With the prices of eggs going up continually, seemingly without end, you might think getting some chickens would be better and easier.
Don’t get me wrong, I love chickens, though not for the reasons you are probably thinking.
I love the intelligence of chickens. Their behavior gives me a better look at what living with dinosaurs would have been like. Ultimately, all birds are dinosaurs, and nowhere is this better realized than in the chicken (in my opinion; I’m not a paleontologist). Their personalities endlessly entertained me. If you have them, you’ll probably come up with funny names to try and capture their personalities.
My experience comes from having a Rhode Island Red variety (something similar to that, anyway), which is bred specifically for egg laying, as well as White Leghorns. The experience was very similar, though, on the whole, the Leghorns were smarter. I’d maintain smarter than the humans involved if I’m being honest.
Here are some things to consider based on my experience of having had chickens.
Chickens can have bugs.
They’re called chicken mites. They’re almost too small to see, but they will bite you and live wherever the chickens are.
Chickens are escape artists.
They will burrow and dig to get out of their enclosure. It has to be well fortified and you have to continue to check for vulnerabilities.
They need more space than you might be thinking.
Ideally, they love to roam free and hide their eggs. If they don’t have what they consider enough space, they won’t lay as many eggs.
Talk about pecking order.
The ladies have one America’s Next Top Chicken, who bosses the other girls around. If there’s a male, she’s the one who breeds. She usually lays the eggs or, at least, the most eggs. Sometimes she’ll eat the other girls’ eggs. If you take her out, another fills that role.
Chickens can get diseases.
Some randomly die or get sick.
They get cold and hot.
So you have to consider how to help during extreme weather situations (not to include chicken sweaters and chicken sunglasses because those are a thing, though ill-advised).
Predators love to eat them.
You’ll probably get hawks swooping from above to carry them off if there’s no sturdy top to the coop, as well as snakes, possums, and raccoons, among others. They’ll try to get in the coop. If one does, they’ll eat everyone. Chickens will eat some snakes, mice and rats, though, so they’ll try to protect themselves (and gross you out when you see everyone inexplicably covered in blood).
They are messy.
The coop smells bad. Like all livestock animals, it can get stinky. If you plan on selling your house later, they’ll eat your grass and potentially wreck your lawn. They love dust baths, which is what they sound like. Your neighbors will probably hate you if you live close to other people.
They can be loud.
Remember that song from The Music Man, “Pick a little, talk a little, cheep cheep cheep?” Not an exaggeration. They wake up with the sun.
Extreme weather impacts their egg-laying capability.
They generally lay less in the winter.
If they’re not happy, they’ll lay less.
Kind of an existential chicken crisis. Then you manically Google how to make your chickens happy and entertained. Suddenly you feel like you have a bitter spouse who’s stringing you along in the hopes you’ll get some eggs out of the deal. (I think that was a euphemism for something.)
They don’t necessarily eat a lot, but they love playing with the food and playing in the food.
They’ll poop in the water, hoping to laugh at you when you have to clean it.
It’s hard to sex chickens.
So if you buy them as chicks, you will probably get at least one rooster in there. May the force be with you if you have a rooster. They’re the epitome of testosterone-fueled arguments. They’ll wear out the Top Chicken by mating. If he gets too fat from all your home cooking, he might squish her. If you think a rooster says one cute “Cock a doodle do!” in the morning, you have another thing coming. He’s asserting his dominance over everything all day, including you. Sometimes he’ll crow for no reason. Our roosters were Elvis and Optimus Prime. I hope you like being *ahem* serenaded at the butt crack of dawn.
If chickens get bored, they’ll eat their eggs.
I saw the team of ladies playing “egg ball,” where somebody laid an egg outside the nest boxes and kicked it around as a game.
Pretty sure I’ll stick with paying an arm and a leg for eggs or switching to avocado toast. I hope you’ll share your cool chicken stories with me.
