How To Convince Your Spouse To Raise Backyard Chickens

How To Convince Your Spouse To Raise Backyard Chickens.
How To Convince Your Family To Raise Backyard Chickens.

This one is easy ... lie. Seriously. My husband was really worried about this whole idea. WTF came out of his lips more than one time. Many more. I started to see that it may turn out to be challenging to convince him to raise chickens in our backyard. More specifically, in the backyard next to the golf course.

To be fair to myself, I didn't lie intentionally. So I guess I didn't actually lie. Looking back, it LOOKS like I lied, but I promise you I did not.

I just wanted chickens so dang bad that I agreed to trim my ambitions down to size. I started out thinking that I could handle five or six grown chickens. However, the number three was very pleasing to my husband's ears. I rationalized that three would be perfectly fine with me, but being a novice at the whole raising chickens thing, I absolutely KNEW I would mistakenly kill a few in the beginning process. After all, raising teeny tiny baby chicks had to be really, really hard, right?

Wrong. Raising teeny tiny chicks is really, really easy. But I digress.

Since I thought I would be a terrible novice chicken mama, I ordered seven chicks. Yes, seven. Which is a long way off from three. So you see, I didn't actually lie, I just didn't know any better. Now I do. Now I know that I'm sort of good at this chicken raising thing. And so will you be, most likely.

I also promised my spouse that we were going to do this for next to nothing. After all, most baby chicks are only about two bucks. Although I did almost order two yesterday that were twenty bucks a piece. Thank The Lord someone beat me to the punch and they were sold out before I could press the "buy" button! Chicken Math is catching up to me. (More on Chicken Math in an upcoming post. Sooner rather than later, since Chicken Math is a serious psychiatric disorder that you need to be made aware of rather quickly. It is an evil evil thing.)

I finagled wood and window off craigslist for next to nothing, so I lived up to my next to nothing promise. The glitch with this promise was that my husband tends toward perfectionism when it comes to anything involving wood. (Get your minds out of the gutter. Not THAT wood.) Consequently many, many, MANY trips to Lowe's, Menard's and the local construction outlet were needed to rise to his expectations. I kept saying to him, "Honey, it's only a chicken coop." But my words fell on deaf ears. So I now have a really beautiful coop. (Not complaining.) Plus I did my part by prying apart $15 auto parts shipping crates for the walls and such and a $200 window was found for only $12! I really, really love my window.

The moral to the story or the lesson to be learned is that you really don't have to lie, because when it's all said and done, most likely your spouse, your family, your significant other, your partner, whichever applies, will catch this chicken fever also. At least to some extent. They may not help with feeding, watering, and cleaning very often, but they will rejoice in your happiness and be happy with you. I promise. No lie.

Stay tuned for Step Two of Raising backyard Chickens. Choosing a Hatchery or Breeder.