A Pet's View / August 2007
Hot Chicks
 Frizzle Cochin
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For a friendly, fluffy, backyard pet, some families are choosing chickens. Besides their eggs and aesthetics, chickens are natural gardeners-great at pulling weeds and generating organic fertilizer.
Chicks are surprisingly easy to tame. They learn best through positive reinforcements and food rewards.
Growing chickens can be tamed by feeding them special treats by hand, and by being with them for at least ten minutes daily when they are young As long as they are handled gently and treated well, they make perfectly acceptable pets that often follow their caregiver, and will even sit in a lap or perch on a shoulder. Older birds can be tamed considerably by hand-feeding leftover table scraps but grown chickens are generally a challenge far beyond the average family’s capacity to accept.
Zoning laws vary from town to township, and should be checked before the chicken comes to roost. Since housebreaking a chicken is difficult at best, most chickens are kept outside. Some communities ban roosters, but allow the quiet hens. They must have a place safe from predators to sleep. Raccoons, feral cats and stray dogs may find chicks irresistible.
Chicks should have a variety of perches available for sitting. Chickens are creatures of habit and will usually choose the same spot to perch or snooze. During the day, they will sunbathe, scratch in the dirt, forage for insects and nibble at greens. Pet stores and feed store sell pellets or mash and pre-mixed grain to supplement their diet. Chickens seem to prefer the grain scattered, just for the pleasure of scratching for it. They also will peck at fresh vegetables hung or placed where they can get to them. Many chickens also enjoy corn, wheat, or sunflower seeds as a treat. Also, chickens will eat most any kind of food scraps. The birds will pick at plants and grass and may damage ground-cover with their scratching.
Like all creatures, chickens need fresh water is available at all times.
 Polish Bantam
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Plan ahead before purchasing a chick. Cleanliness is the single biggest contributor to chicken health. Their feed and watering equipment should be protected from contamination and their shelter should be easy to clean. The secure place for sleeping can be simple or elaborate, but some kind of bedding like straw or wood shavings should be provided on the floor. Chickens naturally return to the same spot to roost every night. Nest boxes will make egg collection easier. Most chickens cannot fly well and are easily contained with 3-4’ fencing.
The best way to make a pet from a chicken is to raise them as chicks or semi-fledglings. Chickens raised with love and affection have vastly different temperaments than those treated as livestock. Roosters or hens raised by the same owner from birth, have very different personalities than chickens adopted as adults.
Chickens are inquisitive and quite vocal. They communicate by clucking, cackling or crowing but also whistle, moan, cheep, sing and actually coo.
Chickens are extremely diverse and come with amazing patterns, gorgeous colors, a variety of feather-types and a diversity of shapes and sizes. Besides the incredible array of colors, speckles and lacings, some chickens, like cochins and brahmas, have fluffy, feathered feet. Frizzle cochins have curly feathers. Houdans and Polish chickens have crested headdresses. Silkies have long silky, hair-like coats. Some chickens have such striking plumage, they are raised strictly for ornamental purposes.
Bantams, are small, sociable birds that fit in most readily to an urban back yard. They come in about 400 color variations. But there are plain, fancy and exotic chickens to suit any taste or personality.
The average lifespan of a pet chicken is fifteen years, so choose a chicken with the same care as a dog or cat. Even if it turns out a pet chicken isn’t something the kids would crow about, check out the extraordinary book, Extraordinary Chickens by Stephen Green-Armytage, a photographic essay of the incredible, unusual breeds of chickens from around the world. It’s an amazing book that skewers the idea that chickens are, well, just chickens. PL
Copyright © 2007 A Woman's View. All rights reserved.
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