Things No One Tells You About Living on a Farm
A friend sent me a link to this cracked.com article and asked my thoughts. Here they are.
#6. Animals Are Designed by Nature to Be Gross
Yes, animals crap everywhere. Animals that are omnivores have stinky crap (poultry, pigs). Our animals all free range and have large areas plus access to shelter as they choose (coop/barn). So, in our “backyard” there is a lot of crap. The worst was when the turkeys decided they wanted to roost on the top bar of our kids trampoline. It was fairly unusable for a while. Then came Thanksgiving and no more turkey crap problem. All in all, our animals are really healthy and have lots of good food and clean water. While their crap does not smell like roses, it does not “stink” per say. I have smelt many things worse than our animals waste. But I fricking HATE getting chicken poop on me, not a great smell.
#5. Animals Are Also Dicks, Stupid, or Stupid Dicks
Yes, they can be. And if they act that way on our farm, they GO IN THE FREEZER. We have a zero tolerance policy for rudeness. If you act like an arse, you will not see another sunrise. Luckily, we have not had many problems with wild animals, except for predator issues.
#4. Let There Be No Misunderstanding About This: Chickens Are Rapists
Yes, but they have nothing on the ducks. If you want to see some shocking animal mating, watch the ducks go at it. OUCH. When new people visit, sometimes they ask if our chickens are injured. That is because some of the hens have no feathers on their backs. That is from the roosters, some of them can be pretty rough.
Haha! In the article this is accompanied by a picture off a broken down tractor in a field. Not on my farm, I am a nut about having as “unblemished” a landscape as possible. Also, our town dump is only a mile from our house and will take anything. So yes, there are some farms around us that are littered with old, broken down equipment. Ours is not one of them.
#2. There’s No Such Thing as a Vacation
Sort of. We are lucky enough to have great neighbors (ahem, pre-answering point #1) who will take care of things while we are gone. What you should realize, though, is that we never really want to leave. I love my farm. I am a huge homebody. Everything I have ever wanted is here. Everyone I love. Why would I want to go anywhere else?
#1. In the Country, All Your Neighbors Are Insane
Absolutely not! Our neighbors are awesome!
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LOVED this! I also sent it right away to my sister who has a little farm. She would agree with everything you say. I only wish she blogged so you could read her story about trying one night (alone – husband out of town) to kill a nasty rooster with some kind of fluid – only to have purchased the wrong kind… somehow she ended up pulling his legs off…. and later had to clean up the driveway so her kids wouldn’t know exactly what happened….!!!
Beth, that sounds pretty crazy! We usually do our butchering in the grass, no trace of the mess left when we are done
We have chickens and they are allowed to roam our property, so we have chicken poop! Would love to post a sign on our driveway that said, Free Ranging Chickens – Watch your step!
Most of the time, I don’t mind them, but some people are really bothered by it. We have a huge selection of boots and crocs, I always give people the option of wearing our footwear so they don’t have to worry about their own.
Great post! When my best friend had her first baby she was trying to walk to bring on stronger contractions. We just happened to be by a park so we walked there. If being in labor wasn’t enough to get her thinking she never wanted to have sex again we just happened to come across some ducks mating and it was horrific to watch!!
Haha! That is an awesome story. Hope everything turned out well for the friend! Ducks are the worst. Good thing they are so yummy!