Temporary Child Custody

Whilst always keeping chickens may be a wonderful activity for the family, and whilst I personally consider that chickens make wonderful pets, there are some negatives to always keeping chickens as well as positives.

Whilst attempting to keep chickens can certainly be a wonderful hobby for the household, and whilst I personally consider that hens make wonderful pets, there are some disadvantages to maintaining hens as well as positives.

Lets think of the positives first. Certainly the most important plus to maintaining chickens would have to be all those scrumptious free range eggs simply laying there waiting that you just collect each breakfast or night. Absolutely nothing is like enjoying your own nutritious, and delightful free range eggs which were laid on that day simply for you. No chickens had to put up with surviving in a little crate to lay all of them for you, and you may feel great about having a refrigerator crammed brimming with healthy food.

Secondly chooks make fantastic domestic pets despite the fact that they’re fowls. Children just adore them. Ours will contentedly pick them up and may carry them all over for hours. It is quite a delight always keeping hens, and when you permit them to roam free around your backyard it is fulfilling observing all of them out your kitchen’s window while you cook supper.

Thirdly, if you make it possible for them to roam around at home they will really clean up a whole bunch of bugs which, if still left on their own, would probably eat your plants. It is our chooks that assisted save our back garden from 2 summers of grasshopper plague. You should see how many hopper one chicken can easily eat daily.

Fourthly it’s quite possible, not like for most pets, to provide for your chickens so that you don’t need to make plans for them every time you go on trips. As I have big automatic keepers for feeding and watering we are able to go on trips leaving the chooks to their own devices and have never ever lost a single yet, even though on trips.

Now to the problems. Like all animals hens can potentially get ill and pass away. We have had instances when the children have discovered a dead hen in the chicken house, and this is upsetting for the kids. Whilst this of course applies to all pets it is more prevalent when you keep chooks. This obviously is because you tend to have quite a few chooks, whereas many people may have one or at most 2 pet dogs or pet cats. In our case with fifteen hens it is more regular. Of course chooks have a shorter life expectancy than some domestic pets such as puppies or cats.

Second of all despite the fact that hens will cleanup many of the unpleasant bugs round your yard they do so by scratching, and this should dig up the soil of your yard beds. They will also peck at your veggies if you grow your own and they especially like pecking at tomatoes. You might need to protect your vegetables or some section of your garden.

Thirdly, like for a lot of other pets, there can be some work involved, including regular cleaning of the chook coop. Chooks poop all over the place and the coop, as well as feeding and water storage containers, must be cleaned. You will also need to study more about pest avoidance as hens can easily be prone to such problems as mites.

Fourthly whilst having fresh new free range eggs is fantastic it doesn’t occur on a regular basis. Chooks tend to go off the lay throughout the cold winter months, and more aged chickens lay less eggs than young ones. For this reason there might be times when you are having to pay for chook feed but still purchasing eggs.

I consider nevertheless that the positives of attempting to keep chickens far exceeds the negatives. They’re among the very few family pets that are productive as well as just being a family pet, and for anybody thinking about always keeping chooks as domestic pets my answer is always to do it. Not many folks have regretted getting hen chickenschooks.

Remember to visit my web site Australian Chicken Coops about chicken coops to learn more about how to identify the best chicken coop  for keeping your chickens happy.

Having a pet is a wonderful thing for any family, but pets do have some problems. Some can be very expensive, including the veterinary bills, some tear up the garden, dogs bark at the neighbours and scare visitors, and what do you do with your pet when you go away on holidays?

But the perfect pet may well be chickens. They aren’t expensive to buy and they aren’t expensive to feed, they won’t bark at the neighbours, they don’t get sick often and if you organise it right you can go on holidays for a week or 2 quite easily.

And as well chickens are productive. They will provide your fridge with wonderful free range eggs from which you can cater to the family with healthy tasty food like fresh omelettes. There’s good reasons why you could consider that chickens are the perfect family pet.

Whilst you can’t really put your chickens on your lap at night in front of the television there is still no doubt that children love chickens as much as adults, ours absolutely adore theirs.

Like all pets however you need to make a little effort to learn about keeping chickens. They will need a place to live, which is variously called a chicken coop, or chicken house or henhouse, and you will need to find a good place to buy one or else learn to make it yourself. The latter can be the cheapest method.

Your chickens will sleep in the chicken house at night however they much prefer to roam around outside of the coop during the day time. It’s perfectly possible to let your chickens free range around the garden during the day cleaning up the bugs, though you may get a little scratching and pecking of your flowers.

They particularly love to peck at ripe tomatoes.

And if some pecking of your tomatoes is unacceptable then you merely build a chicken run around the coop and allow them to roam throughout their run.

You will need to learn about feeding your hens. There are certain minimum requirements for protein and calcium which are important to meet if you want to get eggs, and so you will need to source some high protein foods, some shell grit to add calcium to their food and you will need to find appropriate appliances to deliver food and water.

And if you want to go away on holidays leaving your chickens to their own devices, as we do, you will need to make sure that you can provide sufficient food and water for a week or 2 at a time.

Without doubt keeping chickens is a great way for the family and in particular the children to enjoy having pets. Although there is plenty to learn it’s fun and rewarding and the children will love having their chickens. So learn a bit more about housing and feeding them and then start looking for your first hen.

And when you have it all sorted and have bought your chickens sit back and enjoy your omelettes.