Thursday, July 19, 2012

Chicken Coop

I'm not really an animal person. Ok, that's an understatement. What I meant to say is that I hate animals. Not in a heartless, I want to cause animals harm kind of way. Just in a leave-me-alone-and-I'll-try-my-best-not-to-cringe-when-I'm-forced-to-come-in-contact-with-them-and-they-invade-my-bubble kind of way. They're so smelly, and messy, and needy, and expensive and unpredictable. I just don't want anything to do with them. The closest I'll ever come to having a pet is within my brief daydreams/daymares that I'm a 40-year-old woman from the 80s with over-sized glasses, bushy hair, and 15 cats curled up around me as I read a book. Incidentally, I'm always a hoarder in these daymares.

However, tonight I went to an RS activity (shock!) about cooping chickens, and I'm absolutely hooked on the idea of owning chickens (double shock!). First, this would finally satiate my unfulfilled desire to grow up on a farm Little House on the Praire style. Second, I'm a sucker for a good project. Third, the idea of producing my own food is really cool to me. 

Here's some info: it's only about $10/month to keep chickens. They're much lower maintenance than dogs or cats. They lay about 1 egg/day. They're very obedient and stupid. You only have to clean the coop about twice a year if you use a deep layer method where you add layers and layers of straw to the bottom of the coop regularly (when you clean out the coop, this stuff is great for fertilizing your garden). Chickens help reduce weeds. They're not very noisy. They don't smell very much. 

Kind of cool, huh? Unfortunately, it's kind of illogical for me to own chickens because 1. I hate eggs, and 2. I don't have a house/yard.

Every time I dream, all my hopes are crushed. 

Some pics from tonight: 

3 comments:

Stacy said...

"Their obedient and stupid" ...just what I'm looking for. Thanks for the info! :) Missed you tonight though, the movie is must buy though, for me.

julie said...

You might want to consider living in Hawaii. It's completely normal to own chickens there. Maybe a little less normal to keep them in a coop though.

Unknown said...

My parents have a chicken. She doesn't lay every day though. It depends on the type. I hear black chickens lay every day.

Yes, practically everyone in HI has chickens, but they also keep a lot of loud, annoying roosters that will roam around, crowing right under the patio in the backyard right outside your bedroom window at 4:30 in the morning every morning. Yes, that was six years ago, and yes, it was so loud and annoying that I cannot let it go.