Star and eclipsa
Songster
All of this information is what I have gathered from personal experience and from advice given to me from people on here. chickens are way better pets than cats and dogs, in my opinion. If you can't choose whether you want a cat or a dog, get a chicken. My two pet chickens are like the perfect mixture of cat and dog. They can be sweet and cuddly like a cat and playful and funny like a dog. You can take them on walks (with training... In my experience it takes a while to get them used to the harness and it takes alot of leash training for them to actually walk with you) and they don't spit hairballs all over the place like cats. You can litterbox train an inside chicken (though expect some accidents... They can't control when they poop) or you can get chicken diapers. I don't use litterboxes or chicken diapers so I can't give you much information on those. I just use napkins to clean their poop off the floor and mop once a week. Chicken keeping is not for the squeamish. Their poops are really disgusting and smell really bad about fifty percent of the time. My chickens have learned what a few words mean (examples: their names, treat, and chickees. Chickees is my nickname for them) I am working on training my Rhode island red to jump for treats. My other chicken is a polish so he has a hard time finding the treat when I hold it above his head so I'm working on different tricks for him. Of course, chickens can be loud, and if not raised right may be human-aggressive or just afraid of humans. If you get a chicken, get two. They will be depressed if you only have one. They are flock animals. My rir has a panic attack whenever i separate them, even if its just for a second. She honks like a goose and flies on top of the table and runs around when I bring the polish to another room even if I come right back to get her too. Chickens need plenty of space to roam. My chickens live inside for the time being until we make a place for them to live outside, but I let them out every day to forage with my polish on his harness with a really long leash and the rir stays with him. They also get to roam around the house. They love sleeping on the comfy kitchen chairs and always avoid the one plastic chair we have for them. If you have inside chickens, you need to trim their nails and (sometimes) the tip of their beaks if they get too long. And no, I'm not saying you should debeak your chicken. I'm saying that it might just need a little trim off the very tip. I personally just use a brick that they wipe their beaks on after eating (yes, they wipe their beaks after eating!) To wear the tip of the beak down. I give my chickens warm baths with dawn dish soap (but you can also use a gentle pet shampoo) every two weeks. They struggle alot and try to fly out. Some breeds of chicken are more docile than others. If you want inside chickens, i recommend polishes and silkies. Do research on types of chickens that generally do good in your type of climate if you want to keep your chickens outside. Even after I make my chickens an outside run they will still be sleeping inside for probably their whole lives. My chickens have a dog bowl that they eat and drink out of. You know, the kind with two bowls attached to eachother. I give them a constant fresh supply of food and water and i keep the water in a separate bowl that i can take out of the dog bowl to dump out the water without having to dump out the food too. I use leaves from outside for bedding and keep the bowl on top of a cardboard box to keep the leaves out of the food and water. I scatter grit through their bedding along with a few handfuls of food so they can pretend to forage. Chickens are fast, and hard to catch. I once saw my rir chase down and eat a lizard. A brown anole, specifically. Anyone who lives in florida and some other hot states will know just how fast those lizards are. I plan on having a birthday party for my chickens in October on the twentieth. I know they where hatched somewhere around that time, but I don't know the exact date so I just made an educated guess. In case you where wondering, yes, I will make them a cake. I already have a plan for it. If someone asks for it, I will tell you how I plan to make it. I'm not sure if they will like it, but I will make it anyway. The cake will be made with stuff that is good for them, of course. Well I can't think of anything else to say, so I will just post this and go read.
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