or use a kitty litter scoop to clean it up. If you're going to be gone for a while, make an extra deep one with wide wire mesh (traditional chicken wire works) on top, and the chickens won't even step in it if it piles up since it falls into the collection bin.

- Fill the Poop Board with Sweet-PDZ stall freshener ($10 at Tractor Supply for 25 lbs.) and there will be ALMOST NO SMELL whatsoever, even if you forget to clean. This stuff is absolutely amazing and cuts out nearly 100% of the ammonia and poop smell. You can reuse it, too, by setting it out in the sun during a sunny day. We've gone through a total of 2 bags in the last year. THIS IS THE SINGLE BIGGEST LESSON LEARNED IN MY OPINION.


With this set-up, coop maintenance is a 1x per week effort in the summer, and maybe a bit more in the winter when they're inside most of the time. It's never an onerous task now. Before we implemented the above, we were thinking that the chickens were kind of a PITA, but now it's quite easy to manage. Our coop stays very clean, the chickens stay healthy, and we are averaging 1 egg per day per chicken.

We do have to gather eggs every day, but you can even let that slide A DAY OR TWO -- but not more -- you do NOT want your chickens getting broody by leaving eggs around too long. We had one try to get broody on us, and we ended up keeping her in a separate pen with just a sand floor and no nest box / nesting material, and after a week she was back to normal. We've also found that our neighbors might not be counted on for watering or feeding the chickens while we're gone, but they can ALWAYS be counted on to collect free, organic eggs!

Also, there are other benefits beyond just having fresh eggs and fun pets that offset the slightly increased workload:

1) I turn them loose in the raised-bed garden (also fenced in) and they take care of the bug problems naturally. Yes, they peck some of our tomatoes, but only the ones on the bottom that they can reach, and I just plant an extra plant or two to offset the loss. Same for the beans. They never touched the corn or the potatoes for some reason. No pesticides AT ALL last year, and our crops were amazing with almost zero insect damage. Plus, if they poop in the garden beds, all the better. (We did have to cover our cucumbers and watermelons though.)

2) NO MORE TICKS! Let me stress this point again -- NO MORE TICKS. We had a bad tick problem in our back yard the first couple of years that we lived here. But, once we started letting the chickens free range in the yard, our tick population fell to almost nothing. We went from a guaranteed 1-2 ticks each time we played in the yard to a total of ZERO ticks last summer. Might be coincidence, but I think the chickens were the cause. From what I understand, they aren't as good at tick control as free-ranging guinea fowl, but they are working pretty darn well for our yard. The Red Stars seem to be especially fond of ticks.

3) They are awesome recyclers. We give them almost all of the non-meat table scraps (they love old spaghetti) and they turn it into fertilizer a lot quicker than a compost bin.

4) No more dandelions. Not sure if they all do, but our chickens have taken up a taste for dandelions and other weeds. When free ranging, they eat the weeds down to the dirt, but don't touch the grass. This was a very unexpected benefit. We don't have enough hens to be totally weed-free, but they sure do make a difference. (The down side -- we don't use any type of weed killers on the lawn anymore, and have to deal with the remaining weeds by hand, but that's really not such a bad thing, in my opinion... I'm not fond of putting poison on the lawn where my kids play.)

5) They bring my kids joy. Not just "hey it's fun to watch these birds now and then" but true joy. Even my sometimes-surly 12 year old brightens up when he's feeding the hens, or letting them out of the coop for a day of free ranging. And my 3 year old places them just 1 notch below his favorite stuffed animal.


I have to say, the chickens are even easier to care for than our other pets and we get clear value from them above-and-beyond just getting eggs, thus justifying the investment. The fish tank and the hamster were a MUCH bigger pain to deal with than the chickens are.

Again, just my 2 cents -- your mileage may vary.
 
   / My wife wants chickens
  • Thread Starter
#28  
Well I'm a new Daddy to 7 new chicks. Have them in the garage now in a 2x2x6 foot stock tank. Will start working on their permanent home soon.My wife picked out a variety of 3 or 4 different models. Cant remember what they are but they sure are cute for now. Put some wood logs in the tank with them and they love hopping around on the different logs. We will see how it goes.
 
   / My wife wants chickens #29  
Congratulations. If you really want to make your head explode, google how to make a chicken house, images of chicken houses and what's the best type of chicken house. :)

Eddie
 
   / My wife wants chickens
  • Thread Starter
#30  
Well crap, I left for Denver Sunday with 7 chicks and now we have 11. My wife is obsessed I'm afraid. She bought some Rhode Island Red's and something else. My guess is there will be even more when I get home Friday. :mur:
 

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