Are Chickens good pets to have in the big city ?

Question

I love to have two or three chickens as pets. One roosther & two hens but I live in the city. Any ideas or are they cool to have as pets ? Thanks.

Answer 1

Yes, chickens make awesome pets! They are fun to watch and easy to keep. Not only do you get free eggs, but chickens have soft feathers, they are fun to pet and they will follow you around, and the tamer ones may even fly up on your shoulder for food. Chickens come in hundreds of different breeds and varieties in all shapes, sizes, and colors. They arent that messy either, despite what most people think. The only way they can get messy is if you dont clean their cage.
Heres what you need to do:

Check into your local city ordnances. It may be against the rules to keep chickens at all in your area, or you may be allowed to have just a few. If you are getting a rooster, check with your neighbors first since some people are annoyed by crowing. Keep in mind roosters do not just crow in the morning but all day as well. Your hens will lay eggs without a rooster, but they wont be fertile.

Have a cage ready for them. Chickens are best kept outside, and all they need is a simple place to protect them from bad weather and predators. If you have an enclosed yard, you can free-range them most of the time (they will still need a coop to sleep in at night.) For just a few chickens, you can use a dog house or kennel or a rabbit hutch. The coop needs a couple nest boxes for them to lay eggs in and some perches for them to sleep on at night. Please provide at least 4 square feet per chicken.

A good feed for chickens are pellets (lay pellets). They should have food in their feeder and fresh water at all times. In addition to this, you can also feed them table scraps, fruit, mealworms, grapes, cracked corn, bread, and just about anything.

When you pick what breed of chicken you want, keep these things in mind:
Bantams (mini chickens) make great pets and come in many different colors and shapes, but they are capable of flying over fences and generally do not lay many eggs.

There are some breeds that are freindlier than others, and some that are skittish. If you raise them as chicks and hold them a lot they will be very tame as adults. Friendly breeds include brahmas, bearded d'uccles (a bantam breed), cochins, and sometimes rhode island reds, americaunas, and australorps. Leghorns, though they lay well, are generally very skittish and do not like to be touched.

What color eggs do you want? Different breeds of chickens lay different colored eggs, ranging from white, pinkish, brown, blue/green (Americaunas chickens), and even blackish or chocolate brown (pendescenas and marans).

There are a number of hatcheries that sell day old chicks, but they usually have a minimum order of 25, so you will have to find a place to get your chickens. Check in the newspaper or ask at a local farm supply store or feed store if they sell chicks.

If you are going to have a rooster and want your hens to go broody and hatch chicks, pick a breed that has a tendency to do so. Most bantam breeds do, as well as polish chickens and cochins.

Good luck with getting chickens!

Answer 2

Most cities have ordinances against farm animals within city limits, so check on that first.
Second, your neighbor's will hate you if you get a rooster. They are very noisy.
You don't need to have a rooster to get eggs from a hen. Hens will function just fine without a man around : )
Chickens are great if you are looking to lead a more sustainable life and eat your own eggs. However, I wouldn't say they are great "pets". They are messy and not great to keep inside, although some people do.
If you can have chickens within city limts, be sure they have outdoor space to walk around in and proper protection. Cities can actually be hot spots for raccoons and foxes, so be sure the chickens are not easily accessible.
This is a great documentary about chickens: The Natural History of The Chicken. It's entertaining and informative on some level. There is a woman in the movie who has a pampered indoor pet chicken, she's a little nuts, but maybe you are too : )

Answer 3

My short answer would be no, but my cousin kept chickens in Minneapolis.
Minneapolis also has a chicken rescue called Chicken Run. The chickens they rescue all go on to pet homes, some of them at least, as house chickens.
While many places have laws against chickens some cities don't, so you'll have to check.
Most things are possible so if you really want a chicken after doing all the research possible, and it's legal where you live, go for it.

Answer 4

I have a friend in Adelaide (Australia) who had a pet chicken for several years, and said it made a WONDERFUL pet. It was mostly an inside pet, and she didn't have carpets, so she could clean up after her almost constantly. (They ARE very messy.)

Little Poppet dutifully supplied eggs almost every day that were MUCH better than store-bought, and was very affectionate....every time my friend sat down to watch TV, Poppet jumped into her lap. She had her own crate in the kitchen floor, and a big basket of her own that she loved.

She did have some problems once she tried to give her some time outdoors. Poppet got worms and had to be treated, then had a terrible reaction almost like a burn over her legs and tummy from something that had been put on the grass (lime, maybe?) She eventually got a disease (I forget what it was, but it was something relatively common that she picked up outside) and died.

My experience wasn't nearly as good. I adopted two half-grown roosters that were being abused. They, were mostly outside birds, but would come in to eat and sleep. One of them was very affectionate, and would go to sleep in my lap while I was scratching him. The really, really, REALLY bad thing about roosters is that they make a lot of noise. These guys crowed day and night. We lost a LOT of sleep.

They both ALSO picked up a common disease in the dirt. We treated them several times, but they kept getting re-infected. Because I have parrots and worried about them getting it, the last time I had them treated I gave them away to a family with a farm.

They do make wonderful pets. What I would recommend is that you get ONE hen. Two in the house is too many. No roosters. And I would keep it strictly indoors, since once they get outside you have the problems of disease, dogs, cats, neighbors, etc. If possible, get a young chicken or baby chick and it will be more attached to you. You'll need someone who knows how to tell their sex so you can avoid getting a rooster. (You have to look inside their vent.....their bottom).

Be prepared to clean up after it almost constantly. (If I remember correctly, they poop about once every half hour or so). If you work or go to school, you'll need to close it in one room, since otherwise it will be rooting through stuff on the kitchen counter.....not good.

Make sure everyone in the family says it's ok. It would be tragic to get attached to it and then have to get rid of it because the family didn't like it.

Hope this helps. :)

Answer 5

Farm life definitely =) My house burnt down and we moved into the city. The only plus was being closer to the stores. We finally moved back out in the country and can't be happier. The dogs love all the extra room to roam and we love the privacy. We built the dogs a big pen to put them in when we leave to go to town. We don't want them roaming about when we're not home. 70 acres, I'm Sooo jealous ;)

Answer 6

They'll be fine when they're chicks because they don't need that much space. But once they grow up, if you don't have a garden where they can range freely then I don't really think it;s a very good idea. You could try having fish, although they aren't much fun, or hamsters, or any other small animal that doesn't need much space. You could also try a cat or a small toy dog.

Answer 7

NO.

If you want chickens move to the country side. Chickens are messy, smelly and noisy and need alot of room, they are the opposite of good city pets.

Answer 8

no not really because then u would have to have a gate in order to keep the chickens from running away or getting squashed by cars but only 2 or 3 proably would be fine but then people woulden't want to go to your house because they could get ticks because sometimes chickens could have ticks. mabe a snake would be cool