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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Actually there are amazing pics of a gorgeous coop designed by an architect in Southern Living this month.  Check it out if you are interested in raising a couple of chickens without the mess.

PPs referencing stinky, gross coops are out of touch.  2-3 chickens are not going to produce the same issues as a chicken farm. Just don't let your hens set and you'll be fine.  Chickens are less work than a dog and much more useful.[/quote]

Again, you are basing your opinion on something you saw in a design magazine! Not reality. All chickens produce chicken shit, which is about 10,000 times more disgusting than dog feces.

Oh, and one question- what are you going to do with those hens when they stop laying? You do know that most chickens lay for 2-3 years, but can live for 6-7, right? How "useful" will they be then? Or will you cut their heads off, clean and pluck them, and serve those stringy old gals for dinner? [/quote]

No, I am basing my opinion on the fact that I have had chickens at various points in my life and thus have personal experience.  Your only experience appears to be driving by a chicken farm once on vacation.  I was giving OP real advice.

Hens are not loud.  Avoid a rooster. 
Finally, yes, you will need to replace your flock after a few years.  If you get too attached put them in a dog crate and haul them to a butcher who can do the dirty work for you.[/quote]

OP here, thank you for the suggestions PP.

15:50 I am ready to hear all of the many, many diseases you talk about that I must have missed.

There are lots of (diseases transmissible from animals to humans), but most people don't get ill unless they are immunologically impaired. The most common chicken-transmitted disease per the CDC is Salmonella, usually when people handle chickens and then don't wash their hands properly afterwards--but even that doesn't happen too often. So, unless you're immunologically impaired (cancer patient, HIV+, very elderly, child under 2 years old, organ transplant recipient, already battling a serious infection, etc. ) then you will probably be just fine.

There are also warnings from CDC that chickens can be reservoirs for West Nile Virus, but quite frankly even if you personally didn't keep animal carriers for West Nile, any critter within a mile or so of you could carry it anyway--any songbird, any horse, there are lots of carriers for West Nile.

I plan on wearing a dust mask or put on a respirator for cleaning the chicken pen, just because getting particles of anything in your lungs--even non-infectious particles like bits of hay chaff or pine bedding--is not good for you either. And the thought of inhaling powdered chicken poo is just, well, icky to me. [/quote]

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