Anyone here have chickens?

Don't.

Unless you plan on having a bunch.

I had four and the upkeep/costs weren't worth it.

I miss having chickens. I will just say the breed of chickens you choose will make a big difference. I had Rhode Island Reds and were pretty happy with them.

Fiancee has chickens in her backyard. They are filthy damn animals. Their favorite activities are to make noise (rooster), shite on concrete, kill plants and get killed by hawks.

Make sure you have easy access to everywhere they spend time. They are filthy animals and you will need to be able to easily clean their coop and run/yard. You'll want to he able to reach every corner for cleaning, dont make it hard for yourself. Any fenced in area needs to be tall enough to walk in. You'll be needing to replace sand in there from time to time and you don't want to have to kneel down in chicken shite.

I like having a rooster, they seem to protect the hens from critters. But they also cause problems from so much f***ing. They can damage hens from constant breeding and rip ouy patches of feathers.

Aggressive roosters should be put down.

I have some,best advice I have is not to get too many.I started with 16,now I am down to 6.Thing is,there are a lot of interesting breeds,so I would get a couple of these and a couple of those and I ended up with more than I needed or wanted to take care of,They were eating a lot of chicken food,I had eggs out the wazoo.I have 4/10 acre fenced so it’s not really nasty.
My stepson has a better setup,He has a lightweight dog pen that he put wheels on,referred to as “chicken tractor” and he moves it every day.He has a rooster and 5 hens,he lets them out in the afternoon and on the weekends and they go in to roost when it starts getting dark.He has 3 acre yard,they are entertaining to watch roaming around the yard.
I disagree that they need heat in the winter,I have hinged flaps I cut on the north side that close in the winter,the south side is open 4 x 8 covered with fence wire.Main thing is keep cold breeze off of them.
I put wood chips in the bottom of the coop and change it out periodically and put it in compost bin.With 16 it was a chore,with 6 not so bad.

I have 20 or so haven’t counted in a while, have 12 younger birds I’m about to add to the flock and take some of the orders out this fall for back yard bird gumbo.

In general, plants are much better than animals. Crops don’t shite or run off on Christmas Eve

Don’t do it save money on eggs. You will pay more for feed and shavings than you think. But we enjoy having them. And our grand baby loves to help gather eggs. Just make sure you shut them up at night so predators won’t get them. When we forget, it’s usually a massacre. Good luck.

I live on 3 acres and for some weird reason our quasi HOA, which essentially has no covenants, does however restrict us from having chickens.

We had some and while I loved the eggs and never had any bugs in the yard, they were disgusting.

shite everywhere. Killed each other. Killed all the grass under the chicken tractor. Bitched at each other all day long.

I will never have any again unless I can find a good balance between letting them have enough space, keeping them safe from animals, and not being scared to die.

I know someone that had a bunch of chickens. She shoveled the poop out of the coop and one day got some disease that killed her in two weeks.

(Legionaries? Something like that)

I think a perfect scenario would be free range chickens that shite evenly all over the yard, but we have too many coyotes and foxes to even try that.