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I've noticed a fun split among people I know—those who grew up on a farm will move heaven and earth never to deal with chickens again, while people who grew up
by idlewords 2y ago
I've noticed a fun split among people I know—those who grew up on a farm will move heaven and earth never to deal with chickens again, while people who grew up in cities or suburbs are really into the idea.
- bryanlarsen 2y agoHaving dealt with my share of pig shit, chicken sheet and cow shit, I can assure you that chicken shit is the worst.
- programmertote 2y agoCan you share a bit more? I grew up in a city and never knew the details of the farms (and interested). Thank you.
- everforward 2y agoNot an industrial farmer, but we had chickens, horses and goats growing up. Chickens suck because they poop on everything, and it dries into a glue-like substance caked onto things. The straw ends up caked in poop, the walls get caked in poop, the floor gets caked in poop, the chickens poop on each other. Getting it off requires a paint scraper, and getting way closer to it than you want. It's also liquid-y. It's a lot like bird poop on your car, but bigger because the bird is bigger. The horses were less bad. Their poop was fairly "clean" as far as things go. They stayed pretty structurally intact (it's basically a ball of half digested fiber, kind of like a hairball) so it wasn't a big deal to get them with a pitchfork, and they were almost exclusively on the ground. It's not a job I wanted to do, but it wasn't awful. The heat in the non air conditioned barn was honestly worse than the work.
- declan_roberts 2y agoOur coop is off the ground. All I do is bring my wheelbarrow up to the door, open it up, rake it in, and then go dump. From my POV it's one of the easier chores.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 2y agoDidn't grow up with chickens, but have had them for 8 years now. Easiest pet I've ever owned, and they provide eggs. Haven't seen a weed in the yard in years. They'll decimate a garden bed, though.
- wglb 2y agoI suspect “pets” are the distinguishing word.
- bombcar 2y agoA big, big part of it is whether you had to do it as chores, and whether roosters were involved.
- tptacek 2y agoI'm married to someone who grew up on a chicken farm, have never so much as threatened to own a chicken, and still hear the litany of how awful chickens are at least a couple times a year. They're apparently really, really nasty animals.
- wglb 2y agoGrew up on a farm. Dealt with cows, horses, chickens. Chickens are by far the worst. Maybe bats would be worse. Happy to leave that as an exercise for someone else’s imagination