Can Chickens live in the house forever?

It’s been a year and a half of dreams and unintentional broken promises the goblins have been holding onto since our life forced us into a pivot situation. We don’t parent with promises or things that might happen. We have been so careful to not lead our children into disappointment. Unfortunately this one was so far out of our control. As a result we hit the ground running when we moved back home trying to make up for lost time, ensure that they knew it wasn’t just talking or empty promises. Our first adventure was birds as they seemed the easiest to manage. If it were up to me Id bring all the things home. But Alas it is up to my husband and his inability to magically make the fences and habitats happen all while working his full time job. Super rude, right? (Said husband/editor here….I am trying dear wifey who doesn’t re-read these blogs before she posts.) There is a strange, shed thing very close to the house, in fact right across from the spa that we weren’t quite sure what to do with. We tossed around the idea of a green house, however I want an all year round one for herbs. Repurposing would cost almost as much as building a separate one. But in a jam, and I mean I already have all the birds living in our basement so they will need somewhere to go. We decided to turn this into our chicken coop. A little black paint really helped this situation. The goblins and my husband with minimal supervision required on my part set to work. They dropped in a plywood floor with insolation, I had done a lot of reading and worried about their little feet come winter. From there Landon decided he wanted a chicken palace with help from his sister so they worked together and installed a hard wood floor (literally no joke) He set to insolating the walls and using plastic wrap to keep it in, back to the plywood. He was so efficient at this; it wasn’t until afterwards we realized we forgot to cut out a little door so that the birds could get back outside oops!! But fret not Landon had his own solution to the problem, that even came with a coupon from his farmer almanac book….an automatic state of the art, latest and greatest chicken door with wifi and blueteeth and motion sensing but after much debate with dad and in the interest of time.(and three easy payments of 29.99$) They decided to back track this project without the fancy electronical door, perhaps down the road. Landon and dad ensured there was a little work space separate from the birds at the front so that I was able to feed and change water. With a little storage loft upstairs for spare bedding. Next, they set out to create a secure run, so that no predators could get in, after our failed hatching adventure with our one hit wonder we wanted to be absolutely sure that this little chick was okay. The coop and run are sized to accommodate 16 birds so out flock should have room to grow. 4 sq feet of indoor space and 8 sq feet of outdoor space according the chicken experts. It is also planned for expansion in the highly possible situation that my chicken endeavours land us more oppsies, how did those get there. This leads me into realizing we haven’t touched upon our hatching story, after the drive and the confusion, only one egg hatched AND it was not a pure bred like we paid for. Needless to say, we were less than impressed, but we also had this little lonely bird that cried every time we walked away from the brooder box. It was very apparent we needed day old’s quickly, I reached out to our Little Vermont and was in luck, they had some day old black silkies and were accommodating with us picking up that night as we are a little pyscho with this little babe being by itself. If you are looking for chicks I highly recommend reaching out their set up is really amazing, and honestly some of the kindest people I have ever met. I may or may not have been eyeballing their turkeys… stay tuned to see what I bring home next… spoiler alert it might be pigs ☺ Full disclosure I have no idea what’s going on in the outside coop, the goblins have Tanner working hard. It was a brief detour to the warkworth farm supply to get the mesh. We opted for the heavier small square stainless option to be a little safer. Hopefully this coop will be finished sometime in the near future as we have pig fences to install… And just the breed I want stops breeding shortly. We are making up for lost time over here at Pampered Aesthetics Farms stay tuned to see what adventure we have up our sleeve next…..hopefully its fences….again.