Girlfriend and I live just outside Oviedo city-limits. Oviedo proper is a very chicken-friendly town. The city has hens+roosters running around the downtown city center :3 We recently moved out of a rental in city-limits to buying a house just-outside. We had the 3 pullets for a couple of months before moving and our new HOA rules restrict us from having 'fowl of any kind', but we still keep our 3 ladies indoors.
::Shhhhh:: 
When they were chicks, they'd all get along real well and frolic around the sunroom, dusting off and trying to nest on the towels we'd leave around their cage. They loved to be cuddled, picked up, and stand on your shoulders while you walk around. Once the combs and waddles started , two of them began pecking and attacking one of them. She had a lot of cuts and bleeding, so we decided to break up the ladies and try rotating their cages.
main cage is about 3ft long, 20" wide and 25" tall "medium" dog crate. plenty of room for two of the ladies (RIR and white leghorn) . The one that is often picked on is separated in a large rabbit/guinea pig cage. I"m working on getting her something bigger, but I let them all run around outside the cage, in my office daily. sometimes they break free from the office and we chase each other around the tiled house.
Their cages both have raised platforms and perches. I know it's not the best, but the shavings and feces really made a mess out of the cage, room, and the birds. The main cage uses chicken fencing and wooden frames to elevate the floor. I know the larger mesh grating isn't optimal, but the RIR drops poops like the size of small golfballs and won't make it through the 1/2" plastic construction mesh. :( The smaller cage with the white leghorn has the 1/2" mesh, dowel perch, and a 'mail organizer' nesting box. She'll sometimes rest in the nesting box when not on the perch. She's great b/c she always leaves me an egg in the nesting box ;) The other two just dropped em NEXT to the nesting box 
We bought the three of them Feb 2012, moved end of June 2012 and that's right about the time the birds started laying eggs. We didn't eat the first eggs (as they were eating the chick feed which had antibiotics and other chemicals in them. After some time on the non-medicated layer feed, we started consuming their eggs. we love them! we're getting an egg about once a day to every day+half from them. They sure do add up come the weekend! :) I love omelettes and shakshuka, so this is awesome!
So what started as an experiment in raising backyard chickens in my fenced garden turned into these cute egg-laying indoor pets at our new house and massive HOA/unfenced garden 
group photo @ 1month old (Mar2012) Camila (WL) , GerdieTheBirdie/Gerdo (WL), and BigRed/BigBird (RIR) [seriously, she's huge now. like 3x the size of our petite WLs] are now our happy indoor bawkers.
Glad you joined us!
from Alabama. Glad you joined us.
