WTF: Backyard Chickens

I get frustrated because I see so many people do this. That is one reason nothing gets done. If everyone is bad but you, you have to wait until everyone sees it your way, which, of course, never happens. I was just discussing this in my talk at church yesterday. It keeps us all as prisoners. :(
 
Gary Blanchard said:
I get frustrated because I see so many people do this. That is one reason nothing gets done. If everyone is bad but you, you have to wait until everyone sees it your way, which, of course, never happens. I was just discussing this in my talk at church yesterday. It keeps us all as prisoners. :(
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See: Neighbor angry at puppy for sitting in the street thread.
See also: Moron calling out the dude looking for an amp on Craigslist thread.

It reminds me of an old Hagar the Horible cartoon.
Hagar's boy says: "Dad, aren't we supposed to live in peace and harmony with other?"
Hagar replies: "Yes we are, son, and the sooner we can beat that into the heads of the British and French, the better off we'll be."
 
Our neighbors have chickens. Granted, the neighbors are about 300 - 400 feet away, but the only time I notice the chickens is when they're walking along the road. If I had the time for it, I might think of keeping chickens. I have enough to do with my garden.
 
cuffdc said:
Our neighbors have chickens. Granted, the neighbors are about 300 - 400 feet away, but the only time I notice the chickens is when they're walking along the road. If I had the time for it, I might think of keeping chickens. I have enough to do with my garden.
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It could be argued that proper livestock management simplifies gardening--a rotating pen system weeds, fertilizes, and de-bugs your garden, your composting process is accelerated when you pass food scraps through a chicken, a portion of your square footage can be allotted to low-maintenance forage, and eggs taste better than eggplant anyway.
 
Chicken Man said:
It could be argued that proper livestock management simplifies gardening--a rotating pen system weeds, fertilizes, and de-bugs your garden, your composting process is accelerated when you pass food scraps through a chicken, a portion of your square footage can be allotted to low-maintenance forage, and eggs taste better than eggplant anyway.
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Oh, I liked the composting part of it when I looked into it, but I wasn't sure I would put the chickens near the garden, since the garden is actually against the property line with my neighbor (w/o chickens) and his party shack (he has some sort of backyard detached deck that he's been working on for five years but has never to my knowledge used).
 
Gary Blanchard said:
I get frustrated because I see so many people do this. That is one reason nothing gets done. If everyone is bad but you, you have to wait until everyone sees it your way, which, of course, never happens. I was just discussing this in my talk at church yesterday. It keeps us all as prisoners. :(
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This is the thing that probably bothers me most about people. And I dont think it is just and Amurican thing Elias. People forget that their reality is not necessarily equal to reality. Everyone that does not see things exactly the way they do is not wrong. I guess it is because of the internet and ability to be heard by hundreds of facebook or twitter followers. They have an automatic crowd gathered to hear their rants.

Back to the chicken thing. We affectionately call my next door neighbor "chicken man" due to the many feathered livestock he has harbored over time. He has had chickens, ducks, geese, little chirpy birds and I'm pretty sure he has had rabbits too. He is an old dude from Cuba and I am sure he must have grown up in a rural area. He grows all kinds of things back there too including multiple fruit trees, lettuce, corn, sugar cane and that's about all I know of because the property is fenced. I dont really have a problem with most of it. What I ended up having a problem with is the rooster. We live in a regular suburban neighborhood and for some reason the builder of my house put it close to the setback on his side. So his fence is maybe 10 feet away from my bedroom. Mr. Rooster roamed free back there and many days did his thing right outside my window. This may not have been a great big deal if the stupid bird could tell time. He would go off in the afternoon, late at night, 3 in the morning, and once in a great while at dawn.

Otherwise, I did worry about the volume of birds he had and the possibility of disease or some poop related issues. I think he got rid of most of the birds now, which I feel bad about because I am sure nothing went to waste over there, but we are in pretty close quarters for that many birds.
 
I would encourage anybody thinking of keeping backyard chickens, or doing any other kind of urban beardcore agro-culture to go and work on a farm for a summer. It doesn't have to be a factory farm; it can be a nice organic family farm if you like.

If you actually spend some time shoveling shit, butchering birds, and doing manual labor all day long, and STILL want to start a rooftop Brooklyn container garden/chicken coop, then by all means - go for it. But you should try it first. Because playing dress up with old timey $80 flannel shirts is a lot easier than actual farming.

I kinda thought about getting a few chickens for a while. I grow a big garden, and as a hunter, I'm not particularly averse to butchering things.
But ultimately I decided it just didn't make sense. All those eggs aren't going to do my cholesterol any favors, and I don't want something that I can't leave for a few days if I want to get outta town.
 
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2manband said:
I would encourage anybody thinking of keeping backyard chickens, or doing any other kind of urban beardcore agro-culture to go and work on a farm for a summer. It doesn't have to be a factory farm; it can be a nice organic family farm if you like.

If you actually spend some time shoveling shit, butchering birds, and doing manual labor all day long, and STILL want to start a rooftop Brooklyn container garden/chicken coop, then by all means - go for it. But you should try it first. Because playing dress up with old timey $80 flannel shirts is a lot easier than actual farming.

I kinda thought about getting a few chickens for a while. I grow a big garden, and as a hunter, I'm not particularly averse to butchering things.
But ultimately I decided it just didn't make sense. All those eggs aren't going to do my cholesterol any favors, and I don't want something that I can't leave for a few days if I want to get outta town.
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Yup, its just easier for me to walk down to the farmer up the streets house and get fresh eggs for $1 a dozen then to deal with doing it myself.
 
Elias Graves said:
See: Neighbor angry at puppy for sitting in the street thread.
See also: Moron calling out the dude looking for an amp on Craigslist thread.

It reminds me of an old Hagar the Horible cartoon.
Hagar's boy says: "Dad, aren't we supposed to live in peace and harmony with other?"
Hagar replies: "Yes we are, son, and the sooner we can beat that into the heads of the British and French, the better off we'll be."
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Sure there are jerks, but the vast majority of people are great people. We just program ourselves to focus on the jerks and overlook the majority. As a person with a biological predisposition to depression, I had to program myself to recognize the good to survive. Ironically, there is much more good to see than bad, yet we seem to hunt out the bad for our focus.
 
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I have to admit I kind of liked the idea of keeping chickens but my wife nixed that idea. She was worried about the noise and the smell around the house. I told her the chickens would get used to it. Just as well. I eat about 2 eggs a month and don't like to kill and butcher little critters.

If I had the room, a little herd of pygmy goats would be awesome. But that's another thing that'll never happen.
 
My wife decided she wanted to do the backyard chicken thing.
Now, she was a dairy cattle veterinarian for a number of years and worked in a slaughterhouse during college, so she's perfectly aware of the realities.
I still said no fucking way!
 
Gary Blanchard said:
True, but I've seen a number of bumper stickers like "Vegetarian is Native American for Bad Hunter" and "I didn't get to the top of the food chain to eat grass".
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parrotheada1a said:
As far as the vegetarian diet thing goes, I'm not much of a fan. Mebbe I just don't know how to cook it right. I did this volunteer cook with my better half last month, she was running the cookshack at a cancer walk. On the menu, to my total surprise were a couple vegetarian options instead of the usual burgers & dogs. Boca, plus wheat & soy burgers & dogs to be exact. Anyhow,after a couple hours there, a rather fit looking couple ordered a couple of the wheat & soy burgers. Plain or with lettuce, tomato & pickles I asked. They wanted plain, so I grilled up a couple of these in a skillet like the instructions said. The lady & her hubby gave me this 'are you kidding me?' look when I gave them their plates. A couple of burger buns plus the vegburgers inside. I guess they were expecting a lot more. The woman said to me that those burgers should be cooked in such & such a way. To which I responded that I usually cooked meats then grilled fresh veggies as sides. They ate their food, but I could tell they were not happy with it.
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I think if you're basing your concept of a vegetarian diet on some frozen patties from a box you're not using a very good sample. I mean that's basically like if I fried up a package of Steak-umms and then concluded that all meat was unpalatable.
:ack:
 
2manband said:
If you actually spend some time shoveling shit, butchering birds, and doing manual labor all day long, and STILL want to start a rooftop Brooklyn container garden/chicken coop, then by all means - go for it. But you should try it first. Because playing dress up with old timey $80 flannel shirts is a lot easier than actual farming.
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Obviously, this is a false dichotomy. The choice isn't between buying all of your food at the grocery store or farming full-time. The chicken owners I know spend maybe 15 minutes a day--less time that you might w/ a dog--gathering eggs, tossing feed, and sweeping out the straw/manure from their 2-3 layers.
 
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