Has anyone had chickens and lived to regret it?

[misidawnrn]

I love my chickens. I only have 10 of them but they are so much fun. I have had them since they were chicks and they should start laying the beginning of August or so. I think the start up cost was the biggest issue. We bought a new house and it had a shed on the property. We put in a window and a chicken door and then put up a wall to wall in 1/3 of the shed for the "coop" part so we could use the rest for a shed. That wall has a big door in it so I can walk in. I bought the window for $35 at a Habitat for Humanity Re-store (thrift store for constuction stuff) and I also bought a tall pantry cupboard there for $25 and took the doors off and turned it on its side and tadaa...instant laying boxes. I stole an old wooden ladder from my DH and cut it down for their roost (hey, what's his is mine...hehehehe!) The wall cost me $160 plus DH worked on the builder's car. The water and food containers were about $60 bucks and the shed had a tall dog run already attatched to one side but I let them freerange. The freeranging has cost me another $200 this week. They could get under our fence in a few areas and the gate at the back of the property was broke so we had to fix that, but hopefully it will keep the chickens in and the neighborhood dogs at least deterred.

Another thing to think about is that they need a lot of water! I fill up a 5 gallon waterer every 2-3 days (probably going to be more since it is just now getting hot here). I will have to arrange for someone to come water them when we go out of town during harvest at our farm. (we don't live on our farm, but 89 miles away)

So far, I have only had to cull one chick, when they were little. I think the other chicks picked on it and it was weak. I let DH take care of it.

They follow me all over the yard and don't care if the girls chase them. When they get tired of playing chase, they run into their coop. They eat all kinds of scraps, too!

Sorry this was so long winded!

Here's our coop

Here's DD-2 and a friends little boy-3 chasing chickens!

Edited July 5, 2011 by misidawnrn

[Laura Corin]

Some friends had chickens. A fox got one and damaged the other. The vet bill was big - it was the daughter's pet, so they spent too much on it. Then it died of some illness.

 

Laura

[lailasmum]

We have 9 chickens(Welsummer and Black Rock) and our broody is sitting on 7 eggs (Speckled sussex) at the moment due to hatch on Thursday/Friday.

 

I think the down side is the work, which you either like or hate, We inherited our friends 3 chickens to add to our 6 because she hated the work and the chickens were always ill and not maturing/not laying and not eating. They're doing great now but you have to put the effort in. My friend admits they had problems because they didn't do the care and preventative stuff.

 

I have a different friend with orpingtons who seems to get a very small number of very small eggs for such enormous year old birds. We have Welsummers and Black rocks and they lay huge eggs, a mix of Large and extra large, sometimes too big to fit in the box and we usually get 9 a day although we have 1 broody and several moulting at the moment so its more like 5-8 a day at the moment.

 

The smell is not an issue as long as they have space, The other thing you can do is mix Bokashi bran with their feed which stops the smell.

 

It definitely costs a fair bit of money to set it all up when you get them, that the biggest downside. We've never had to take a chicken to the vet and obviously that would be expensive.Our chicken house cost about £300 and then we spent a bit more on fencing and drinkers/feeder. If you have an old shed you can use its easy to do the rest from stuff you can make out of scrap.

 

I am thinking about getting meat birds next year.

Edited July 5, 2011 by lailasmum

[zaichiki]

It definitely costs a fair bit of money to set it all up when you get them, that the biggest downside. We've never had to take a chicken to the vet and obviously that would be expensive.

 

Ummm... yeah... definitely no vet. If a chicken is suffering around here and it's not an easy cure -- off with her head. (Sorry.) Honestly, we've never had to do that. We have had several get taken by hawks, foxes, and a racoon (most recently took 2 baby guineas). We have had several simply show up dead in the morning. One of those had always been a failure to grow well. She was only a little bigger than our bantams, though she was a standard breed. She was a beauty, and so gentle and well-trained: it was sad to lose her. One or two froze to death in the middle of a cold winter b/c they weren't allowed (by the others) to roost with the group. Those were also surprises, as we don't generally have cold enough temperatures to do that kind of damage.

 

The $$? Not much.

 

We already had a garden shed attached to the barn that we turned into a coop. Some pot shelving and a couple of large branches brought in from out-of-doors became roosting. An old bookcase that was being thrown away by a neighbor tilted on its side became nextboxes for a while. My dad recently built us some nicer ones. The nesting material is hay (we have that anyway, as we feed other animals with it).

 

We did actually buy something: a 5 gallon water bucket and a 2-gallon chicken waterer from the feed store. Not too pricey. Feed is the biggest expense for us b/c we have so many.

[LibraryLover]

Each time I am near the end of raising meat birds I think, "I am never doing this again!" But I keep doing it.

 

I am also frustrated by tiny bantam eggs. lol

 

I don't think I'd ever take a chicken to the vet. :( I also would not let it suffer. We have done care on our own, including pushing certain body parts back up a vent. Not fun, but works.

Edited July 5, 2011 by LibraryLover