First I want to say hello, I have only 3 lovely chickens to start off with as I learn the ropes.

Secondly, my neighbours son is absolutely obsessed with the chickens. It’s really nice, but he is also feeding them huge amounts of wild bird seed and I’m a little worried. There are mounds of the stuff being poured over the fence!

I have spoken to his parents nicely and asked them to stop him doing so, which they understand.

In case this doesn’t get resolved quickly, is there any danger that this can cause harm to my chickens?

  • hddsx@lemmy.ca
    3·
    2 months ago

    So… I stumbled on this from local and I know nothing about chickens

    For my own curiosity, is there a reason you started with 3 instead of 2 (one male one female?) or just 1?

    • Luvs2Spuj@lemmy.worldOP
      5·
      2 months ago

      They are social creatures, 1 would get lonely! 3 was the smallest quantity the breeder would part with at once for this reason. (She would sometimes do pairs if she understood the reason and who they were going with.)

      The males are really noisy and aren’t really necessary for happy hens, so most people don’t keep them as far as I know. I would like to have a male and raise chicks at some point in my life, but I live in the suburbs and couldn’t do that to my neighbours (or myself). If I ever retire to the country and have enough space I would like to do it.

    • Boinkage@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      2 months ago

      People generally only keep hens when you have just a few chickens in the backyard. Roosters don’t lay eggs and they crow loudly all day, so if you’re just interested in having a few animals for eggs roosters don’t help much. Roosters can help protect the flock from predators.

      You’re probably thinking that one hen and one rooster will produce more chickens for free. You actually don’t want the eggs you’re planning on eating to be fertilized by a rooster. Fertilized eggs grow small chickens inside of them instead of just having a yolk and egg white.

      Hatching chicks from eggs is a whole process requiring different equipment and setups, so generally casual backyard chicken havers don’t mess with breeding and just buy more chickens from bigger operations when necessary.