people with house chickens

[MaddiesMum]

R.I.P Marilyn

She didn't last long after I gave her the dissolved 4 pills, only 10 minutes with no struggling. She finally looks at rest. Tomorrow I will bury her next to her "sister" Betsy who passed a few mos ago due to illness. I will be ok now I know she is no longer suffering. I loved my girl...

Rest in peace girlie...she's in a better place, filled wIth grass, sunshine and squiggly bugs. My thoughts out to you, big hugs. I can't imagine how tough it must have been.. but you did the right thing.

 

[mrs1885]

Hi, mrs1885!

I have a house rooster, Finn.
I use a small dog cage for him to sleep in at night, and I put him in there when i'm out somewhere. We get the chicken diapers from chickendiapers.com. But he broke both of them, so now he is running around free.



Chickens are awesome house pets. There are no downsides!

Oh! House chicken named Finn. Are you on FB? I'd swear I liked a house chicken FB page with a chicken named Finn. I think I even watched videos maybe?

Hey mrs1885!

Having a chicken in the house is very easy. Especially with the adorably small breeds you are considering. My hen is a little bigger than your breeds, but not by much. A dog crate is probably your best bet. Chickens don't require 24/7 care, even if they are alone. My hen is pretty much content in her cage for most of the day. I let her out after we eat dinner to stretch her legs and run around. She isn't destructive and the poop situation isn't as bad as you may think. She will even go back to her cage when she is done roaming around. The dust comes with any pet bird. It isn't an unbearable thing but you will notice it. If your husband has breathing problems the bird dust might make it worse. But do a test run if you could to see how he handles it.

Thanks. We have our 'grandchicken' right now since she's an 'only child' in her family. When winter rolled in, since she's been kept outside, we brought her here to be with ours to stay warm. Because she's been handled so much by the human grandkids she was super social, so we kept her in the house for quite a few days. We did keep her in a huge dog crate in another bedroom though and she only came out when we could sit with her. That didn't bother him. Now, she's much larger than a Serama would be (she's a black sex link) but she wasn't with us as much as ours would be either. I wonder if we can borrow someone's house chicken for a while. LOL

As a side note, does anyone know if frequent bathing would help with the dust problem?

Sunni (my house hen) creates quite a bit of dust, but it is mostly just in her little coop. A few of my things next to her coop have some dust on them, but it's not bad. I have to keep up on washing the walls of her coop with paper towels, otherwise the dust gets really bad. I'm not sure if every chicken is like this, or if it is just Sunni.

Sunni stays in a modified plastic outdoor dog igloo. It is for medium sized dogs. We used this because it was something we had bought when I had ducks. We cut two windows in it and some holes in the top for airflow so she doesn't get too warm. We hung a roost in it and attached an old water bucket to the side for her nest box.

(the photos were taken before we cut the second window and drilled the holes in the top for airflow)





I keep Sunni in her coop whenever I can't keep an eye on her, when I'm not home, and when she is sleeping. Sunni is a lot like a toddler, so I have to watch her at all times when she's out.

I get Sunni's diapers from http://www.hensaver.com/ They are a bit pricey, but they are really good quality, and they are a great fit. It comes with two plastic liners for the poopy pouch, which make clean-up really nice. Whenever she makes a mess, all I have to do is take out the liner and wash it. In between the thorough washes, I just wipe it out good with a baby wipe. Her diaper stays very clean and it smells nice all the time. I have never had to machine wash it, thanks to the plastic liners. I tried ordering diapers from someone here on BYC, but they weren't a good fit, and Sunni was constantly slipping out of them or pooping outside of the pouch. Sunni was very sick when she was really young, so she is small for a Buff Orpington. Which made it hard for me to find a diaper that fit her. The diapers from hen saver fit her like a charm.

There are so many pros to keeping a house chicken, that I could go on and on! I just have one con. Our dog. He has some anxiety problems, and he attacked and almost killed Sunni in December. So now I can't have her out unless the dog is put away in his crate. It can be a bit of a challenge and times. We never would've imagined that our dog would hurt any of our chickens, so if you have a dog, please be careful.

-Ashley

That set up is BRILLIANT! I love it!! Showed hubby too and he likes the idea. Sweet!!

So sorry your dog attacked Sunni. My husband had a black lab that attacked and killed my Chihuahua last year. I've been doing pet rescue and dog training over 20 years. I was totally aware of what could happened and saw the signs in her but because she was hubby's service dog I just tried to keep them away from each other. Sadly, it's made me very aware, even more than I ever have been in the past, of what dogs can do. We would definitely be extremely careful. I couldn't go through anything like that again.

 

[PBGGG]

I do have a FB page for myself, just not for Finn. I'm on a ton of chicken groups, you might have seen me there. I had a video of him fighting a sock, did you see that?

 

[MsChickenMomma]

That set up is BRILLIANT! I love it!! Showed hubby too and he likes the idea. Sweet!!

So sorry your dog attacked Sunni. My husband had a black lab that attacked and killed my Chihuahua last year. I've been doing pet rescue and dog training over 20 years. I was totally aware of what could happened and saw the signs in her but because she was hubby's service dog I just tried to keep them away from each other. Sadly, it's made me very aware, even more than I ever have been in the past, of what dogs can do. We would definitely be extremely careful. I couldn't go through anything like that again.

Thank you! It was just something we whipped together last minute out of scrap things we had lying around. But it works great!

I'm so sorry about your Chihuahua.

That must have been so hard.

 

[kendradillon]

R.I.P Marilyn

She didn't last long after I gave her the dissolved 4 pills, only 10 minutes with no struggling. She finally looks at rest. Tomorrow I will bury her next to her "sister" Betsy who passed a few mos ago due to illness. I will be ok now I know she is no longer suffering. I loved my girl...

Aww rest in peace baby girl! Glad it's over.

 

[mrs1885]

Chickee momma, I'm so sorry about your baby. RIP sweetheart.

Ms Chicken Momma, yes, it was easily the absolute worst experience of my entire life. It changed a lot about me personally. I lost a huge part of my heart that day.

 

[Chickie Momma]

I can't imagine going through this without the support of my BYC friends! Esp those with house chickens... My sister thinks I am nuts with all these animals
in my house. She freaked when she found out I had chickens in my house. She owns animals but doesn't care for them bec she doesn't get them vet care or get
them annual shots. I have her poor little chihuahua who's teeth are rotting out of her mouth. We would have known if SHE took her to the vet. WE got her fixed
bec she had hormonal problems from being over bred prior to my sister getting her. This year she is having the dental issue taken care of, but I am afraid. I
don't want her to die under sedation because we aren't really sure how old she is. I know she needs teeth pulled. My animals see a vet yearly and as needed and I give them the shots I can and get the others at shot clinics bec the vet charges too dang much!

Thanks to everyone for being so supportive!

 

[mrs1885]

I can't imagine going through this without the support of my BYC friends! Esp those with house chickens... My sister thinks I am nuts with all these animals
in my house. She freaked when she found out I had chickens in my house. She owns animals but doesn't care for them bec she doesn't get them vet care or get
them annual shots. I have her poor little chihuahua who's teeth are rotting out of her mouth. We would have known if SHE took her to the vet. WE got her fixed
bec she had hormonal problems from being over bred prior to my sister getting her. This year she is having the dental issue taken care of, but I am afraid. I
don't want her to die under sedation because we aren't really sure how old she is. I know she needs teeth pulled. My animals see a vet yearly and as needed and I give them the shots I can and get the others at shot clinics bec the vet charges too dang much!

Thanks to everyone for being so supportive!

Dental issues are SO common with Chis. We've got five of them. One is a 'forever foster' we're taking care of for a rescue. She was pulled from a shelter before they euthanized her. The vet said she's easily 18 years old or older! Doesn't act like it though. Of our four, one is 16 this March and the other is 15 in April. Both breeder surrenders. All of them have horrible dental problems. The 15 and 16 year old don't have many teeth left. The 18+ year old has none. The 16 year old was just diagnosed with an enlarged heart and is on meds. While there he said her teeth were bad. I felt horrible but she's not had a dental in three years because of her age and he said that in all honesty at her age if we tried to put her under for the dental there's a good chance she wouldn't wake up. So I wet her food for her with hot chicken bone broth and she scarfs it right now. For such a tiny breed they're really very hardy.

As for vaccines, check into the AAHA guidelines. I only vaccinate my personal dogs every five years with the combo vaccine and I do that myself. I won't pay a vet $15 for a vaccine that I can buy for less than $5 and do on my own. Giving vaccines is SO easy. I do the three year rabies too, which irritates me because it's the exact same vaccine as the one year. Just has a different label. There is absolutely nothing at all different, but because of the label and because the states don't know flip about animals and vaccines, the vets can charge double for it. *shrug* If it's only every three years though that's fine I guess. We have rabies clinics locally and every three years I load ours up and head over. $8 each and it's good for 3 years, so it's a good deal. Here's info on vaccines from my blog if you're interested. Might save you some money.

howtostartapetrescue.blogspot.com

Section Four, Medical has a TON of info in there about deworming and using Ivomec cattle dewormer to prevent heartworm in dogs, etc.

http://howtostartapetrescue.blogspot.com/2014/01/section-four-medical.html

 

[Chickie Momma]

I appreciate the info esp about on the chichi's. She is only 4# and I sure do worry abt her. Her dental issues started when the breeder fed her wet
cat food all the time! She didn't want to eat hard food when sis first got her! Now she steals from my BIG dog. (When he isn't looking) We rescued the chi
from my sis because she wouldn't take her to the vet to help get rid of the fleas that were sucking her blood! Our big dog because he was a black lab senior citizen of 7 yrs old! Never been an indoor dog but is now...he gets the little sofa and the tiny dog demands the large sofa lmbo!

 

[ChickenPeep]

Hey everyone.
Sorry I haven't been on much in the last few weeks, my hen Fluffers got very sick and I was extremely busy taking care of her. She didn't make it. It's been a sad week.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...fers-one-of-my-first-chickens-and-beloved-pet