people with house chickens

[pkw]

Whenever I tell people about our former house hen (she was a red star I believe) they can't believe it. We used to have over 300 chickens way back in 2002. We called this one hen Red. We would leave our sliding glass door open until it got hot and then closed it up when it was time to turn on the air. Well Red decided one day to come in the house while the ducks and other chickens waited outside and she got up on the back of our couch and watched tv. She even took it upon herself to explorer our house and would go get in bed with my husband (then he was working night shift and slept in the day). From that day on she would peck at the sliding glass door whenever she wanted to come in. Sometimes Red would be in our house for up to 3 hours at a time and that hen never, never pooped in our house or on our furniture. She was potty trained on her own with no training from us.

She was the only one we ever let in the house for any length of time though because the others would have just been a chicken in our house. Red died while laying an egg one day. The egg had broken while she was laying it (I found a broken egg coming of her and there was also a really large lizard in the hen house near her too).

She was such an awesome hen and we missed her when she died.

 

[mylittlechickpea]

Pretty Chicken, nice video, I thought it was great

As soon as I turned it on Chickpea went in the other direction. I don't think she fancies The Colonel

But when I found some other vids of hens clucking she came running back! And looked with such curiosity, I just think she's too cute

PKW, sorry to hear about Red, she sounds like she was doll. Did she ever wake your hubby with a kiss

 

[pretty_chicken]

I wish the Colonel was as modest about his bathroom breaks in the house as Red was, she sounds like she was one of a kind. I have the movie "Mad City Chickens" on dvd, and I was watching it last night with my roo and he was totally into watching the chickens on the tv. My DH thought it was so weird that he actually watched the movie! I wonder if house chickens like Colonel and Chickpea like to watch chickens on tv because they are the only chickens in the house?

 

[77horses]

I have a house rooster named Ivory!

Well, he used to be a house rooster, until he moved into his new coop for the first time.

He was a runt because of stunted growth, and he was the only chick to hatch out of a total of 3 eggs in an incubator test run, so I kept him in his own brooder box in my bedroom since the day he hatched until he moved into his coop on Sunday, which means that he lived in his own brooder box in my bedroom for almost 4 months! I really enjoyed it and will miss saying good night to him every night (and he would always respond with a deep gurgling/purring sound!

And he still does now!) and good morning to him every morning while he was in his brooder box. I still always say good night to him when it's time to close up the coop and I go out every morning before school to say good morning to him and the broody hen with her chicks, who are sharing the coop with him.

He follows me around EVERYWHERE and I brought him on many many many road trips in the car, which he loved to do. He would either sit in my lap the whole way or in his small traveling cardboard box, and he was/is really well-behaved. I found out that if a chicken is sitting in your car window while you're driving down the highway, you may get some strange expressions from other people who are passing by!

Ivory loves looking out the window while we're driving; he'll make startled clucking noises at cars driving by, too.

But while he's now in his own coop, learning to be a non-house rooster for the first time, I still bring him with me when I go to certain places. I visit him many times during the day and let him out so he can follow me around in the yard. I wish he would crow more often, because it sounds so funny when he's just learning how to do it now and he first started crowing while he was in my bedroom in his brooder box! That was a surprise when I first heard it!

Here's Ivory, getting ready for a nap on my bed while I was reading a book:

And here he is in his new run area near his coop:

 

[FeatherMommy]

Ya know, I am curious about that to. Sylar won't pay attention to the tv or computer to save her life but my new chicken Akello is constantly on my desk staring at the computer when I am on here doing stuff. It is like she is glued to the thing and she will sit on my lap and watch movies when I am watching them.

Quote:

 

[FeatherMommy]

77horses that is one beautiful rooster you have there!!

 

[mylittlechickpea]

Dust bathing?

So Chickpea doesn't get out as often as she should, and when I do go out back with her she is much too worried about eating as many weeds as she can before I herd her back into the house.

When I'm watching tv, or just in the living room, she'll hop up onto the tv stand, which is brown, and flop around like a tard. She looks like she's having fun, at least. She'll flop her wings about and "scoop" with them. And she does this weird half hop dancey thing and she goes backwards, one of these days i'll have to get a video of it to post up. And about fifty percent of the time she won't notice she's headed towards the edge and plop off. Luckily it's only about two feet up, and I think she lands on her feet.

Anyways, is this her little version of a dust bath?

 

[sandiklaws]

love this thread

 

[77horses]

Quote:
Thanks!

He's my adorable little baby rooster!

 

[iluvcks]

Some of you may know that I started this thread. Well I thought I was out of the club. Gabby spent three nights in the coop with the other girls. But now shes back. Been inside the last few nights. They had picked on her agoin just a little bit, but enough for her to know shed rather sleep with dogs than chickens. LOL