We're Stinky Around Here

It is confirmed: meat animals stink.  They are cute.  They are friendly.  But they stink.

Our meat birds are growing by leaps and bounds.  They eat and eat and eat...which causes them to poop and poop and poop.  When it is rainy, the poop/mud combo is super gross.  The boys even refuse to cuddle them because they stink so bad (and their feathers are weird and scratchy).  We have taken to relocating the broilers during the day from their coop area to under a nearby tree to try to curb their stench.

They certainly do not roam far from their food
but it is just far enough to spread out their poop a bit.

The first day we carried them one by one from the coop to the tree but since then we have realized that the birds will trot along after their feeder.  Having them a bit away from the house during the day, and cleaning out their coop frequently is helping to control their smell but I can't say that I will be overly sad to see these fellows head off to freezer camp.  They are like miniature, very smelly bowling balls.  What strange creatures.

The meat birds might be stinky, but they do not even come close to how stinky Gloria and Hammy are.  Perhaps it is their sheer size or maybe it is because they insist on peeing and pooping in their wallow and then rolling around in the water/mud combo to coat themselves with a revoltingly stinky blanket of poop mud.  It is so gross.

In addition to getting stinkier as they grow, they are also getting gutsier.  This week, in addition to eating my squash and a chicken, they completely destroyed their barn door.  There is simply no containing a stench of this magnitude.

And they still have another few months with us - eating and pooping, eating and pooping, eating and pooping.  I suppose that's what meat animals do best.  Lord help us.