The Funny Farm: Chicken House Guests

I’ve never had a house chicken. Occasionally I’ve brought a sick or injured bird inside while they were recuperating from illness, but that’s the extent of my experience. I belong to a number of online chicken groups and folks often post about their indoor birds. Their stories seem to vary widely from having just one bird to a whole flock; from keeping birds predominantly outside but allowing them to come in for visits; to chickens who have lived their whole lives never having touched the ground.

The topic of house chickens seemed like it might provide fodder for memes and humorous stories. I have made a bunch of related memes and here are some tales of what might happen when you invite your feathered friends inside your home.

I messed up my chickens. I’ve been letting them out of the brooder pretty much all day because our coop and run aren’t finished, close but not good enough. They have been good house chickens but they beg for the blanket set up when it starts to get dark and have slept on it every night for the last week. They literally won’t shut up till I give them this exact set up. They have roost bars that they play on all day. but this, but this is how they want to sleep. How am I gonna fix this? – Unknown

Two mysteries solved at once. I found the missing chicken and now I know why my dryer is not working quite right. Fortunately, both are easy fixes. – Julia Tanno

I’ve been running around outside for the last hour looking for my missing hen. I finally gave up and came back in and started my housework and got quite the surprise when I reached in the dryer – Unknown

Please keep your cheeky comments to yourself. Our production of white eggs has decreased and we knew something was amiss. We have three large 75-100 lb dogs that we give access inside the house and outside to protect our large free-range flock when we run into town.

The predicament: we have a white Leghorn that breaks into the house to eat cat food. It doesn’t matter what door (with magnetic closing screen) we leave open for the dogs, she has mapped the floor plan of the house, knows the interior bedrooms, and how to traverse the upstairs and downstairs. She drives us batty and is beyond persistent in her missions. Given that the cats have been roaming the farm and living in the barn, they do not use the litter box. After hearing something peculiar occurring in the litter box this morning, this was what we discovered. – Unknown

If you think you spoil your chickens too much I present to you Gretchen, my spoiled hen. She had an incredibly hard time this spring when she began to lay again. For the first few weeks I let her inside to keep an eye on her. At first she was obsessed with my dryer before she moved onto my laundry basket. (She will ONLY use clothes as nesting material). Now that she’s better she has learned that if she screams bloody murder for hours I’ll give up and let her back inside so my neighbours don’t complain.

I now have a dedicated laundry basket with a cat bed in the middle of my kitchen for Gretchen. It even sits by my air vents so she doesn’t overheat while laying. It’s absurd, but it works.

I should add that I have a VERY firm “No House Chicken” rule. Gretchen refuses to listen to that rule and now has baby gates to keep her contained to one part of the kitchen. – Unknown

Addie (aka Potato) ran some errands with me today. Our first stop to the UPS Store was a bit revealing. I left her in the car (of course) and when I got back she was having an absolute fit. Oooookkkk….no more leaving her in the car. We stopped for a quick snack. She decided she likes Taco Bueno. Not the lettuce of course, she likes the seasoned beef – like, a lot. Then off to Tractor Supply for goat and chicken feed. I learned my lesson last time so I packed her into my purse and off we went. I never thought I’d be that person, but here we are. – Unknown

Theoretically, if you had a 9-year old chicken who had been living mostly indoors (at least overnight) for the past few months on palliative care, but was having far too good a time being pampered to go and ruin it by dying. And said chicken was becoming quite fussy in her eating, demanding blueberries, tolerating fresh cucumber, corn and apple and not much else. Then you discovered she’s much happier to eat seeds if it’s made into a porridge with oats, water, and a little yoghurt but ONLY if it has a bit of peanut butter in it. How concerned would you be about the frequency of providing a treat like peanut butter? – Vanessa McCallum

I never thought a chicken would be this fun to hang out with! I hope this is a hen because I might have to fight anyone who tries to separate me from my lounge and TV friend. – Sasha Nash

For the past few days I’ve been trying to work out why my hen has been so obsessed with coming into the house. I’ve found her multiple times prancing down my hallway like she owns the joint. I’ve been wracking my brain trying to work out how she is even getting into the house.

Today I finally caught her in the act. She sneakily opens my closed laundry window, struts herself into my bedroom, opens my walk-in wardrobe door and finds a comfy spot in my clothes and lays an egg. I’ve now found two eggs in my house (hoping there aren’t anymore) and a chicken who thinks she is a person.

I gave her a nesting box next to her entry window and think that’s solved the issue. She is very cute and now super friendly and loving all the pats and cuddles from my kids. – Unknown