Poultry Talk Ontario (pto.ca)

It's Saturday and I am spending all day waiting for my stuff to go through the sale. I had Friday off but I spent it making boxes and getting ready for a chicken sale. Tomorrow I will spend the day cleaning pens and probably butchering roosters then filling water and feeders so I don't have to do it Monday morning before work. Seems I do this all spring, summer and fall. I am down to 33 chickens, 14 of those are roosters. I intend to get rid of all by winter. I was thinking this may be it for a while. I just find the hobby is taking me away from being with friends and doing other things besides just chickens, so I think I need a break from chickens for a year or two. I often skip other events like a bbq because I have something to do with chickens. Plus how annoying is it to spend all evening making boxes and transporting birds only to get next to nothing for them or have to bring them back home. Anybody else feel like this?

Yep , 20 free runners , gravity feeder / waterers in barn that's it . Collect eggs in morn . No pigeons to fly till May . Been feeding / showing / caring for animals for over 60 years . Hobby , ranching , zoo animals etc yep I know the feeling . Nice to sit back & hunt , fish , sleep , visit haha . When it gets to be not part of your life anymore time to back out before u hate it . Luck man

Sell your birds on kijiji you'll get better prices, not have to make any boxes and most people will pick up.

Yeah, I think that way some times, but it passes right after I go feed the broody hen with chicks from hand. And then there was that family reunion I couldn't go to because of the chickens and goats. Then they dig up all the seedlings in the garden in the spring, and they are for the high jump. Then I get a phone call from the ex and I go spend an hour in the coop and another hour with the goats and all is well. I will be keeping mine. I think they do me great service, and are worth way more than a few bucks and a little frustration. Life is good.

Hope it works out well, which ever path you take.

Yes if you get too many it becomes a chore, thats when you know you need to downsize, not get rid of them all just downsize to a more managable number.

Farrier I'd get rid of the phone if yu catch my drift lol

I agree, will keep some. When I'm in the house or at work I feel overwhelmed and I think I should get rid of them, when I am in the barn I feel energized and want to keep some. I just need to go about it smarter. I missed some sales and buy, sell, trades in spring and ended up with a barn full of cute little chicks that turned into big eating pooing machines. Not at all what I had intended. I was really enjoying the little flock I had in spring, should have stuck with that. Note to self, SELL THAT DARN INCUBATOR!!!!

Think maybe it's the rooster not the inc causin the problem .

I hear what you're saying. I was really enjoying all my birds until a health issue came up that has made me rethink. I am downsizing my turkeys because I can manage them the way I want to then. What worried me was with the appointments etc. I couldn't put the work in I wanted/needed to. It also worried me to have to ask other people to keep an eye on them. Poor DH got stuck with most of the chores. I worried every time I had to go to an apt (long ones) and on one occasion I had a hatch the same day and the kids got out from under Mum. All was OK but it made me rethink. DO what you need to to enjoy them!

I had to have a think on this one.
Most of us poultry enthusiasts have a partner who is also an enthusiast, or at least somewhat tolerant of our obsessions.
Most of us are also in a more established stage of our lives and our friends are either also enthusiasts or at least tolerate our hobby.
You are a young person and need to spent more time with your contemporaries and they aren't discussing chickens on the poultry forum, they are out there, traveling, gathering new experiences and making new friends.
Why not give yourself a Year Sabbatical ?
Take every invitation that comes your way, travel near and far, and open yourself to as many new experiences as you can manage.
Most of us have already done all that and at whatever stage of life we are now, find a home flock gathering around our feet as sublime experience as we can handle
You are at such great time in your life, so many different roads open to you, no point limiting your self to just the "feathered one"
Whatever you decide to do now, I am sure of one thing, I see poultry in your future, it may be two years or twenty years from now, but it's going to happen. :)