Best cage for indoor chicken?

[TheOddOneOut]

Thank you for the positive and encouraging advice! Unlike the anti-indoor pet chicken people here, I appreciate hearing something that is open-minded.

Hopefully, I get better advice from other people that keep inside a Buff Orpington or possibly a rescued turkey.

What exactly do you want? To trap a healthy chicken alone, indoors? Why? For your own pleasure and happiness?

It's not a matter of being open-minded or not, or pro-indoor chickens or not - we care about the chickens, and if you're plotting to make one life a miserable life, we want to help educate you on why you shouldn't.

Go read about 15 chicken-keeping books and then let's revisit this idea. Because if you had done your proper research, you'd know you're about to give a chicken a life it does not want.

 

[TheOddOneOut]

Let me point out that I plan to have the chicken wear a diaper from a company called "Avian Fashions". They have revolutionized the pet bird industry by inventing a diaper to catch bird droppings. By the way, a chicken is a bird!

No need to be nasty. We all know that.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Regardless of indoors or out, chickens generally count as livestock or poultry as far as zoning goes, not as household pets. Is it actually legal to have chickens? And if so, what are the restrictions as far as housing them? Do you have neighbors that might complain if they hear it or spot it?

 

[629864]

Regardless of indoors or out, chickens generally count as livestock or poultry as far as zoning goes, not as household pets. Is it actually legal to have chickens? And if so, what are the restrictions as far as housing them? Do you have neighbors that might complain if they hear it or spot it?

If all of the very good arguments given already don't convince you that keeping a chicken indoors is at best inadvisable and at worst cruel, maybe at least check out your city's bylaws. Some citys (I'd hazard a guess that actually MOST cities) state outright in their city ordinances that you are prohibited from keeping a chicken inside of your residence. There are very good reasons for this. Cage or not, leash or not, chickens will poop wherever they happen to be when the urge hits them. Do you really want cecal poop all over your house? Diaper...cecal poop will be smeared all over the poor chicken's butt feathers. Would YOU want to live with your own excrement smeared on you all the time? Chickens are social creatures. Would YOU like to go through life with no friends? Even the argument that people keep single dogs doesn't hold water because most of those people actively seek out "play dates" for their dogs through walks in the dog park, doggie daycare, etc. because they recognize that dogs need interaction with other dogs. Chickens instinctively need to scratch for food.. Chickens need plenty of sunshine to be healthy. Chickens need a flock...NEED not WANT. To deny a chicken so many things that make it happy and healthy just because you think it would be fun to have an indoor chicken is nothing short of cruel. Why do you think there is such a push for free-range chicken keeping? It's because the giant chicken industry kept chickens indoors without any access to the outdoors WHERE CHICKENS ARE SUPPOSED TO SPEND THEIR DAYS FORAGING and the public has become increasingly aware of how cruel this is and is demanding change in how animals are kept. These arguments aren't just from people who've kept chickens for years. They're also from people who've never had a chicken their entire lives as well. You don't need to own chickens to know after a bit of reading and research that keeping a chicken indoors is just a really bad idea if you care anything about the welfare of that chicken.

 

[BlueTheBrahma]

I wouldn’t normally have a go at someone like this, but it seems you haven’t listened to most of this critical advice so I can’t help put add more, for your own good.

I won’t even touch on the ethical issues in regards to the chicken, everyone else has done that but there’s information you should know:

You can’t compare a house chicken to a dog or house cat, they were domesticated in completely different ways, chickens were mostly just contained or encouraged to live around us, while dogs learned that they could live along side us for food. Early dogs and people soon realised they could help each other hunt, and while doing so, both being very emotionally complex animals, formed bonds. Chickens I am afraid do not form these bonds so readily with people. Dogs were dependent on us, and we were in them, chickens can still forage in the wild, but dogs lost their original hunting abilities in replace to working with ours. Dogs can be toilet trained, chickens spontaneously poop all the time - they will begin to smell. Dogs and cats can form bonds with people in replace of other dogs, chickens cannot. We take dogs for walks, this would be difficult for chickens, and if you’d put it in the garden, you may as well put a coop there.

Birds do not carry the same bacteria in their guts as us. Many reptiles and birds often carry salmonella, a type of dangerous type of food poisoning. While this is less common due to vaccines being given to factory hens and sometimes meat birds. I am not sure how available this is from pet shops. Even if the bird is vaccinated, there are still many bacteria which could cause harm our mammalian guts.

I don’t know where you’re based, but here in the UK, we are in the middle of a bird flu poultry lockdown. Chickens must be kept within their coops, not to free range, no shows or auctions. I’ve seen more and more cases in The USA, and even people getting it. At the moment, to me (might just be me being in the UK) it feels like a house party in COVID lockdown. I know it’s pedantic but in a rare case where the chicken you intend to keep inside has bird flu, it seems like a recipe for disaster. It would be very possible that you being inside with the bird could lead to you contracting the virus, and possibly passing it to other wild birds or people. This is very extreme of course. Although, the risk seems to high to me, while i agree that poultry keeping should be for everyone, I am assuming that’s why you want this inside cage, but this could potentially risk the entire hobby.

I don’t know how much I can change your mind, but please can you stop thinking about what you want, rather what the chicken, your health, other pets, other animals, and the entire community wants. Trust me, when the chicken is being loud due to distress and has a massive smell lingering, you will regret it.

 

[21hens-incharge]

After staff review it appears this thread has run its course.

Thank you to all who contributed in a kind and helpful way.

Please do not start any similar threads.

21hens-incharge
BYC staff