On Mon, 28 Jun 2010 22:59:52 +0200, ChattyCathy
> wrote:

>On Mon, 28 Jun 2010 16:17:23 -0400, brooklyn1 wrote:
>
>> About half my neighbors have chickens. The people across the road have
>> a small coop with four dark chocolate brown chickens, I guess more like
>> pets, only they run loose all over the place, even cross the road and
>> come over here. Around the corner is "Clucking A Way", they have all
>> kinds of chickens, guinea hens, I don't know what all, they sell eggs
>> and this year they took in a few rescue llamas. My new neighbor next
>> door is raising chickens for meat, they have I think 350, they got 50
>> each shipment one week apart. I guess a lot of people are into
>> chickens... not my thing.
>>
>> First batch arrived:
>> http://i49.tinypic.com/20psi1s.jpg
>
>Too cute.
>>
>> Almost ready for market:
>> http://i49.tinypic.com/2cpriuc.jpg
>
>Nice chickens!
>
>But hey, if it's not your thing, I understand.
>
>We don't let our chickens wander off our property for two reasons: 1)
>potential predators (wildlife, dogs and even humans) and 2) a lot of our
>neighbors do the mini-commercial thing and one of our hens might end up in
>one of those yukky coops if "taken prisoner".
>
>Keeping chickens isn't all fun, all of the time (as with any livestock or
>even domestic pets). The amount of poop they produce never ceases to amaze
>me - and their hen house/nesting boxes have to be cleaned out on a (very)
>regular basis or you can get all manner of nasty parasites and/or diseases
>occurring. We clean out their feeding and water troughs twice a day. Our
>chickens have been inoculated against some of the more serious diseases -
>but a dirty/contaminated water supply or rotting feed/vegetation can end
>up in cases of botulism - which is often fatal.

You convinced me to stick with cleaning three litter pans each day.
LOL