Raising Chickens in an Apartment

[priszilla]

seramas are the way to go

 

[danischi24]

I could go on & on about how it's human perception at fault but that would take too long. Dogs are confined in apartments often alone. So are cats. These animals have just the same instincts as chickens. Parrots are so close to the originals that the species we keep, naturally occur in their wild state flying around freely instead of locked in a cage, often 24 hours a day. But chickens inside, YIKES, goodness forbid!
They are "farm" animals & should be kept in tiny tractors or coops instead of being inside. I have had chickens inside & there is no smell if they are properly looked after. Leave your cat or dog's litter box alone for a week or two & see if you can be in the same room as it. There are two options for inside birds.

A: get chicken diapers & let them free range your apartment as you do with your dog/cat. This is labor intensive though as the diapers need frequent changing. It is done with dogs etc so it's no more quirky to do it with chickens. http://www.chickendiapers.com/ is where one can get chicken diapers. All they do is make your house easier to clean & less smelly because all waste is conveniently in one place for easy disposal.

B: build a coop for them inside with things to occupy them. Bantams are better because they will have more space & we all want our birds to have as much space as possible. As said above, parrots are kept all alone in cages & they are flying birds. They can't fly in their cages at all generally. Keeping 2 chickens in a coop is far more natural so if parrots don't generally commit suicide, I'm sure the chickens won't suffer. Use something to soak up smell for the base. We use ash mixed with something else as we do with our dairy calves. Chickens are kept in tiny cages for eggs & over-crowded buildings with no natural light for meat. Show chickens are often kept in cages. I think a well looked after house chicken will have a FAR better life.

My 2 cents for what it's worth & if people don't agree, no ones asking them to put the Jersey Giant in a more comfortable position to see the T.V!

 

[danischi24]

ooops-double post!

 

[DomiHentrix]

Oh I wanted to add that I change the bedding every week and my living room does NOT smell.

My bedding concists of:

White shavings

one cup dried lavender buds

one cup dried chamomile buds

I mix it all up well and put in the new bedding and they love it, they scratch and eat most of the buds all the while scenting my living room.

It seems my understanding from the original post the the poster is not getting house chickens at al, and only would like an idea of a HOW TO in order to do a give a speech. Considering the fact that we cultivated chickens for thousands of years and that they most certainly lived in dwellings I can see nothing intrinsically wrong with having a house chicken, and I don't think that it will necessarily have be a smelly venture, just alot of work. Certainly some people do keep house chickens successfully and it just seems to be a matter of being intelligent about it, understanding chickens and choosing the right breed. Wouldn't be my choice long term...but as I said, I am sure that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with keeping a chicken in the house.

 

[shelleyd2008]

I don't think it would be much different than having a large parrot...You could always get a cage with a wire bottom, and a tray underneath. put some cat litter in the bottom, where the girls can't reach it, to control the stink.

 

[IdealisticRoo]

So I know this thread is 2 years old, but I plan on taking at least some of my chickens with me when I move back to the city.

I purchased the Bantam Special from Ideal and I ended up with 3 tiny little hens that are either old english or dutch. I was out garage-saling today and found a large cage with a stand for only $7. It had tubes for ferrets to run in, but I have removed them and plan on building nest boxes to fill the approx. 6" square holes left when I removed the tubes.

I plan to add several levels of roosting dowels and several feeders with different varieties in them.

22 ounces is the adult weight for these hens, just slightly larger than a big parrot.

It may not be ideal, but it beats a battery cage and I will have fresh (albeit tiny) eggs!

I will try to photo document the various stages of this process.


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[IdealisticRoo]

Well, the tiniest bantams in the brooder were getting picked on and stepped on, so I started using my Apartment cage before it was completely ready.

I built the roosts and 1 of the nest boxes and I am really having fun with it! I looked at the pet store for ideas and WOW! They sell sticks with bolts on the end for $10-20! They sell dowels with the ends notched for $6-10.

I built the nest box out of 6" vinyl trim board. Very light and easy to cut and screw together.

So I took 1 dowel ($2.49) and cut it into 3 pieces. Two of the pieces I notched with a hand saw and they run from front to back of the cage as roosts, and the smaller 3rd piece has a hole drilled in it, with a bolt in the end to use as a perch in from of the nest box.

Here is the picture of the almost-finished apartment cage with 6 happy, safe occupants!

 

[desertdarlene]

One thing I would like to mention is make sure you're not going to get in trouble with your landlord. Where I live, you can't keep any animals there even for five minutes without getting in trouble. But, where I live, all the apartments are surrounding a courtyard and are facing each other. So, it's hard to keep anything like that a secret.

ETA: Oh, wait, this thread is old, sorry! Well, for anyone in the future who might be thinking of doing this.

 

[IdealisticRoo]

I don't have an apartment yet, but I have lived the last 15 yrs in apartments. It would have to be the right apartment with non-nosy neighbors/ landlord. Currently I stay with my parents while my father is undergoing cancer treatment. I am hoping to move back to the city after he gets better.

Just one day at a time around here....

I just think it is fun to contemplate, and it makes my city friends laugh when I talk about my "apartment-chicken project!

Right now the "apartment" chicken cage is sitting on my desk at work and the 6 little occupants are cheerfully dustbathing in the shavings and scattering them everywhere!

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[desertdarlene]

I want an apartment duck.

But, I was told that I couldn't even have a parakeet when the new management company took over recently.