Dumb question. Indoor chickens?

[Magus]

Not likely. Poor things will be cage-bound from hatch to deep fry.
I'm not good with that really, but I'm looking for renewable food sources I can keep hidden.

 

[Amish Heart]

OK, it's doable. Make sure you buy meat chicks. You can butcher before 10 weeks of age. I usually get cornish, and they make a decent meal.

 

[Magus]

I could fertilize the mushrooms with the poop maybe? I know horse poo is best, followed by cow and rabbit, but I've never heard of using chicken poo. I just want eggs! LOL

 

[Jen]

They can't stink worse than cats or dogs right?

I have a friend who raises silkies. She has one girl silky that has a cage in the house. That chicken wears a special diaper. I"m not sure why she's a house girl, but the flock rooster is her husband and he won't take care of the other hens if she's around. That may be it. The friend lives a thousand miles from me so when she says her house doesn't stink, I believe it.

When I was very young, I had a pet chick that lived in a shoe box under a night light in my bed room for a few weeks.... it didn't stink at all. I'm sure I would remember. It wasn't a gift from my parents. A friend whose parents had chickens gave it to me. My parents weren't thrilled.

 

[Peanut]

Check the local chain link fence company. They replace old fence. Check for scraps, use tie wraps to hold it together, buy a bag of those for a buck. Get a couple pallets anywhere. Piece of hardware cloth and you'll have a the little fort knox of coops. Put it under a cedar tree, offers some shelter from rain, and great medicine for keeping chickens healthy. No reason not to have a good coop for less than $10 and very little effort.

 

[Peanut]

I keep 100's of lbs of feed on plastic pallets, solid tops, no holes. They'd make a great roof for a small coop. Check printing companies, news papers, it's where I get them for free. I have a couple dozen, never paid a dime.

 

[Peanut]

Lots of old chicken houses in your area, something that hasn't been used in years. Or an old barn that's falling down. There's always a few pieces of tin laying around such places. Stop when you see one, ask, see it you can get a couple pieces. If you're talking to an old farmer be straight forward. Tell'em you're trying to make a little chicken coop. They might give you a couple pieces. Might have an old 55g drum with the end cut out. Lots of drums around old farms. At worst charge you $5.

What I'm trying to say... you're only limited by you're imagination. A coop is easy, shouldn't be an impediment to having a couple hens.

 

[Peanut]

Another one for you! Funny thing about mobile homes and trailer parks… when people have to move suddenly they almost never take the dog house.

I know where 2 abandoned dog houses are as I type this… just sitting there for the taking.

 

[RJ2019]

Not likely. Poor things will be cage-bound from hatch to deep fry.
I'm not good with that really, but I'm looking for renewable food sources I can keep hidden.

Consider quail, they are easy to hide and pretty quiet.

 

[montanabill]

I grew up taking care of chickens in cages....three chickens in a small cage with water in the back which was a piece of angle iron and a rain gutter trough in the front for food. The floor was sloped to the front so when they laid a egg it rolled to the front outside the cage and we walked down the row and picked them up.
The family had 500 layers at a time and usually a few hundred fryers as well.

The poop fell thru the cage and we scooped as necessary. Get some layers and no roosters and you can have your own fresh egg factory. If times get really bad fresh food would be nice....and a good trade item.

My last batch of 13 chicks I started in the spare bathroom in a galvanized wash tub. When they got bigger they moved to the old garden shed I was given by the neighbor. It consisted of a old pickup topper on four foot plywood walls. I shopped yard sales and estate sales for fencing and chicken wire and made a small pen and then enlarged it later.
The hens slowed down and stopped and winter was coming on so they flew over the rainbow bridge..... I keep my feed in cheap plastic garbage cans the chickens feast on grasshoppers in the summer.
I have a neighbor who hatches chickens so as soon as it warms up this spring I will get another batch going..
Chicken manure is really "hot" so you want to compost it before you put it directly on plants..
Eggs have those necessary oils that humans need....tastier than possum fat.

 

[Magus]

I couldn't eat a possum or a c00n. I know what they eat, now a groundhog...

 

[joel]

Birds cause Respiratory Diseases in humans.
Psittacosis. Also known as ornithosis
Allergic alveolitis
Cryptosporidiosis
https://www.google.com/search?q=res...1MzE3OWowajeoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

 

[Magus]

I guess I'll forget it, one rooster crow will be like ringing a dinner bell for the neighborhood. it's a pity our meat is toxic to each other, I have this one bean-muncher neighbor who'd make a hundred pounds of bacon!

 

[montanabill]

Birds cause Respiratory Diseases in humans.
Psittacosis. Also known as ornithosis
Allergic alveolitis
Cryptosporidiosis
https://www.google.com/search?q=res...1MzE3OWowajeoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Excuse me while I bake up another quiche for breakfast. I have been around chickens in varying numbers all my long life.. Good ventilation in the coops and healthy birds with the ability to dust themselves and keep clean.
The egg production makes chickens one of the easiest animals to keep that provide protien and oils. Plus if they eat insects like grass hoppers their eggs contain the missing nutrients that vegetarians need.
Be sure to get all your safe vaccinations and a course of antibiotics once a month just to stay safe from all the possibilities of sickness out there.

Hens don't need roosters to lay. Roosters go in the stew pot at the first crow.. You might have to bring in fertile eggs if you want to hatch some chicks since the hens will still want to set eggs.

 

[Amish Heart]

Vaccinations and antibiotics?

 

[joel]

Excuse me while I bake up another quiche for breakfast. I have been around chickens in varying numbers all my long life.. Good ventilation in the coops and healthy birds with the ability to dust themselves and keep clean.
The egg production makes chickens one of the easiest animals to keep that provide protien and oils. Plus if they eat insects like grass hoppers their eggs contain the missing nutrients that vegetarians need.
Be sure to get all your safe vaccinations and a course of antibiotics once a month just to stay safe from all the possibilities of sickness out there.

Hens don't need roosters to lay. Roosters go in the stew pot at the first crow.. You might have to bring in fertile eggs if you want to hatch some chicks since the hens will still want to set eggs.

I was not attaching chicken, I have been around them all my life also.
But after the Biopsy with a 1% chance of bleeding out & six months steroid to suppress the Disease, because there is no cure. I am a believer.

 

[Amish Heart]

Sorry to hear about that, but what are you talking about?

 

[joel]

Sorry to hear about that, but what are you talking about?

Sarcoidosis, my doctor said it is caused by birds.

 

[rice paddy daddy]

The wife has been a chicken wrangler for 30 years now.
We've had as many as 60 at a time, presently we have 24.
We keep them for their egg production.
There is no way in the world we would keep chickens in the house!

Now, she does have the full set up to incubate and hatch fertilized eggs and we have done it in the spare bedroom, but only a few times.

 

[montanabill]

Vaccinations and antibiotics?

for people in life to stay safer.....

 

[montanabill]

I was not attaching chicken, I have been around them all my life also.
But after the Biopsy with a 1% chance of bleeding out & six months steroid to suppress the Disease, because there is no cure. I am a believer.

So sorry for your affliction with your disease...
More people than is imaginable have problems with biopsy's and get deathly ill.
My wife got type one diabetes from the flu during covid.....very very rare but possible. The list of serious problems that can be caused by innocuous things is vast but I hope and pray only a tiny percentage of people are affected.
In the mean time I continue to raise chickens and ride motorcycles..

 

[Peanut]

This is the air you don’t want to breath! I rarely go in one of my uncle’s chicken houses. It stinks, gets in your clothes, even your skin. Wearing a mask helps but not much. I’m always coughing when I leave there. I avoid them but sometimes I need to talk to my uncle. He doesn’t spend a lot of time in them either. He hires a small crew of people to work 3 houses, each has 5K roosters and 25K hens.

They are laying houses only the eggs aren’t sold to people. He contracts to a poultry company. The company picks up racks of fertilized eggs everyday and takes them to other farmers who hatch them. The chicks are then taken to yet other farmers who grow out broilers for the supermarket or KFC.

Anyway, this is the kind of place where you’d get Sarcoidosis.

 

[joel]

The wife has been a chicken wrangler for 30 years now.
We've had as many as 60 at a time, presently we have 24.
We keep them for their egg production.
There is no way in the world we would keep chickens in the house!

Now, she does have the full set up to incubate and hatch fertilized eggs and we have done it in the spare bedroom, but only a few times.

I was asleep & the problem was "IF" they nicked a blood vessel, I would bleed
out; before they could crack my chest & stop the bleeding. It did not happen, or I would not be here, it was a lawyer thing, so family could not sue if I was in the 1%.
We have chickens on the farm, my brother is the wrangler now.
I stopped riding ride motorcycles, when I stop bouncing & got married.
Have a friends that are in their seventies & still ride.

 

[Amish Heart]

Sarcoidosis, my doctor said it is caused by birds.

My husband has sarcoidosis and it's not caused by birds. Sorry you have it. He was diagnosed with it in 1994.

 

[jazzy]

mag, when you start looking for your new place, go more rural. folks there are alot more openb to helping one another--could maybe work a cover deal with a neighbor to care for and share chicken stuff.

im hearing eggs getting a bit scarcer and msre costly--on purpose we know. but you can water glass eggs for long term storage, freezing raw eggs, and you can can them. ive tried the canning and it works fine. i used wide mouth half pints, stirred raw eggs, miced in some slightly cooked sausage, canned it. its enought for 2-3 meals--slide a wet knife around the edge, slide it out and slice into 2-3 rounds

i know people who dehydrate raw eggs then powder them for later use. just add water and can cook up.

i know someone who has an unattached building sort of like a garage and have 6 chickens in there. gets smelly but he has a pen that they can roam around in and not stuck in cage 24/7

i hope you find the best place for you to settle in and brings happiness

 

[rice paddy daddy]

I eat usually 4 eggs per day.
Also, our excess is given to a few folks that have helped us over the years.
Especially now that I'm 76 and wife is 78 we are grateful for helping hands.