So how long CAN I keep my chicks in the house?

[MarieNC]

My 6 girls are 7 weeks old today and still living in one of out bathrooms. We had been WAY behind in building our coop b/c my husband broke his wrist. We ordered a shed which arrived two days ago, and were outfitting it with me doing a lot of the heavy work, like digging the post holes for the run (we live in red clay country),and now my husband has developed another health issue which may keep him from helping me work on the coop. Is it OK for me to keep the girls in the house for possibly several more weeks? They have plenty of room to run around and seem happy. Just wonderin'.....

 

[Ms.FuzzyButts]

You can keep them in the house as long as you can stand it. Lots of people keep house chickens.

 

[Monkie_777]

I don't see why not..I mean there are people on here that have house chickens..this means chickens in the house permenatley....I wish you the best of luck..my chicks just went out to there coop this afternoon....

 

[blefky]

IMO it's way harder on you than the chicks to keep them in the house, as long as they have adequate room to move around. I couldn't wait to get mine outside, but I had a delay on the coop/run as well and some of mine were 10 weeks old by the time I got them outside. My place looked like someone had been cutting drywall in there on a daily basis. I hope never to repeat that!

 

[MarieNC]

Well thank you all! I didn't even realize that some people keep house chickens. They pretty much have a decent sized guest bathroom to themselves. They were confined to a wardrobe box and a larger cardboard box stapled together with a door in between, but I opened up another door to the bathroom floor and just put wood shavings right down on the floor. It's much cleaner than when they would sit on the edges of the boxes and then..."splat"! My husband just looked at me in utter disbelief when I told him the chicks had complete run of the bathroom, but the place was a messy disaster as it was - surely it couldn't be worse! And they seem to be very happy walking around on the floor. I sit on a stool amongst them and they take turns sitting in my lap.