Now don't get me wrong.

Now don't get me wrong.
I really like my chickens. They're cheeky and they keep me on my toes. But cleaning out their coop and run is incredibly time consuming and strenuous. I have to carry three or four massive black trugs of soiled straw to the bottom of the garden where the compost pile lives and lean unpleasantly far across to pile the straw on top of it. I just dug over half of the run to help with drainage as it was retaining quite a lot of water. I covered the remaining half with straw and then made a start on the coop.

The coop must have all the old straw pulled out and into the trug, where it again gets dumped on the compost pile. Then I have to sweep out the wood-shavings from the nest box onto the pull-out tray, take the pull-out tray out and pour the wood-chip onto the compost pile. Pour boiling water onto the pull-out bottom, dry it and put it back in the coop. Dust with anti mite powder and cover the bottom of everything with wood-chip and then a very generous layer of straw.

Now some people scrub out the entire coop every time. Walls, floor and ceiling. Personally I'm waiting for the better weather, a hose pipe and a second pair of hands before I attempt that sort of thing. That is, unless they actually look dirty.
So by the end of this weekly clean I am covered up to the elbows in mud, shit and straw. I'm freezing cold and the chickens are standing in a line on the top step desperately trying to get through the back door and into the kitchen.

I know I gripe and complain about the work and the expense. MY GOD THE EXPENSE! and the struggle to keep them off my vegetables. And (although the eggs are 100 times better than shop bought eggs) I'm not actually a huge fan of eggs, making the pile of thirty that we have in the kitchen not as heartening a sight as one might expect.
But despite all of these cons to the world of poultry keeping, I really don't think I could ever be without them.