people with house chickens

[LadyVictorian]

Aaaawwwww they are precious! Just out of curiosity, if I can have some, what would I need to get started? I know chicks would need a brooder/heat light, a pen with bedding (what kind do you recommend? Wood chips? Papper bedding?) And a feeder and waterer, anything else? I know nesting boxes when they get a little bigger. I've looked into coops outside but have only recently thought about having house chickens so I'm still not sure what exactly they'd need or how to set up an indoor area for them.

I got 'mess free' type stuff since my kiddo's are still living indoors right now. For their current pen I got a rabbit playpen with the bottom liner, you have to buy them separate but it was worth it. I also put a tarp down and pulled it up around the sides and put in wood shavings. It was safe to hook up a heat lamp to since it's metal at the top so no fear of anything getting too hot and catching fire. I also got a waterer with the cups, it's SOOOO much easier to clean and no spills or chickens going for a swim. Sora one of my boy's decided he was going to become a duck and enjoyed splashing around in the standard water fountain. The have to tap on a yellow lever that lets water come out of the jug and collects into the cups that they can sip out of. It doesn't jam or get junked up and it's easy to clean.I also have a feeder that is a galvanized trough you can hang up so they can't dig in it and kick food all over the place. As for a coop outside if you plan to have them live outside you would need something like a small shed and a run or fence in yard, if they will be house chickens you put outside during the day you can just have a fenced in yard or run with a little shelter for shade and wind. Nesting boxes for hens are a must though sometimes they will go make up their own nests. I also got my chickens a bowl I fill with dirt from outside so they can take dust baths while indoors and I got them a treat bowl. It's actually a parrot dish but I put mealworms, scratch, and chicken treats in it for them once a day so they can entertain themselves with new things. For my house chickens I also have a mirror for parrots, parrot perches attached to the side of the rabbit playpen so when they sleep they can perch up, AND I have a few parrot toys. They love the mirror the most. If you keep house chickens diapers are needed. It keeps them from pooping all over the house. I made home made ones I throw away out of those white masks painters wear. If I decide to make my silkies house chickens long term I'll probably buy some cute fancy diapers for them to run around in. Also a good chick starter for when you first get your chicks. I gave mine a 20% protein starter for the first month. After that I switched to the 18% chick stater. I also have them on the 20% again right now because they are shedding their feathers and growing in new ones. Once you get older hens having a little dish with oyster shells available to them is also nice because then they have calcium supplement to make sure those egg shells are always nice and solid. As for me I am also getting a few chicken leashes because I want to start bringing the 'flock' to the local park since the dogs now have a locked up dog yard where they all go. I won't have to worry this spring and summer about a dog getting them at the park and they will love going to eat all the bugs in our park. They certainly don't use bug sprays there, it's like grasshopper and wood tick central there >.<

 

[Sylvester017]

Hhhhmmm, I'll have to look into it. It doesn't specify yard or house on the city's website, it just says no poultry. But I may ask. If I could, I would love too! Yeah, I would want at least 2. My hubby keeps saying 1 but I would hate for her to be lonely so I'd want 2 or 3. And we have a perfect space for them and could let them out in the garden to forage for a bit every day which would help us keep bugs out of the garden. I love that as a nest box! It's perfect. Also, we have a group that I'm a part of that's trying to get the law changed because the next town over allows I think 4 or 5 chickens per household and they don't have any issues with it. We're getting a petition signed and already have 467 signatures the last time I checked, so here's hoping!

Getting city ordinances changed can be time consuming writing letters, attending council meetings, gathering enough interested people to attend the council meetings, etc, so be diligent -- otherwise the council doesn't care if you don't show up -- they just want to get their little paychecks every meeting and don't want to approve those nasty smelling chickens (yet most cities allow up to 4 dogs per household with all THEIR smelly poop and have no licensing for pet cats loose in the neighborhood)! Any household pet requires preparation -- cats are solitary and don't really care to have a companion as adults, dogs are pack animals and if they don't have a dog companion will use their human as part of the pack, but chickens have flock mentality and need at least two together. If you can accommodate more it's fun but with 3 birds one will always be odd-man out as we found out. Two or four is a good number and if in-house two is more than enough IMO

 

[Sylvester017]

Hhhhmmm, I'll have to look into it. It doesn't specify yard or house on the city's website, it just says no poultry. But I may ask. If I could, I would love too! Yeah, I would want at least 2. My hubby keeps saying 1 but I would hate for her to be lonely so I'd want 2 or 3. And we have a perfect space for them and could let them out in the garden to forage for a bit every day which would help us keep bugs out of the garden. I love that as a nest box! It's perfect. Also, we have a group that I'm a part of that's trying to get the law changed because the next town over allows I think 4 or 5 chickens per household and they don't have any issues with it. We're getting a petition signed and already have 467 signatures the last time I checked, so here's hoping!

LadyVictorian has answered nicely. Do what works for your household. We kept our first Silkie indoors for 3 months because she was too young to join the outdoor birds. At first she wanted to sleep on my DH's favorite kitchen chair but once he sat on an egg unawares that was the end of her sleeping on his chair. We got a 4x4 dog kennel fence with a walk in people door and put the Homz Storage tote for her to sleep in and lay her eggs. The rest of the daytime she was free to roam the house in her diaper. Sometimes we had to change it midday if it was a juicy or smelly poop so it's necessary to have extra diapers available. Also, we washed and blow-dried her tush/vent between diaper changes so the wet poop didn't dry hard or irritate the skin. Overnight there was no need to have diapers and let the vent/ tush "breathe" overnight. You can see this can be a lot of work and having two Silkies makes double the work so think about it. Other owners don't have diapers on their Silkies and let them roam on tile or wood floors and just clean up right away after them -- all depends of what kind of time you have. I have tile floors so indoor or quarantine chickens don't wear diapers any more. I put large bath towels over a couple area rugs and pick up poop right away. The towels launder well. Newspapers work in a pinch while the towels are laundering. If I have just one bird in the house recuperating from illness or in quarantine we provide a door mirror for her to sleep next to and talk to her reflection.

A new Breda pullet arrival in quarantine - right out of the shipping box she had to check out the "other" bird

 

[Wolfstead]

Yeah we've been trying for a couple years, we're getting close though. There's lots of interest in the community so I'm hoping it changes soon. Hopefully before we move out of town in a few years. Lol I totally agree that not allowing chickens is stupid when they allow dogs and cats and with all the dogs running around and cats having kittens, how could a couple house chickens be any more of an issue? Especially with hens! Roosters I could maybe understand a little more because of the crowing, but even then, again, dogs bark all the time and are loud. The next town over, just 20 minutes away allows them with no issues. Yeah that's what I've told him. He says he definitely wouldn't mind 2. Of course, once we are out on our land, I want a small flock of 6 or so, but here in the house, 2 I think would be perfect. That makes sense about odd numbers, I never thought about that. 4 would be fun, but I think with the space we have, 2 would be more manageable. Especially since we already have a small zoo of other animals. Lol I'll have to ask around about whether house chickens are allowed or not. I really hope they are, if not, then I'll just have to keep fighting to get that changed. I honestly don't understand why they wouldn't. I mean, if they are inside a majority of the time, and hens who are quite, what would the issue be? But then I'll never understand bureaucrats and city officials.

 

[Anansi]

We had a bantam walk in to our garage and lives last October, soaking wet from the rain. For a few weeks she stayed in a dog crate. She now has a 16 sq ft pen in our living room. The floor is plywood with tile on it. She only wears a diaper when she goes out around the house.

 

[Sylvester017]

We had a bantam walk in to our garage and lives last October, soaking wet from the rain. For a few weeks she stayed in a dog crate. She now has a 16 sq ft pen in our living room. The floor is plywood with tile on it. She only wears a diaper when she goes out around the house.

And you MUST post pics if you can!

 

[Anansi]

 

[LadyVictorian]

awwww, she is so cute.

 

[MageofMist]

I have some Silkies free-ranging in the kitchen, as we were worried it would be too cold for them and I didn't feel safe letting them stay out after we recently got them. They are super sweet and my little flock of a hen and roo is gonna expand soon with the hen going broody.

She is a real character, very outgoing and readily takes treats from your hand and even runs over to you, while the rooster is more wary. Also being super broody she refuses to budge off her 14 related eggs and 3 adopted quail eggs (In the yellow dummy ones) as so I have to be a nanny to her, bringing her food and water as well as taking her off the nest for toilet breaks... Oh boy, can she scream the house down! This morning she was in a very bad mood and so she was mock-charging at me in order to try and scare me away from her nest, as I refused to let her back on until she pooped. She always stopped at the last second as she knew I wouldn't move. She does peck at me at times when I check to see if all eggs are fitting under her properly, but I hardly feel them.

The most amusing part of today was... She stopped her tantrum for a minute, just drinking from the water bowl peacefully... Before then starting up again with the tantrum.

Hen: "MY EGGS! LET ME BACK ON- oh, one second, lemme get a drink... Gulp, gulp, gulp Ah... Oh. MY EGGS! LET ME BACK ON THE NEST! NOW!"

The rooster is also quite the character, very sweet yet also a little skittish, he dislikes being picked up, but if you set him down on your lap and give him some sunflower seeds, he pretty much turns into a lap-cat.

He is more wary than the hen, hesitant to take treats from you unless they are something he REALLY likes or if the hen is gobbling them all up before he feels he can get some, he also rarely jumps at me, being very docile. The only times when he does jump is when I am dealing with the hen throwing a tantrum, or when I was herding them back inside when it started raining and the roo didn't like me herding his hen. He is also very sweet and docile towards his mate, letting her crawl under him when it is time to sleep and so until the hen went broody and stuck to the nest, he spent pretty much every night sleeping while standing.

With him not really having any hens to mate with at the moment though, with the only hen being broody, he can be a little pushy with her when she is off the nest with his mating dances around her and getting in her way, but isn't aggressive towards her and I doubt he'd be aggressive towards the chicks. I still pick him up and hold him when she is off the nest though so she can eat and drink in peace without him running around her while showing off how pretty his wing feathers are.

If he does attack the chicks when they hatch, he'll be put in the chicken jail. A large dog crate we got for future implementation in the coop we are gonna build outside.

He is quite the handsome roo also. This is him when he was outside dealing with the pesky slugs and snails that attack our strawberry plants. ^^

 

[drumstick diva]

very pretty silkies. I wonder what he'll do after her eggs hatch. Some silkie roos will keep the chicks warm while mama takes a break for herself. That would be cute if he did it also.