Owning Chickens Pros and Cons



Posted: Saturday, March 12, 2011

by Sam Davis
http://www.squidoo.com/blueprintsforachickencoop

Owning chickens as pets has recently become increasingly most popular around the country and for good reason, because chickens make amazing pets.   In this short article I will go through the pros of owning chickens and the very short list of cons I could think of.  So hopefully after reading through this article you will want to go out and buy your own chickens and start having fun!

1. Costs incredibly cheap.  -  When we say cheap, not only does the chicken itself count but also the maintenance of it all. Compared to keeping a dog or a cat for a pet, it is much cheaper to take care of a number of chickens most likely because they are not choosy when it comes to food. You can feed them scraps and table leftovers and they will happily gobble it up. With as little as $2 a day, you can spend on a bunch of layer mash.

2.  Chickens give back to you.  -  Your chickens will not only be great friendly pets, but they will also be helping you out by laying eggs for you, and although I would never eat my pets, you of course can eat chickens.  Another main reason people buy chickens is for their eggs, getting fresh eggs every day from your chickens is a huge plus.  Even if you don't like eggs, you can sell them to people who do.  Many chicken owners also will kill their chickens for meat once they have stopped producing eggs, this is not something I do, but I understand that it is very normal so I felt the need to mention it here.

3.  Extremely low maintenance.  -  Dogs and cats, your typical pets, require a lot of maintenance.  You need to groom them, take them to the vet, take them out for walks and give them a ton of your attention.  Chickens on the other hand, require very little and none of the above.  You need to feed your chickens and give them fresh water every day.  Their coops need to be clean at least once a week, which is not difficult if you have a decent chicken coop.  They don't need your attention and are perfectly content with roaming your yard all day, but I would hang out with them occasionally because they are very fun animals.

4. Fertilizers for free and an instant pest control agent.  -  These are the two things that chicken raisers love about owning a chicken. When you allow your chickens to roam around your backyard, it is in their nature to peck on whatever it is that catches their interest and their hunger. Chickens love anything that came from the ground most especially the ones that are moving. They eat insects, bugs, worms and the like. For them, these are special treats. Furthermore, it is in their nature to eradicate their internal wastes anywhere they please. But their poops are considered as natural fertilizers that the ground needs to grow plants and root crops in a healthy state.

Now for the cons of owning chickens.  These two stretches for cons are the only things I could come up with, because nobody wants to read a completely biased article.  So here they are.  First off, chickens are messy pets.  They poop a lot, and like I said before this is great fertilizer, but when they are pooping all over the coop it can get gross.  So you will need to keep their coops clean so your chickens do not get sick.  Which leads me to the second con of pet chickens, when one of your chickens gets sick, it is likely that most of them will get sick.  That is why it is vital to make sure they are living in a healthy environment.
John Locke is an expert on chickens and everything related to chickens, come over to his site on blueprints for chicken coops to find blueprints for all types of coops. http://www.squidoo.com/blueprintsforachickencoop
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