edicehouse
Member
Well my wife seems to think we need chickens. I am not sure about this, anyone have experience or can defiantly talk me out of it LOL.
I had chickens for several years, Rhode Island Reds. Nice big brown eggs and they were very friendly. I did keep them in a large coop however. Had a Rooster named Ricky. He was mean and like to defend the coop space and many times would "fly" at me with his spurs raised. Stopped that one night be hitting him across the coop with a pan. The only suggestion I have is stay away from roosters. They can be mean and depending where you live they can be annoying to neighbors when they crow. Ricky crowed all day long but we lived in a very rural area. But...you can't beat fresh eggs off your spread. There is a big differene from store bought.
Gee way to try and talk me out of it. I am looking at only 3 or 4 chickens, wouldn't be many eggs though I am willing to bet.
On a less positive note theres been reports of a large number of salmonella cases from close contact with poultry. They are not pets so you dont want to snuggle with them or let your children play with them. Treat the situation with the respect for sanitation it needs and you should be fine.
Are there any restrictions where you live? Be prepared for a lot of ammonia odor. I get my chicken at the grocery or Zacksby's (sic). Eggs come from Aldi's who beats any prices in town. I know of a house that was on the market for over three years. About the time the house was finished, the guy across the road put up three chicken houses.
We had chickens when I was little and two roosters. One of those roosters was mean. We had it for Thanksgiving dinner. Or so we thought. We had rooster for Christmas dinner that year too.My intro to chickens came when I was in high school. My dad came home one day and told me he'd found me a job (words that struck fear in the hearts of my brothers and I). A friend of his was helping build a chicken house. I'd be doing manual labor. So what, how bad could it be? First thing the next morning, I showed up to a 100 x 50 metal building on a concrete slab. They handed me a shovel and told me to dig a trench around it. Little did I know that would be the best job of the day. Other guys were inside the building assembling wire mesh chicken coops, getting ready for the chickens to arrive.
Just before lunch, the chickens arrived - a full semi load of them in flat cages, 15 per cage. I don't know how many cages there were but the truck was stacked about 6 rows high and 40 feet long. Now my job was to take a cage of chickens into the building, carefully open it and take out one chicken, holding it by the legs. Then with the chicken pointed head up, feet down I was to push it through the trap door in the bottom of the cage, and then add 2 more to the cage because the cage builders were not as quick as the ditch digger. A scared chicken "fertilizes" anything beneath it, including your hand. No running water on site. Was not a pleasant lunch.
On a more positive note, my grandfather always had chickens on the farm. He had a chicken house and a coop fenced with a temporary fence. Every spring he'd take the fence down and roll it up then hook his tractor to the house and drag it to another spot. Then he'd put up the fence, shoo the chickens back into the coop, and scoop up the fertilizer for his garden.
I still hate chickens though.