Do you have (occasionally) chickens or other poultry in your house?

[CCsGarden]

Chickens or doves?
You may show us a few photos

Both! I just re did the storage room! So know I can have everyone back there! And my music studio!

 

[Just2chickens]

When we moved I didn´t have a secure coop yet and we just had 1 chicken (Whitey, about 2,5 years old), she slept in her little prefab-coop in our hallway and later in a storage closet. A week later we got her a friend, not ready yet with the coop, but the chicken-guy came that day and I didn´t want to wait another month because she was alone. ( the chicken-guy comes once a month from march till september in a truck to every town here, you can order p.o.l-pullets, roosters, ducks, quail, chicken food and other stuff, very convenient, and dangerous if you don´t have your chicken math under control )
Of course integration wasn´t easy, so our new p.o.l. pullet (Suzy) slept in a crate in our not ready yet living room, it took another two weeks before their coop and run were ready, and after they moved there, they came walking in the door every day to demand a snack...
Now we have 3 chickens, our sweet Whitey died and we got Suzy 2 friends, Mona and Lisa, and Mona is terrified of the door so she starts to scream as soon as Suzy walks to it... so no longer do we have chickens in the house...

 

[CombNWattles]

When I go out to check on the birds I often bring one back to the house with me to say hi to my family. One of my favorite things to do is to creep silently up behind a family member and slowly stick the chicken’s head over their shoulder.

Here is grumpy old Pidge paying a visit:

We always brood chicks in our basement until they can join the flock. I love it when we have them in the house and I visit them many times a day. (Excuse the clutter, we were organizing the basement!)

Here Caper steps outside the brooder for the first time. The tray in the background had a half-finished puzzle in it, and at one point I caught one of the chicks running around with a puzzle piece in her beak.

Thwarted.

“Hi, um, this is awkward, but it I came across the snow from the coop and now I don’t know how to go back. Can I just live in the house now?”

Almost forgot the time I used Lacy as a vacuum cleaner to clean up a tortilla chip I stepped on in the car.
*Disclaimer* we do clean our car the normal way, despite appearances to the contrary.

 

[BantyChooks]

If I allow chickens (other than chicks) in the house it’s brief and generally in a carrier to contain the poop. I have had disabled poultry that lived in the house but that was a special exception.

 

[redinator]

Chicks in the brooder, so hard to put them out . . .they're too cute. Nearly 3 weeks old so they will be out by the middle of next month . . .the dust is too much.

 

[hammyanne]

Only when I’m brooding chicks and nursing a sick bird. Fiona is the warden of the hospital wing, with pendulous crop and then frostbite this last winter. Here we are watching The Sopranos together:

 

[HobbyHoarder]

Ours stay outside once they're old enough for now until we get our own place again and we can allow them to free-range more.

We actually just had our one pekin in today so I could check him out in the light out of the wind and snow after I'd seen he had blood on his foot and tail. I wasn't initially sure what was going on, just saw blood but thankfully it was just his claw and not anything worse. He wasn't terribly impressed with being back into the house though and grumbled at me the entire time. Then when he returned outside to the rest of the ducks, he told them all about it for ages.

 

[Debbie292d]

We have two large DIY brooders in the living room. I currently have chicks in both, nothing older than a week as these are all sold or for sale. When I keep any, they stay in the house until at least a few weeks old if it's summer, older if it's getting into winter.

Other than that, they come in to have their eyes cut so they can see and a cross beak to get her beak trimmed.

If we were ever to have a house chicken though, it would be CC. He's always been such a friendly, sociable silkie, and whenever he sees one of us, he comes running. He follows us around and we've both nearly stepped or tripped over him so many times. He loves to be picked up and just hugged.



I put him in a breeding pen for a week, and unlike the other roosters who love it in those, all CC wanted was out and paced around. He doesn't breed. That didn't work, so I let him back out so he could just free range by himself.

 

[MROO]

We've had a few over the years, mostly chicks being raised indoors for a good start, but there have been a few notable standouts. The first was Henny Penny - your classic "Little Red Hen." Henny Penny had absolutely NO regard for boundaries and pretty much went wherever she pleased ... indoors, outdoors, into the car, you name it. She once raised a clutch of Mallard ducklings - another story for another day - but her most memorable trait was her choice of nesting spot. We could tell when Penny had been in the house, because she had a penchant for leaving an egg ... upstairs ... between my parents pillows. We all thought it was hysterical. My father? Not so much!

The second was Purdue - an absolutely gorgeous little bantam who looked like a chicken from a classic kids story book - all the colors with the bold, inquisitive attitude to match. Purdue wasn't so much a "house chicken" as he was a "wherever my people are" chicken. If "wherever" happened to be inside the house, so be it. Purdue was there!

Then there was Herman, aka Herman the House Rooster. Herman lived inside until he was two years old ... which is when he discovered girls. All of a sudden, outside was a pretty cool place to be and he took full advantage of it! If you're interested, you can read more about Herman. He has his own article:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/is-there-a-rooster-in-the-house.74089/

 

[Callender Girl]

You've had some real characters! I loved all their stories

When I was a kid, Shirley, a black hen of dubious heritage, liked to go into my dad's auto repair shop (which was next door to our house) and lay an egg on his work bench every day. She was a real hit with customers.