Does anyone have pet chickens/other poultry/farm animals?
Posted by dl-bailey on Aug 07, 2009 · Member since Oct 2008 · 286 posts
I was just wondering if anyone else has chickens. ducks, rabbits, pot bell pigs, etc. as pets.
I have three sweet and beautiful hens. Unfortunatley, I bought then as chicks and didn't adopt them from a rescue. (Plan on doing it next time around.) Still, they have a much better life then most chickens. Full run of my backyard, sleep inside and lots of hugs and kisses.
Has anyone adopted a farm animal or support a sanctuary?
DB
Vegheadzelia used to have a chicken rescue....she's the only one that I can think of off the top of my head.
We have two chickens, and my mom has four. One is a rescue, and a couple are from a little girl at the county fair. My mom always says chickens aren't for the faint of heart. My japanese bantam is 6 and still lays in the summer.
I have a bunny. :)
Katie claims that a chicken used to live with her when she was little. She named it Henrietta Clucky, and she was very sad when it passed away.
I volunteer for a rabbit sanctuary and a farm rescue sanctuary and in a bout a month I will be traveling to Washington state to intern for three month at another farm sanctuary--I love working with the animls--they are so amazing and just extra cool! I especially love the goats--I really think I would like to have my own sanctuary one day <3
I totally want to get some miniature goats! When I have a house, hopefully...
My hubby wants to get chickens. :chicken: :)
I have a rabbit too. She was discovered abandoned under a loading dock in a cage.
Odd location to dump a bunny. It was my old artist loft building... artists take in animals cast away by regular society?
yeah thats right, mirya, I did have a chicken rescue. My chickens were indoor chickens and got to have supervised time out in the back yard. I loved them and still miss them :)>>> When I have my own place I plan on doing that again.
Growing up we had pet goats and chickens (as well as the typical milieu of dogs, cats, fish, turtles, etc.)
My plan is to one day have a farmed animal sanctuary too...maybe capture and I can colaborate on that one??
We have three Bunnies. Hercules, Jenny, and Shane. We got them all from Pet Stores (I know, major bad idea...we don't like supporting breeders). But we felt really bad especially for Hercules. He has no front feet and is somewhat deformed. He has little pads on the ends of his nubs kind of like the pads on the bottom of a dogs foot. We were worried someone would take him in and not be able to care for him or end up not wanting him and passing him from house to house. Jenny is his sister and we got her so he wouldn't be lonely. Then we got Shane who we just couldn't pass up. She's a HUGE rabbit and very friendly and loving. She will literally hop up on the couch and watch TV with you if you let her. I felt like she instantly took to us in the Pet Store. Keri actually said we couldn't get her but ended up making a promise to me. She said if she was still at the Pet Store one week later and nobody had taken her we could come back and get her...so that's exactly what we did :).
Now we're saying we need to get a 4th rabbit (yikes) because Shane can't seem to get along with Hercules and Jenny no matter how many times we try to bond them. So we want to take Shane somewhere and let her sort of pick out a friend that she will get along with so she isn't all alone and lonely in her cage. Preferably from the House Rabbit Society so we can rescue a bunny :).
:bunny: :rabbit2:
yep a chicken!! it was my dogs best friend
WOW!!! I would like to start a sanctuary or at least an adoption program. It is really sad that in the county I live in has neither. We have a lot of poultry farms, but no one seems to want to care what happens to chickens or any other animal.
i had a pet chicken when i was in the caribbean.. she was a wild street chicken and just came and went as she pleased.. but i would feed them everyday and they were always around my house.. her name was bahk-a-bahk and she had a bunch of babies.. i loved her but couldnt take her with me when i moved back to the US..
also theres a chicken around the corner from me that the guys in this art studio saved from a live market.. he is a HUGE! white rooster named mr. rocky horror.. i pet him and scratch him when i walk by everyday.. :)
man, chickens are awesome! i really wish i could save some and let them live with me.. i love them so much
I personally don't own any animals, but I've worked with numerous horses that have been rescued from slaughterhouses and the track over the years. Up until he was put down, my horse Battle had been (mentally) recuperating from years on the track. Poor boy :( I love working with the rescue animals at sanctuaries in the area, those guys really are fantastic and lucky to be there.
There is a chance that we may end up taking in a rooster. I've never kept chickens, but I presume he'll want to have a few females around. I have a question for all you chicken-tenders...what is the best ratio of chickens to rooster? I don't want more chickens than absolutely necessary (initially anyway), but I'd like to keep all parties happy. Would 3 chickens be enough?
There are probably folks better placed than me to advise -- my family had chickies while I was growing up, but I haven't had any since I 'flew the coop' myself, so to speak... But here's what I'd be concerned about: the rooster will make whoopie like crazy with the hens, if memory serves (!), leading to many fertilized eggs... some of these will become hens, which said rooster will also make whoopie with like crazy; others will be roosters, which tend to fight (sometimes viciously) among themselves and with daddy-rooster... and of course, roosters are typically not easy to place as pets, so it'd be hard to find homes for them that didn't involve (gulp) unacceptable outcomes of a culinary nature... and in a closed/ small chicken society like that, inbreeding can cause health problems pretty quickly, and there's the possibility of ending up with LOTS of chickens (which dogs are notorious for, er, NOT bonding with easily in a non-prey type of venue!)...
Idk, would it be less problematic to consider another species of fowl for companionship, like a duck or a guinnea or something? Or... can hens be spayed, lol?! You may have already thought all this out, & I'm just being a worrywart... but I remember my folks struggling with this issue, of always having more chickies than planned on/ often having 'fighters' amongst the boys, trying to hurt each other... maybe specific breed of bird makes a difference? I don't recall what kind ours were...
I'm so glad you're taking him in! Wish I had more to offer... these are just some of the things I'd consider; hopefully more experienced chicksters will chime in, & we can both learn more. Chickens are fun! someday I'll have a few hens again... don't know if I could handle both genders together, tho; seems to complicate things a good bit!
Thanks HCM, food for thought. I've been focusing mostly on building a coop and trying to catch the damn thing and I hadn't considered the longer term inbreeding possibilities. Hm. I may ask the vet about spaying a hen just to see the look on her face, but the duck idea sounds doable. I'm definitely concerned about the dog issue. I'll just do my best to prevent bloodletting and work on getting everyone accustomed to having a bird around. Strangely, I'm more concerned that one of our cats will harass him/them. That cat is a menace. He bullies stray dogs! Big stray dogs!
I hadn't thought about keeping chickens without a rooster. If a predator gets to him before I do (right now he's free range and on his own.), I may get a few chickens anyway. The coop is built, I'm interested to know a chicken and it will be good for the dogs (hopefully the chickens too). We have a friend in town that keeps chickens, I'm sure they must occasionally have a few too many.
PLEASE do, tho, seek info other than mine -- remember I'm talking from childhood memories & such... maybe it wouldn't really be that bad; just investigate! :)
Most of the time, unless a doggie is already a confirmed chicken-chaser, dog-savvy folk (such as yourself!) can mandate peaceful relations... I'm excited at the prospect, on your behalf! When it's all finished, I'd love to see pics of your coop... how did you build it? What did you need? How long did it take, and what resources were helpful? (Brain-pickin' alert!... I'm not 'handy', but have a master's degree, gosh-darnit! I should be able to build a chicken coop if I want, right?!... er, maybe?!)
Have you named yon feral rooster yet?
Sadly, I think the rooster may have come to a bloody end. So infuriating! There was no reason for him or all of his chickens to die. If the woman who used to keep them had just mentioned it to us a month ago, instead of abandoning them, all would be well. $#^@! humans. The especially irritating thing is that -of course she has lost no sleep over it, but the hubby and I have spent countless hours dealing with it, just to have them all killed anyway.
The chicken coop is built in Yucatecan style, which means bodged together with whatever I had around. A few old doors, some wire, bamboo and an old tarp....compared to what they had, it's pretty posh. It survived some pretty strong winds last night, so it's sturdy. Now the question is to tear it down or get a few chicks.
$#^@! humans.
Amen... $#^@! $#^@! $#^@!!! >:(
WHY are people LIKE this???!!! I suffer from acute anthropomorhoembarrassment: I'm ashamed of my species... sometimes it's hard to hold my head up, around the other creatures, knowing what a pain in the ass MY kind are to everyone else... :-[
Don't tear it down! at least not yet... unless you need the materials or space, I'd leave it for a while & see if new function for it emerges... btw, guinneas eat fleas & ticks in the yard, and are very comical yard pets. Just sayin. ::)
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