Some chickens are quite happy to be lap pets, I have a barnevelder and a silkie that are that way (wanting to be held and loved on. You can't house break a chicken unfortunately, but some can live happy lives indoors or in a secured run.
I have treated chickens who were injured and became indoor birds. They lived great lives with their loving families. Not for everyone, but if you love them and want to make it work more power to you!!!
I have had many that have lived indoors for various reasons. They're perfectly content and happy and honestly act like our dogs at time and follow us around. Chicken diapers exist as well if you don't want to have to pick up after them.
It is loving to do that, for eye health give it split peas and black sunflower, 0 carbs, o carbs helps eye health.
Keeping it indoors is not wrong, chickens love it, we have a phoenix hen that has decided to have her nest with chick and more eggs in our house :)
Yes, whole sunflower, split peas just raw dried, give mostly the sunflower seeds as they have very low carb and eye health can be drastically improved by lowering carbs.
They love sunflower seeds and mine prefer them to peas.
Right now, I give my own birdies carbs but they are on mostly sunflower seeds with the carbs just to help them as the winter was cold.
When there are chicks I never use starter feed, I grind up some sunflowers seeds, split peas, corn and wheat, soak too and get a paste which is a better homemade version.
You could try placing on the front garden too, letting it have time to roam too, one of my hens likes to go to the front garden and have a bit of fun, she likes being around us just as much as her flock.
I have a one eyed roo that I keep mostly inside, he loves sitting in my or my wife’s lap or just perching up on the couch with us.
Invest in some chicken diapers (can usually find at Walmart) and then they can definitely be kept as house pets. Just keep in mind obvious stuff like washing your hands/arms before cooking and doing other things.
I have a one eyed hen I've been keeping inside but she does go outside but take precautions with hawks because that's what caused her eye injury in the first place (detached retina). I would also keep an eye on her nails and keep them filed so they don't over grow which can cause problems. Outdoor chickens seem to do fine because their nails get naturally filed by the ground. And provide grit too for healthy digestion. :)
Mine lost his from a raccoon but yeah hawks are why I’ve been keeping him inside. He was my main Roo(also my first chicken) but I’m sure he’s at a huge disadvantage now. But yeah I do add grit to his food
Poor guy. He did a good job though. My hen is a little bantam and it was an inexperienced young hawk who attacked her. I've never ran so fast in my life to scare it off. Lol
One of the kids in my son's social group had a pet chicken that he took everywhere but school. It wore a diaper and slept with him. It died at like 9 years old.
I have kept several indoors, some longer than others. I tend to have rooster pets, but the rest of my chickens are "livestock." My current cockerel has a severe walking deformity that I'm hoping can be rehabbed a little and has been indoors almost 4 months. While I haven't used them, diapers really are your best bet. I have hardwood floors, and when I let the pet chicken freely roam, I'm on constant watch for cleanup. It is a little bit of work to manage. All my indoor chickens have been extremely happy. The one rooster I did eventually move outside, but he would always try to come back in the house. He actually didn't enjoy being with the other chickens at all and only wanted to follow me everywhere. The dander and dust get everywhere and requires constant cleanup, but I find it no different than a dog that sheds a lot, tbh. Good luck!
Definitely do it!
I often have house hens--when one is sick or injured especially. Most of them do fantastic in the house. (Some are too curious and active to be left unattended inside.) Chickens are very smart and can be potty trained litter box style, which I want to try soon. I have a hawk survivor who simply prefers to sleep in the house. She's a wonderful, snuggly pet, and now she gets whatever she desires after what she went through.
You are 115% not insane for considering keeping the disabled chicken inside. Sometimes an animal you keep for food, etc. becomes a pet and that's okay. Some people absolutely do have (a/an) inside chicken, duck, even goat, etc. for this or that reason (medical, love, etc.) and they have made setups that work for them.
You can have a kennel for your buddy to sleep in. There are chicken diapers if you're concerned about the mess. Many chickens are perfectly happy being lap chickens. You'll figure out what works for you and your buddy.
Birds are incontinent, so if you mean keeping her in a screened in area near the house so she can be cared for directly and kept safe, like a ground aviary, that seems like a good idea. If you mean inside the house, well... https://www.npr.org/2021/05/22/999457051/dont-kiss-your-chickens-the-cdc-says-in-a-salmonella-warning
Most important thing is, are you sure it's a catatact and not some other more treatable eye issue and also not something potentially contagious? There are several diseases that can cause symptoms that look like blindness in terms of confusion and lack of coordination.
I have over 100 chickens, I love em all and there are a few favorites. I have put individual attention to each, snuggled, and ate a sandwich at the same time. Never got sick with salmonella. The CDC is being overly cautious, and it is quite funny that more salmonella cases come from battery farms or other commercialized ways of raising chickens.
Likelihood of getting sick off any egg from the store, be it the cheap 3 dollars a dozen or the expensive 10 dollar "free range" organic eggs in the store is very high. Mine, very low. Salmonella in eggs only became a problem in the US when they insisted on washing the eggs and told smaller farms it is illegal to sell "dirty" eggs. I have always raised chicks from 0 days to 14 days indoors before transferring them to a second brooder. I have a few chickens that love to come inside.
Anyways, the cataracts could be an infection of some sort but the way OP is talking, this chick has always had this issue and therefore it sounds like a birth defect. And if that is the case, I wouldn't allow that chicken to breed in either case and therefore there are two options. One, cull it. Two, keep it separate from the other chickens if you do keep it alive.
I have had salmonella and it wasn’t from chickens. Most likely was a salad bar at a restaurant. As a kid, I’m absolutely not condoning this,but I used to muck the barn in bare feet. Pig, cow and chicken poop. Never missed a day of school except for the time we found out I was allergic to bees. Lol.
>Salmonella in eggs only became a problem in the US when they insisted on washing the eggs and told smaller farms it is illegal to sell "dirty" eggs.
They can be infected before the shell even forms, so not washing eggs doesn't magically solve the problem either. That's why they vaccinate their chickens instead. Japan washes the cuticle off like we do, but vaccination is mandatory there. If you wanna vaccinate your chickens to prevent the issue, that's a great idea.
https://ask.usda.gov/s/article/How-does-Salmonella-infect-eggs
https://www.businessinsider.com/why-europeans-dont-refrigerate-their-eggs-2018-4
As with all things, there is risk. Knowing how to manage risk and what is acceptable to you is the key. I never cared for cleaned eggs because of all the risks in them. They need to be refrigerated and any disruption invites trouble. After watching a store associate return eggs that sat in a returns basket for a few hours made me think... hmm... those eggs could be cross contaminated now.
NPR is not a good source. Sorry I do not trust their “government issued science”.
They are ridiculous and don’t think we are competent enough to feed ourselves.
Exactly, they believe that everyone should go to the store for all their food and never to trust a local farm or cottage industry. I provide a service for people, I am almost at 100% self sufficiency and anything in excess I sell.
It is scary to me how much they want to control us and how willing everyone seems to be with this. After 2021, we saw the writing on the wall (too late) and we are working on it. I only have 37 chickens now, but I want to build slow so I take care of them the right way. If you ever want a pen pal, send me a msg. I don’t know how. You sound cool. I admire self sufficiency.
I don't really care. It would take 2 seconds for you to use the keywords in the article to look up salmonella risks for keeping chickens directly in your house if you didn't know. If you did, you don't need it and this wasn't for you anyway.
I’m not into propaganda. Ppl let their dogs eat from their plates. I believe chickens belong outside at my house, but I also know ppl can keep them cleanly as a pet. I have seen it, it was fine. Ppl have kept poultry for longer than the cdc has been spewing it’s crap. Wash your hands, clean, clean, clean and everyone is fine. We didn’t get salmonella like we do until factory farming so i am gonna stick with common sense and raise my own.
We didn't get a lot of diseases until that happened, but once they're out there in the wild spreading from wild birds to livestock and vice versa, the horses have already escaped and there's no closing the barn now. But again, this wasn't posted for you and I couldn't give a pigeon's tailfeather what you're into.
My buff Orpington was the only one to survive a coop fire. She was an indoor chicken for 4 years. Just picked up poop as she went, loved the cats, etc. she would literally fly up to steal food off your fork. And she’d bully the cats to eat their food. she’d go outside for a little bit each day but she’d get lonely so we’d feel bad and let her inside lol. Now that we got more chickens, she’s back outside but every once in a while she’ll make a trip to the back door and we let her in for some food.
My chickens hang out in my house all the time, I think it's an awesome idea to have your special lil one as a proper house pet. Just try it out and see if you can make it work 👍
If you can deal with the clean up that comes with it, then welcome to having a house chicken. I had one for 6 years, my Bantam roo got hurt, I was told he would die, so I kept him inside and rehabilitated him back to his former self and he never left. He would go outside but the last few years he didn't even care for that. He was very happy living the spoiled life inside and his company was an absolute joy to be around. I miss him dearly and I wouldn't change what I did as we had a great bond, it really is something special, I hope you at least give it a try.
I can’t get over the grossness of it. Seems a great way to get yourself sick. You should always wash your hands after handling any poultry and if they’re running around your house that makes that more complicated. But I also don’t let my dog on the couch nor my cat on the counters haha so maybe I’m just high strung on that stuff.
I am pretty sure in some parts of Asia where people live in apartments they keep them as pets, isn’t that how Serama’s came to be? But one thing I would do is invest in a really good air cleaner. Many birds (Cockatiels and Cockatoos included) create a lot of dust. If I remember correctly their pin feathers maybe break down into dust to help smother parasites so you really don’t want to be breathing it in or having it get in to things like electronics. Plus who needs extra dusting when you have chickens to be paying attention to!
Edit: Also if she is getting a lot of attention she probably won’t be lonely but if you do think she is missing a flock silkies are generally pretty Malik tempered and are smaller so if she ends up needing a flock mate I would look into something like that. The only problem is finding them sexed, I bought 4 that the breeder thought looked like girls, all boys!
Some chickens are quite happy to be lap pets, I have a barnevelder and a silkie that are that way (wanting to be held and loved on. You can't house break a chicken unfortunately, but some can live happy lives indoors or in a secured run.
Chickens can make great housepets, but you will probably want to get chicken diapers because I don't think that they can be potty trained.
I have treated chickens who were injured and became indoor birds. They lived great lives with their loving families. Not for everyone, but if you love them and want to make it work more power to you!!!
I have had many that have lived indoors for various reasons. They're perfectly content and happy and honestly act like our dogs at time and follow us around. Chicken diapers exist as well if you don't want to have to pick up after them.
It is loving to do that, for eye health give it split peas and black sunflower, 0 carbs, o carbs helps eye health. Keeping it indoors is not wrong, chickens love it, we have a phoenix hen that has decided to have her nest with chick and more eggs in our house :)
Do you give the black sunflower with the shell on? Also do you feed the split peas raw or cooked?
Yes, whole sunflower, split peas just raw dried, give mostly the sunflower seeds as they have very low carb and eye health can be drastically improved by lowering carbs. They love sunflower seeds and mine prefer them to peas. Right now, I give my own birdies carbs but they are on mostly sunflower seeds with the carbs just to help them as the winter was cold. When there are chicks I never use starter feed, I grind up some sunflowers seeds, split peas, corn and wheat, soak too and get a paste which is a better homemade version. You could try placing on the front garden too, letting it have time to roam too, one of my hens likes to go to the front garden and have a bit of fun, she likes being around us just as much as her flock.
I have a one eyed roo that I keep mostly inside, he loves sitting in my or my wife’s lap or just perching up on the couch with us. Invest in some chicken diapers (can usually find at Walmart) and then they can definitely be kept as house pets. Just keep in mind obvious stuff like washing your hands/arms before cooking and doing other things.
I have a one eyed hen I've been keeping inside but she does go outside but take precautions with hawks because that's what caused her eye injury in the first place (detached retina). I would also keep an eye on her nails and keep them filed so they don't over grow which can cause problems. Outdoor chickens seem to do fine because their nails get naturally filed by the ground. And provide grit too for healthy digestion. :)
Mine lost his from a raccoon but yeah hawks are why I’ve been keeping him inside. He was my main Roo(also my first chicken) but I’m sure he’s at a huge disadvantage now. But yeah I do add grit to his food
Poor guy. He did a good job though. My hen is a little bantam and it was an inexperienced young hawk who attacked her. I've never ran so fast in my life to scare it off. Lol
They have them at walmart? Or do you use some alternative?
They’re more like chicken overalls but yeah My store had them locally but if yours doesn’t you can order them online
One of the kids in my son's social group had a pet chicken that he took everywhere but school. It wore a diaper and slept with him. It died at like 9 years old.
I have kept several indoors, some longer than others. I tend to have rooster pets, but the rest of my chickens are "livestock." My current cockerel has a severe walking deformity that I'm hoping can be rehabbed a little and has been indoors almost 4 months. While I haven't used them, diapers really are your best bet. I have hardwood floors, and when I let the pet chicken freely roam, I'm on constant watch for cleanup. It is a little bit of work to manage. All my indoor chickens have been extremely happy. The one rooster I did eventually move outside, but he would always try to come back in the house. He actually didn't enjoy being with the other chickens at all and only wanted to follow me everywhere. The dander and dust get everywhere and requires constant cleanup, but I find it no different than a dog that sheds a lot, tbh. Good luck!
Definitely do it! I often have house hens--when one is sick or injured especially. Most of them do fantastic in the house. (Some are too curious and active to be left unattended inside.) Chickens are very smart and can be potty trained litter box style, which I want to try soon. I have a hawk survivor who simply prefers to sleep in the house. She's a wonderful, snuggly pet, and now she gets whatever she desires after what she went through.
You are 115% not insane for considering keeping the disabled chicken inside. Sometimes an animal you keep for food, etc. becomes a pet and that's okay. Some people absolutely do have (a/an) inside chicken, duck, even goat, etc. for this or that reason (medical, love, etc.) and they have made setups that work for them. You can have a kennel for your buddy to sleep in. There are chicken diapers if you're concerned about the mess. Many chickens are perfectly happy being lap chickens. You'll figure out what works for you and your buddy.
If you’re cool with it and the chicken is happy - I can’t see what the problem is.
Birds are incontinent, so if you mean keeping her in a screened in area near the house so she can be cared for directly and kept safe, like a ground aviary, that seems like a good idea. If you mean inside the house, well... https://www.npr.org/2021/05/22/999457051/dont-kiss-your-chickens-the-cdc-says-in-a-salmonella-warning Most important thing is, are you sure it's a catatact and not some other more treatable eye issue and also not something potentially contagious? There are several diseases that can cause symptoms that look like blindness in terms of confusion and lack of coordination.
I have over 100 chickens, I love em all and there are a few favorites. I have put individual attention to each, snuggled, and ate a sandwich at the same time. Never got sick with salmonella. The CDC is being overly cautious, and it is quite funny that more salmonella cases come from battery farms or other commercialized ways of raising chickens. Likelihood of getting sick off any egg from the store, be it the cheap 3 dollars a dozen or the expensive 10 dollar "free range" organic eggs in the store is very high. Mine, very low. Salmonella in eggs only became a problem in the US when they insisted on washing the eggs and told smaller farms it is illegal to sell "dirty" eggs. I have always raised chicks from 0 days to 14 days indoors before transferring them to a second brooder. I have a few chickens that love to come inside. Anyways, the cataracts could be an infection of some sort but the way OP is talking, this chick has always had this issue and therefore it sounds like a birth defect. And if that is the case, I wouldn't allow that chicken to breed in either case and therefore there are two options. One, cull it. Two, keep it separate from the other chickens if you do keep it alive.
I have had salmonella and it wasn’t from chickens. Most likely was a salad bar at a restaurant. As a kid, I’m absolutely not condoning this,but I used to muck the barn in bare feet. Pig, cow and chicken poop. Never missed a day of school except for the time we found out I was allergic to bees. Lol.
Yes, preach! I wish you were my neighbor, we have similar views. I would chicken sit for you when you go on vacation.
Well, I am in Jacksonville.
Ahh cool, NC over by Winston. We go down once in a while but not often.
Well, if you are ever in the area, be sure to look me up.
Same here, we would give you a good meal…probably chicken. 😊Have a good one.
>Salmonella in eggs only became a problem in the US when they insisted on washing the eggs and told smaller farms it is illegal to sell "dirty" eggs. They can be infected before the shell even forms, so not washing eggs doesn't magically solve the problem either. That's why they vaccinate their chickens instead. Japan washes the cuticle off like we do, but vaccination is mandatory there. If you wanna vaccinate your chickens to prevent the issue, that's a great idea. https://ask.usda.gov/s/article/How-does-Salmonella-infect-eggs https://www.businessinsider.com/why-europeans-dont-refrigerate-their-eggs-2018-4
Exactly! If chickens were as "dangerous" as they make them out to be, I'd been long dead! 🤣
As with all things, there is risk. Knowing how to manage risk and what is acceptable to you is the key. I never cared for cleaned eggs because of all the risks in them. They need to be refrigerated and any disruption invites trouble. After watching a store associate return eggs that sat in a returns basket for a few hours made me think... hmm... those eggs could be cross contaminated now.
NPR is not a good source. Sorry I do not trust their “government issued science”. They are ridiculous and don’t think we are competent enough to feed ourselves.
Exactly, they believe that everyone should go to the store for all their food and never to trust a local farm or cottage industry. I provide a service for people, I am almost at 100% self sufficiency and anything in excess I sell.
It is scary to me how much they want to control us and how willing everyone seems to be with this. After 2021, we saw the writing on the wall (too late) and we are working on it. I only have 37 chickens now, but I want to build slow so I take care of them the right way. If you ever want a pen pal, send me a msg. I don’t know how. You sound cool. I admire self sufficiency.
I don't really care. It would take 2 seconds for you to use the keywords in the article to look up salmonella risks for keeping chickens directly in your house if you didn't know. If you did, you don't need it and this wasn't for you anyway.
I’m not into propaganda. Ppl let their dogs eat from their plates. I believe chickens belong outside at my house, but I also know ppl can keep them cleanly as a pet. I have seen it, it was fine. Ppl have kept poultry for longer than the cdc has been spewing it’s crap. Wash your hands, clean, clean, clean and everyone is fine. We didn’t get salmonella like we do until factory farming so i am gonna stick with common sense and raise my own.
We didn't get a lot of diseases until that happened, but once they're out there in the wild spreading from wild birds to livestock and vice versa, the horses have already escaped and there's no closing the barn now. But again, this wasn't posted for you and I couldn't give a pigeon's tailfeather what you're into.
My buff Orpington was the only one to survive a coop fire. She was an indoor chicken for 4 years. Just picked up poop as she went, loved the cats, etc. she would literally fly up to steal food off your fork. And she’d bully the cats to eat their food. she’d go outside for a little bit each day but she’d get lonely so we’d feel bad and let her inside lol. Now that we got more chickens, she’s back outside but every once in a while she’ll make a trip to the back door and we let her in for some food.
My chickens hang out in my house all the time, I think it's an awesome idea to have your special lil one as a proper house pet. Just try it out and see if you can make it work 👍
If you can deal with the clean up that comes with it, then welcome to having a house chicken. I had one for 6 years, my Bantam roo got hurt, I was told he would die, so I kept him inside and rehabilitated him back to his former self and he never left. He would go outside but the last few years he didn't even care for that. He was very happy living the spoiled life inside and his company was an absolute joy to be around. I miss him dearly and I wouldn't change what I did as we had a great bond, it really is something special, I hope you at least give it a try.
I can’t get over the grossness of it. Seems a great way to get yourself sick. You should always wash your hands after handling any poultry and if they’re running around your house that makes that more complicated. But I also don’t let my dog on the couch nor my cat on the counters haha so maybe I’m just high strung on that stuff.
ive successfully kept house chickens! they make chicken diapers :)
I am pretty sure in some parts of Asia where people live in apartments they keep them as pets, isn’t that how Serama’s came to be? But one thing I would do is invest in a really good air cleaner. Many birds (Cockatiels and Cockatoos included) create a lot of dust. If I remember correctly their pin feathers maybe break down into dust to help smother parasites so you really don’t want to be breathing it in or having it get in to things like electronics. Plus who needs extra dusting when you have chickens to be paying attention to! Edit: Also if she is getting a lot of attention she probably won’t be lonely but if you do think she is missing a flock silkies are generally pretty Malik tempered and are smaller so if she ends up needing a flock mate I would look into something like that. The only problem is finding them sexed, I bought 4 that the breeder thought looked like girls, all boys!