Chooks: The Pluses And Minuses Of Keeping Chooks

Whilst attempting to keep hens can potentially be a fantastic activity for the family, and whilst I consider that chickens make wonderful pets, there are some disadvantages to always keeping hens as well as positives.

Whilst trying to keep chooks can potentially be a fantastic activity for the household, and whilst I consider that chickens make wonderful pets, there are some negatives to managing hens as well as positives.

Let’s think of the possible benefits first. Certainly, the most important plus to keeping hens must be all those tasty free-range eggs just lying there waiting around that you just collect every afternoon or evening. You’ll find nothing like cooking your own healthy, delicious, free-range eggs, which were laid that day simply for you. No chooks needed to put up with living in a tiny crate to lay them for you, so you should feel great about getting a refrigerator crammed filled of wholesome food.

Next, chickens make superb domestic pets even though they are fowls. Kids adore them. Mine will happily pick them up and may carry them around for hours. It can be rather a joy keeping chooks, and if you permit them to roam free all around your back garden, it is gratifying watching all of them out your kitchen’s windows when you cook an evening meal.

In addition, if you make it possible for all of them to roam around the house, they will clean up a whole bunch of pests which, if still left on their own, could eat your back garden. It was our chooks that assisted in saving our backyard from 2 summers of hopper plague. You really should see how many grasshoppers one hen could certainly consume daily.

Fourthly, it’s pretty simple, not like for most domestic pets, to provide for your chooks so that you don’t need to make plans for them every time you go on holidays. As I have large automatic storage containers for feeding and supplying water,r can go on trips, leaving behind the chickens to their own devices, and have never ever lost one yet, whilst on trips.

Now to the negatives. Like all animals, chickens can easily get sick and die. We have had instances when the kids have discovered a dead hen in the chook coop, and this is distressing for the kids. While this applies to all domestic pets, it is more common when you keep chickens. This is simply because you have a tendency to have quite a few, whereas most people will have one or at most two dogs or pet cats. In our situation, with fifteen hundred frequent. Of course, hens have a shorter life span than some domestic pets, such as puppies or cats. Secondlyly even though chickens will pick up many of the unpleasant bugs around your back garden, they do so by scratching, and this can potentially scratch up the dirt of your yard beds. They will also peck at your fruit and vegetables if you grow your own, and they especially adore pecking at tomatoes. You will need to safeguard your veggies or some area of your garden.

Thirdly, like for many other pets, there is some work involved, including regular cleaning of the chook house. Chickens poo everywhere, as well as feeding and watering containers, which need to be washed. You will also need to learn more about pest avoidance, as chooks may be susceptible to such problems as mites.

Fourthly, while getting fresh roam around eggs isgreatt it doesn’t occur all the time. Chooks can go off the lay throughout the chilly winter months, and older chooks lay fewer eggs than young ones. For this reason, there can be times when you find yourself paying for chicken feed but still buying eggs.

I consider, however, that the advantages of maintaining chickens far outweigh the disadvantages. They are one of the few family pets that are productive as well as just being a pet, and for anybody considering maintaining chickens as pets, my answer is always to go for it. Very few folks have regretted getting chickens.