can chickens live in your home premenantly

[JudithM]

i was thinking of getting one chicken and i wanted to know if i could keep it as a house pet. also what would be the sssential things i would need ?

I have recently acquired two pair of Seramas. Lots of folks make house pets out of them and they can do very well in a large bird cage. There is a fb group dedicated to them and they have fabulous photos of the Serama chickens well trained and just another part of the family. They are easy to handle and can be very tame and even well trained. They are smaller than bantams and many folks have them for show chickens. They are beautiful so check them out on fb. If I were going to have any chickens for house pets, they would certainly be Seramas although mine are outside in a chick condo!

 

[Double Yolked]

Google images for Chicken Diapers. You can keep a smaller chicken in the house wearing a diaper fairly well, but I warn you changing that diaper is a never ending chore.
A few years ago I had a pair of chicks I picked up, I named them Itsy and Bitsy. Well, Bitsy turned out to be Bill... And at that moment I could not keep a roo, he went to a friend who has a large flock and could absorb another roo but Itsy stayed, I kept her inside due to a cold snap and some issues with a bully hen for much longer than normal. She totally imprinted on me as her flock. She hated the other chickens and they didn't like her either. I made a serious error and tried to insist on an integration with the flock. She was the tamest hen I've ever seen, spent her days riding on my shoulder or following me about. Integrating her with the flock went poorly she tried to get to me constantly and would leave the coop at first light looking for me. (my light activated auto opener was a tad wonky and would go up before it was fully light out) An early morning owl killed her. Broke my heart. That was before I learned of chicken diapers. Had I learned sooner I'd have kept her inside. She was worth it.

 

[Chickin Out]

This is a complex question. Your biggest problems are going to be that the chicken might be lonely because they are flock animals, and that they need at least 15 minutes of sunlight a day directly on their feathers in order to process their calcium and not have egg laying issues. or you could get a full spectrum light bulb. That might work. If you got a rooster, that might be different because they don't lay eggs, but then you would have to deal with the crowing.

There is more to this question as well. Please feel free to personal message me for more in-depth discussion. My biggest question is, what sort of area do you live in?

Here's my blanket advice... if you are serious about this, get a bantam breed, a silkie bantam would be a good one for a house pet. I would advise two or three of them in place of one large standard. Two so they could keep each other company, three so that if one died they still had one.

 

[Kazzandra]

I recommend against this plan of one bird in the house, as someone who loves her birds.
The person who got closest to hitting the reason on the head is

A single chick raised by hand and bonded to you will be incredibly miserable whenever you leave the house. I doubt you’ll stay in to keep it company all day every day.

I had a Starling in college that killed itself one day when I went to class, and that broke my heart. He beat himself to death on his cage trying to get to me.

I raised my first pet chicken alone around the same time, just like this person is suggesting, in my house, from a chick I picked up at a yard sale. He ended up being a rooster, and was all sorts of socially inept from being raised with a human. He was a big, lovely, white rock, and cleaning up under his pen every day was a big job. He loved it when I was home but I quickly realized I'd made the same mistake I had with the Starling. He wanted to come with me everywhere and not everyone appreciated that.

He was permanently bonded to be me, but had little to no empathy for other people or, later, when I tried to undo my mistake, other hens. He mated with my shoes and watering cans. He attacked and ran after other humans who came near me, including my mother. My third rooster-- he tore out the eye of him when he was a cockerel. He terrorized my poor electric meter man if he dropped by without telling me.

I regretted the way I raised my Isha and never raised another bird like that.

My second indoor flock was 4 serama. They were tiny and easy to keep in a ferret cage with a somewhat deep litter method. They were happy and healthy and great pocket pets. I had a tiny travel cage I took them with me to landscape jobs, etc.
However, my sister was not happy about the dander they made, and I had them in my bedroom. Mercy, how quickly everything in the room would be covered in dander.
They were also diaper trained, though I rarely used them. Seramas are much easier to clean up after, and they preferred to hang out in their cage mostly if given a choice anyway.
I eventually (4 years later) moved them into an outdoor coop partially because my sister, but also because they enjoy being outside.

Like others have expressed, chickens like the outdoors. Some birds adjust to indoor life more easily-- chickens not so much. They mostly like to be with you for a bit inside but they like to go right back outside if given a choice.

No, I'd rather say, if you want an indoor pet bird, pick a species more suited to this endeavour, and find a rescue bird you can work with. There are many indoor parrots who need a patient hand and a good home in rescue centres.

If you must have indoor pet chickens, plan for a flock, and a tiny breed. The smaller, the better.

 

[K0k0shka]

Google images for Chicken Diapers. You can keep a smaller chicken in the house wearing a diaper fairly well, but I warn you changing that diaper is a never ending chore.
A few years ago I had a pair of chicks I picked up, I named them Itsy and Bitsy. Well, Bitsy turned out to be Bill... And at that moment I could not keep a roo, he went to a friend who has a large flock and could absorb another roo but Itsy stayed, I kept her inside due to a cold snap and some issues with a bully hen for much longer than normal. She totally imprinted on me as her flock. She hated the other chickens and they didn't like her either. I made a serious error and tried to insist on an integration with the flock. She was the tamest hen I've ever seen, spent her days riding on my shoulder or following me about. Integrating her with the flock went poorly she tried to get to me constantly and would leave the coop at first light looking for me. (my light activated auto opener was a tad wonky and would go up before it was fully light out) An early morning owl killed her. Broke my heart. That was before I learned of chicken diapers. Had I learned sooner I'd have kept her inside. She was worth it.

What a touching story. I had a pet chicken imprint on me once. He wanted nothing to do with the flock either. I took him in as a chick because he was sick, nursed him back to health but he would not go back. After a few months I had to move and left him with my grandparents (and his original flock). He couldn’t handle the separation and died of a broken heart. Stopped eating and just sat there, crying. I still well up thinking about it. Chickens bond strongly.

 

[Cole725]

i was thinking of getting one chicken and i wanted to know if i could keep it as a house pet. also what would be the sssential things i would need ?

I found a chicken in the road that fell off a meat truck and we kept her inside (quarantine from the flock and rehabilitation from her wounds hitting the pavement) for 90 days. She was great! We got chicken diapers on Amazon. She snuggles with my Great Dane. She really liked it. She doesn’t prefer the company of birds. We had some issues during integration. We would bring one of the birds up from the coop and put the in her fence in the backyard, where she would exercise, when her quarantine was over. There were issues immediately. We decided to build her an individual coop and run inside our larger range so she could still be in the range with the other girls, but have her own space. She fought with them trough the fence. Since then, the girls have learned to just leave her alone and everything is fine lol house chickens have been/can be done. If you decide later that you don’t want a house chicken anymore and would like to put them in the coop... be diligent and find creative solutions if issues arise with your flock!
Ps. If you order chicken diapers, get at least 5 because you will need to wash them frequently. We made her a nest in our spare bathtub and she didn’t wear a diaper then but when she was strutting around the house, she had too. We have carpet.

 

[Al Gerhart]

Chickens carry a lot of diseases and living with one or stupidity during butchering is how diseases cross over into humans. Back around 2007 I was doing some scientific research on countertops and bacteria. You know where we got our bacteria? Walmart whole chickens. Buy one, let it sit in the fridge till it was completely unfrozen, wipe a paper towel across it or spray a quarter cup of water over it and collect the water and wipe down your material sample with the paper towel or drain water.

Full protective gear but somehow I touched the top of my bald head near the back and got a drop of the fluid right in the middle of my back. Huge painful boils about four days later. The funny thing was that I was headed to a countertop convention and a bunch of my peers were following the research and joking around about me bringing a plague to the convention and killing half of them. I wore a hat all weekend.

I cringe when I see a kid cuddling a chicken. If people only knew the sheer amount of disease that a chicken faces every day of its life they would freak out. I couldn't eat chicken for months after that research.

 

[K0k0shka]

Chickens carry a lot of diseases and living with one or stupidity during butchering is how diseases cross over into humans. Back around 2007 I was doing some scientific research on countertops and bacteria. You know where we got our bacteria? Walmart whole chickens. Buy one, let it sit in the fridge till it was completely unfrozen, wipe a paper towel across it or spray a quarter cup of water over it and collect the water and wipe down your material sample with the paper towel or drain water.

Full protective gear but somehow I touched the top of my bald head near the back and got a drop of the fluid right in the middle of my back. Huge painful boils about four days later. The funny thing was that I was headed to a countertop convention and a bunch of my peers were following the research and joking around about me bringing a plague to the convention and killing half of them. I wore a hat all weekend.

I cringe when I see a kid cuddling a chicken. If people only knew the sheer amount of disease that a chicken faces every day of its life they would freak out. I couldn't eat chicken for months after that research.

Walmart is an incredibly low bar though. You can’t compare that with an isolated homegrown flock, or a single house chicken. Have you researched beyond crap quality mass produced factory meat?

 

[Al Gerhart]

Walmart is an incredibly low bar though. You can’t compare that with an isolated homegrown flock, or a single house chicken. Have you researched beyond crap quality mass produced factory meat?

You haven't researched or you wouldn't write that.

Chickens are nearly always one stressed day away from their immune system being overwhelmed. A typical chicken house is a petri dish of disease, salmonella, campylobactor, E. Coli, bird flue, West Nile, listeria, then there are dozens of chicken diseases that don't usually cross over to humans, non zoonotic diseases. The problem is that up until a few months ago the Chinese were eating bats and snakes with no problems other than freaking out a few scientists that knew what could happen.

Walmart chicken is processed in pretty much the same factories or in the same manner as the other commercially available meats. Chances are good that an ignorant person butchering a chicken wouldn't be much cleaner than a commercially slaughtered bird. Used to visit family back in the sixties and seventies, chicken dinner meant going out and catching the chicken but the birds were dipped in boiling water after their heads were chopped off and Granny was a wiz at gutting a chicken without puncturing the innards. And the meat was quickly cooked and consumed.

 

[K0k0shka]

You haven't researched or you wouldn't write that.

Chickens are nearly always one stressed day away from their immune system being overwhelmed. A typical chicken house is a petri dish of disease, salmonella, campylobactor, E. Coli, bird flue, West Nile, listeria, then there are dozens of chicken diseases that don't usually cross over to humans, non zoonotic diseases. The problem is that up until a few months ago the Chinese were eating bats and snakes with no problems other than freaking out a few scientists that knew what could happen.

Walmart chicken is processed in pretty much the same factories or in the same manner as the other commercially available meats. Chances are good that an ignorant person butchering a chicken wouldn't be much cleaner than a commercially slaughtered bird. Used to visit family back in the sixties and seventies, chicken dinner meant going out and catching the chicken but the birds were dipped in boiling water after their heads were chopped off and Granny was a wiz at gutting a chicken without puncturing the innards. And the meat was quickly cooked and consumed.

I guess I don’t know how people butcher their chickens nowadays. Back on our farm the chicken always went in boiling water, and we started gutting young, as kids. By 12 I was a pro. Chickens we’d been hugging 5 minutes earlier. Nobody ever got sick. But I don’t know what people are doing nowadays. I know a lot of people also drink raw milk, another gross and dangerous practice I never heard of until much later (the “natural” movement where people lost common sense?) Salmonella is widespread in mass produced chicken but that doesn’t mean your backyard chickens will have it. Also, well cared for backyard chickens aren’t so stressed that they are one day away from exploding.