Do's and dont's for a "living room" coop? Building housing indoors?

[danischi24]

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Actually, I was planning on a sphinx & then this alley cat showed up & didn't have anywhere to go. He cost me more in vet bills during his first month than my dog has in almost 2 years. Plus my dog likes him so he gets to stay for now. Haven't forgotten my sphinx though. I'm not an animal hair lover.
The roos are always like that due to testosterone.
My hen gets dressed up in winter even here in Israel. So does my dog

Zee is really sweet.

 

[drumstick diva]

DUDU I wouldn't personally want a chicken in the house(full time) but, a friend of mine has had housechickens for over 20 years. Her house doesn't smell and I am very sensitive to odors so would notice. She is always cleaning up after hers. The main complaint I have with the lifestyle is chickens do need some outdoor time to be chickens - scratching and looking for bugs is what chickens do.
The friend has a million reasons she won't let them outside . That is a major bone of contention between us. They tear up and nibble on her throw rugs and I keep telling her its because they want to be out digging and scratching in her yard.

She could safely provide outside time for them in a dog exercise pen with top while she does yardwork but she won't even consider it. Her chickens run freely in her home and share the dogs bed and his food. I think for safety sake she should cage them when leaving the house for several hours. I can think of a million ways they could be seriously harmed by their free roaming adventures, for instance they walk on her stove. Once while she was cooking, a hen jumped on the stove. It could have been severely burned - she "poo poos" all my cautions.

I think three chickens could be kept in the house without risking your health etc., but I would hope you let them outside for some time to be real chickens.

I do recall a woman on BYC showing her indoor chicken area - I believe they converted a closet to a chicken coop. It was a closet on an exterior wall and they had a door so the chickens could go outside to a narrow fenced area that used her home as one long wall. She only had a small number of birds also. It seemed to work well for her. Maybe you could find the thread.

 

[rebel-rousing-at-night]

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I remember when you posted pictures of your chickens.They were a delight to see and so beautiful.

I don't really have any ideals about your "living room" coop, but I did see there were a few and I mean very few suggestions for you.

What was mostly posted here was not in any way an answer to your question. I know that chickens are not the usual house pet. Having said that I am so sorry for how some here totally attacked your post.

It makes me sad to see such attacks here. Of course a lot of people will never have chickens in their house or even any animal at all. That is their choice. On the other hand it is YOUR CHOICE to have some chickens in your home.

Hopefully more people will post some ideals here and the people that are against it will keep keep their comments to themselves as you did not ask"Should you keep chickens in yor home?".

 

[Meara]

Do I dare speak up?

After keeping chickens for nearly two years without any problems I was reported to animal control by a cranky elderly neighbor. I had to hide my entire flock inside until I could get moved to a new chicken-legal house. It was neither easy or pleasant for me or the birds, but we made it through. It can be done if one is determined and desperate. My birds positively begged and pleaded to go back outside and it broke my heart every day that they were confined to their inside coop. It was a large "coop" with a tarp bottom creating a "sandbox" filled with sand and wood shavings several inches deep. The tarp was pulled up on all sides so there was a "lip" nearly a foot high that prevented the contents from being spilled outward. Attached to the tarp was netting that went all around and up to ceiling height. There were nest boxes and a variety of perches and all the regular things that were present in their outside coop. It was easy to clean up when the time came except there was indeed a fine layer of dust everywhere. I didn't think the smell was all that bad, but my family would beg to differ. Fortunately they had all long since decided I was crazy so my reputation didn't suffer much in the way of additional damage

My conclusion is that yes, chickens can be housed inside, but that they will never truly be happy if they can't go outside.

 

[Desert Rooster]

WOW! too many rude people attacking the OP, instead of answering their question and making them feel welcomed in this forum, this is the reason why i don't post here that often anymore.

 

[featherz]

Definitely your choice to do. I can't even bear the short time I have chickens in the house when brooding - I can take the smell, but the DUST is horrible. It gets on every single surface - it's ridiculous! I personally only will have chickens in the house if they need to convalesce and the temp is too hot/cold outside. I guess something like itty bitty seramas or the hairless chickens would be a different story.

If I did an indoor coop for whatever reason, just make sure it has some sort of shielding for the dust. Maybe put an air filter or something in that room? I doubt it will help much, tho.

 

[fiddleman]

I have been putting some thought into this as of late... seems like the "dust" appears to be of concern to a great many people, and perhaps to the original poster as well. As a woodworker, I have my workshop in the basement, and I guarantee I put out way more fine dust than a few chickens could ever consider creating. I would suggest putting into place an air filtration system. There are many styles, and some can be home made with a box fan and furnace filters, but here is the in's and outs of what you may wish to consider...

Dust particles are measured in microns, or thousandths of a millimeter. Larger dust particles - over 100 microns or so - are heavy enough to fall to the floor quickly. They're part of the mass of debris that collects with so quickly on the floor under and around your woodworking tools. Fine dust particles, on the other hand, don't have enough mass to be pulled quickly to the floor and can float through the air in your house for a surprising length of time. Once a 5 micron dust particle is stirred up, for example, it will stay aloft for 30 minutes or longer depending on the air movement it encounters. Dust particles under 10 microns constitute the primary respiratory health risk to woodworkers. They're easily stirred up, stay aloft for a long time, and worse, penetrate easily into the deepest reaches of the lungs, where they are reported to cause problems ranging from mild allergic reactions to severe and chronic respiratory ailments. Whether this is a real problem or not is debatable but many of us woodworkers are taking these risks seriously. With chickens the main possible problem with the floating dust is with histoplasmosis, especially if the house is newer and whole house air exchanges are fewer since nearly all of the air leaks have been caulked shut.

The performance of an air filtration system is measured by the volume of air the unit will move in cubic feet per minute (cfm). To be effective, an air filtration device should be rated to cycle through the entire volume of air in your home 6 to 8 times per hour. One maker has a air filtration unit of 1044 cfm which means that it will filter entire volume of air in a 20' X 20' room more than 12 times per hour. To figure out how much cubic feet needs to be filtered, you can take the square footage of the room (Length x width) and multiply by the height of the wall. So a 10 x 12 room has 120 square feet and with 8 foot ceilings you have 960 cubic feet. Now that 960 cu. ft. of air needs to be cycled through the filters between 6 and 8 times in one hour, let's choose the higher number... 960 x 8 = 7680 cu. ft. total amount of air needing to be sent through the filter in an hour. So divide that number by 60 minutes 7680 / 60 and you get about 128 cubic feet per minute the air filtration system will need. For a 1200 square foot house with 8 foot ceilings, the calculation looks like this 1200 x 8 = 9600 cu ft. x 8 air changes = 76800 cu ft to go through the filtration in an hour. Since most systems are rated at cubic feet per minute, you get that rate by dividing by 60... 76800 / 60 = 1280 cfm.

So a typical air filtration system used by woodworkers would give enough air filtering to keep the dust to a managable level. Remember you can make your own air filtration units as well if you have a box fan (most move 2500 cfm. at top speed) check out

for an idea or

on how to make one which works well. Won't do anything for the smell, but should help make it more managable for the chicken dust.

Mark

 

[NYREDS]

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Couldn't agree more.

 

[al6517]

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Couldn't agree more.

X10 it's just nasty !!!

 

[mamaKate]

How about 2 dog crates--one on the patio for daytime and another inside for night and inclement weather? Then the smell and dust would be minimized and your birds would get needed fresh air and full spectrum light. Some birds smell worse than others. My D'uccles are minimally messy and the smell really isn't bad. Their Bantam Brahma buddy is still really small and stinks to high heaven. I wouldn't do anything too expensive until they're grown and you try keeping them in. I don't care much for the cabinet type set ups. The restricted air and light seem kind of like a dungeon to me. Another problem with a living room set up will be providing a dark quiet place for them to sleep. I've had one of my D'uccles inside her whole life. She isn't happy outside. I won't do it again, though. When she's gone, I'll get a couple of parakeets if I want an inside bird.