A Few Bad Things that Can Happen When Keeping Chickens

Years ago when I was a child, my parents used to have chickens. We would have some problems with them, but their was the benefit of having fresh eggs in the morning. The problems were not really the chickens fault, but more on the side of what other animals caused.

We lost a lot of chickens to dogs, these dogs would get loose and attack our chickens. Sometimes our neighbors would purposely send the dogs to kill our chickens, but any loose dog that would come across a chicken pen, would have gotten excited by the site of the birds.

If the chickens get attacked, then a problem of stopping the dogs would rise up. A group of dogs chasing your chickens in a pen are dangerous. The dogs would easily turn against you while killing chickens if try to stop them. This also caused a problem with our neighbors, as we would have arguments with them over their loose dogs.

Chickens are a normal source of meat for hawks and owls, when a hawk or owl would find a chicken pen, then she would make her nest close by. Since these birds are an endangered species, you can not kill them, you have to prevent them from eating your chickens.

When or chickens would disappear, we would find them dead in tree branches. Sometimes the chickens just disappeared with out a trace. This was a result of the hawks and owls taking them for food.

People will also steal chickens, and your chicken eggs, but we never really had a problem with thieves.

Snakes showing up in the yard was another problem with having chickens. Snakes will prey on chicken eggs, so when you go out collecting eggs or just checking on the chickens, an egg snake or other kind of snake would be seen eating the eggs. Some of these snakes were rattle snakes, and other venomous breeds.

These problems are more the fault of other animals, and not really a con with having chickens. Dogs should have been in control with their masters, hawks and owls can be avoided, and snakes are really a problem when in an area surrounded by woodland.