people with house chickens

[subhanalah]

Can anyone help me with a good idea for a large indoor chicken cage with a roost? I need to get my chicken into something bigger where she will have more room.

a large parrot cage (expensive) or a large dog crate with a 2x4 smashed through the bars for a perch.

 

[daniellecm]

Very interested in what everyone that has house chickens house them in ?
and what do you do with them during the day when you are at work ??

Please post pictures.

 

[chrissy903]

Very interested in what everyone that has house chickens house them in ?
and what do you do with them during the day when you are at work ??

Please post pictures.

You can purchase chicken diapers for them. You can also purchase a large dog crate to keep them in when u dont want them out. I would keep mine outside but I don't live on a farm

 

[daniellecm]

Do you keep them in the crate all day , i guess if you work.

 

[TOOCLOSE]

Very interested in what everyone that has house chickens house them in ?
and what do you do with them during the day when you are at work ??

Please post pictures.

We use large dog carriers! I layer the bottom with newspaper and then paper towels on top of that! The paper towels get cleaned out and replaced everyday! Lessens the amount of dust in the room and it isn't as slick as newspaper!

I have a large dog waterbowl, the kind that won't tip over in one of them on two pieces of wooden square blocks. The other crates have heavy soup bowls in them for their waterbowls. Then I have a hanging dish in another one for water. Needs to be high enough that they can't poop in it. Of course they have their food sources in them too!

And of course I have the ice packs wrapped in paper towels for them to stand on when they get hot! I use the bottom half of old sweatpants to make a sleeve out of it. Then wrap it in paper towels!

I'll take pictures for posting later on! Got a town appointment to get ready for right now.

If they are hens laying eggs? I have a shallow box with cut grass in it for the egg laying business!

So that's what we use!

TC

 

[ChickenPeep]

I use large guinea pig/rabbit cages for my girls. I have 2 large ones, a medium one and a small one that I connect together for my girls. I line the bottom with newspaper and fill it with pine chips and replace it every other day. I also keep a timed light on so that they can have more normal egg cycles.
This is the type of cage that I use.

 

[TOOCLOSE]

Here's a couple of pictures for ya! These were the boys crates in their bedroom when I had 12 Roos!



This is where the girls stayed! In the corner of the dining room. Marias cage is the one on the table. I took the gate off so I could butt a grass filled box up to it. I used the gate for the top of the box. I have mirrors in the boys and girls crates. They love talking to themselves.

All three crates are now in the chicken bedroom! That's all I have left in the Silkie family! I bought a large heavy duty painters cover to cover the floor. I allow them time to roam around on the floor area when the weather outside is too nasty. I have two floor covers so I can rotate them while washing the other.

The hole in the gate on top of the box has a hole in it where the food dish goes. Maria will pop her head out of it! We call her: "Chicken in a Box" when she does this! Like - Jack in a box!



TC

 

[daniellecm]

Here's a couple of pictures for ya! These were the boys crates in their bedroom when I had 12 Roos!



This is where the girls stayed! In the corner of the dining room. Marias cage is the one on the table. I took the gate off so I could butt a grass filled box up to it. I used the gate for the top of the box. I have mirrors in the boys and girls crates. They love talking to themselves.

All three crates are now in the chicken bedroom! That's all I have left in the Silkie family! I bought a large heavy duty painters cover to cover the floor. I allow them time to roam around on the floor area when the weather outside is too nasty. I have two floor covers so I can rotate them while washing the other.

The hole in the gate on top of the box has a hole in it where the food dish goes. Maria will pop her head out of it! We call her: "Chicken in a Box" when she does this! Like - Jack in a box!



TC

oh my ! its a chicken silkie party !! lol love it
I would love to let my silkies live in the house. Im just worried as i work fairly long hours out of the house from 7-5
I'm thinking i would have to consider something a little larger so they wouldn't feel so cooped up all day ?

They are two weeks today so i have some time I will need it to convince my husband its a necessity ! lol

 

[Sylvester017]

How is it sad? He lives inside with two dogs and he has a happy, healthy life. I dont want him outside unless im right there and he is in his pen. He is imprinted on me, and even at this age he still follows me around the house. He wont be good outside- I do everything to make him happy, and I know he wont be outside, even with lots of girls. For now, he gets to see a few chicks through wire inside.

You asked "how is it sad?" I say sad because birds are such flock-oriented fowl. Even our pet English Budgies we kept in pairs in large avian pens.

We had our new juvenile Silkie in-house in chicken diapers for 3 months as a recommended quarantine precaution and she imprinted on us as well - funny, sweet, talkative, adorable. We wanted to keep her in the house permanently. However her wistful looks out the sliding door at the outdoor flock told us it was unnatural to keep her separated from that environment in spite of how we loved and spoiled her.

At 5 months old we socialized her with the other Silkie and other 2 LF through a wire garden fence for a month for several hours a day and brought her in at night to sleep in her pen, Eventually we allowed her to sleep in the coop with a wire barrier (all the birds slept in the nestboxes) and they accepted her in the coop because she was always there in the morning for them to see she belonged. Then we removed the nestbox wire and it was a smooth acceptance with only minor flock order establishment. She was delighted to be part of the flock as she was already used to the socialization through the garden fence and outdoor foraging. She was a loner foraging at first because that's how she socialized through the garden fence. Today she is vying for alpha lead with the other Silkie as they are the two oldest hens and the LF submit to both of them.

She is still our "baby" and sometimes asks to come into the house for a brief visit, snooze, or to lay her egg in her old pen basket but still prefers to be with her flockmates for a good forage session, dust bath, and roosting in the coop with her flockmates. She has the best of both worlds now with a choice to spend time as a house pet and time as a flock bird. Visitors get a kick out of watching her toodle into the house like a puppy or kitten to beg for treats and then toodle back out again to join her flock. She is spoiled and we wouldn't have it any other way because she is happy having both indoor and outdoor worlds to access.

Everyone's flock and situation is different but after seeing our house bantam so much happier being able to have options (and she chose the flock option for the majority of her days) I just can't confine a chicken to the indoors or even a pen all day. Like I say as many that will agree with this I'm sure there will be just as many that don't. But my personal feelings of sadness or happiness are my own and can't be taken from me. It's just nice to share and hear other experiences to learn from and reject or adopt from others.

Smiles

 

[Sylvester017]

Very interested in what everyone that has house chickens house them in ?
and what do you do with them during the day when you are at work ??

Please post pictures.

We set up a tall folding dog kennel 4x4 and 3-feet tall sitting on a thick plastic sheet taped to the floor/rug with wide blue painter's tape (12 months later that stuff is STILL in place!). We line the top of the plastic sheet with our old Wall Street Journals and every day just roll up the spilled feed and poops. We don't use any slick colored newspaper sheets.

Anyway the pen is portable with no floor and no top - the 8 kennel panels can be configured in any shape like octagon, square, or rectangle and more panels can be bought individually to make it bigger - Walmart had the best prices on these collapsible kennel walls that fold flat and out of the way with no top or botton panels to deal with. Ours is 3 feet tall (they also come in shorter or taller heights) with an access gate in one of the panels so we can get into the pen. Silkies can't fly so having a roof on the kennel was never a need and not having a roof means we can stand in the cage during daily cleanup.

This kennel was what we used when we had to quarantine juveniles before introducing them to the main flock. Today we use it as an isolation pen or hospital pen for sick or recuperating birds. For LF we clip a bird net to the top of the kennel to keep them from flying out. The 4x4 kennel dimensions would make a nice nursery for chicks if a smaller guage wire border were fastened around the perimeter base as a chick barrier. We put a portable perch in it and a nestbox. In fact one of our Silkies comes into the house to lay her egg in the pen and goes back outside again. Silly but my DH is a softie and lets her.