Whilst maintaining hens could certainly be a wonderful activity for the household, and whilst I personally consider that hens make wonderful pets, there are some negatives to managing chickens as well as positives.
Whilst always keeping hens can be a fantastic hobby for the family, and whilst I personally consider that hens make wonderful pets, there are some disadvantages to keeping chooks as well as positives.
Lets look at the benefits first. Not surprisingly the biggest positive to keeping hens has to be all of the delectable roam around eggs just laying there waiting that you just collect every afternoon or night. There’s nothing like enjoying your own healthful, and tasty free range eggs that were laid that day simply for you. No hens had to suffer surviving in a small cage to lay them for you, and you can potentially feel good about getting a refrigerator jam-packed full of wholesome food.
Next chickens can make fantastic pets despite the fact that they are birds. Children just love them. Mine will happily pick them up and may carry them all around for hours. It can be rather a joy trying to keep chooks, and if you permit them to roam free around your garden it is gratifying watching all of them out your kitchen windows when you make dinner.
Thirdly, if you make it possible for them to roam around around the house they will really clean up a whole bunch of pesky insects which, if left on their own, would possibly eat your garden. It is our chickens that helped save our back garden from 2 summers of hopper plague. You really should see how many hopper one hen can certainly consume daily.
Fourthly it’s fairly easy, not like for most pets, to provide for your hens so that you don’t need to make plans for them each time you go on vacations. As I have big automatic keepers for feeding and watering we are able to go on trips leaving the hens on their own and have never ever lost just one yet, whilst on holidays.
Now to the problems. Like all pets chickens can certainly get ill and die. We have had instances when the kids have found a dead chicken in the chicken coop, and this is distressing for the kids. While this of course applies to all pets it is more prevalent when you keep your own chooks. This of course is simply because you have a tendency to have quite a number of chooks, whereas many people may have one or at most two dogs or pet cats. In our case with 15 chooks it is more regular. Of course chickens have a shorter life-span than some domestic pets such as puppies or cats.
Second of all despite the fact that chooks will clean up many of the unpleasant insects round your garden they do so by scratching, and this could certainly dig up the dirt of your garden beds. They will also peck at your vegetables and fruits if you grow your very own and they particularly like pecking tomatos. You will need to safeguard your fruit and vegetables or some area of your garden.
And, like for many other pets, there is some work involved, including regular cleaning of the chook coop. Hens poop everywhere and the coop, as well as feeding and water containers, ought to be washed. You must also study a little more about pest avoidance as chickens can certainly be prone to such challenges as mites.
Furthermore while having fresh new free range eggs is wonderful it doesn’t happen all the time. Chickens can go off the lay during the cold winter months, and older hens lay fewer eggs than younger ones. Because of this there may be times when you’re paying for hen feed but still buying eggs.
I consider nevertheless that the advantages of managing chooks far outweighs the disadvantages. They are one of the very few family pets that are productive in addition to just being a pet, and for anybody thinking about attempting to keep chickens as pets my answer is always to do it. Very few folks have regretted getting chickens.
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Tags: chicken coop, chicken house, chook houses, hen houses
