Eating Carpet!!!

[DaintyBess]

Anyone out there have an indoor chicken and had to deal with eating carpet? I have a cross beak bird who will be wintering in the house with us, so that we can better work out her feeding schedule. Her cross beak is so severe that pretty much all she can do while foraging is scratch and lick the ground. She can not pick up pieces of anything.

On pleasant days we can put her in our fenced back yard where there is a small coop, I keep birds in temporarily (e.g. growing out pullets, fostering roosters, etc.) When the weather is crummy, like the twelve degree day with eight inches of snow we are having right now, she has to stay inside. She wears a diaper for a few hours in the morning and a few hours in the evening, with a daper break in her little cage in the mid-afternoon. While she's in her diaper we had been letting her roam around. It turns out though that she is able to lick up polyester carpet fibers. They are showing up in her poop, and she even got a little bound up today with a case of diarrhea. It seems to have passed, but I'm still watching.

I hate carpet and it is my ambition to sometime in the next ten years rip it all out and put wood down everywhere. For now half of the house is carpeted. I've started sequestering her in spaces that don't have carpet, but I'm farming and teleworking, it's impossible to watch her 24-7 and no matter what barricade I construct the girl has a seven foot vertical leap and ninja skills to leap-climb if the surface is right. I don't want her to spend the whole day in a cage.

Any ideas on how to distract her? She has a spot where I keep tiny crumbles of food on the floor that she could lick up, but she keeps wandering back toward the carpet. Apparently it's very satisfying to rip up a carpet snack.

 

[Abriana]

You could put up dog gates leading into the rooms with carpet. It might be unsightly for a while, but it’d be just until you get it out. I’m no expert, but I would think that the fibers might cause damage on the inside, like a blockage or something more serious.

 

[Aapomp831]

If she can eat carpet, why can’t she forage?

 

[azygous]

Mischief. Chickens seek it. Chickens find it. If it's inedible, chickens will eat it. My chickens go out of their way to beak their way under the wool blanket pulled down over fiberglass water heater insulation on their Igloo water tank and nibble on the insulation. They find silicone calk and pull that out and eat it. Styrofoam, same thing. You'd think it was sirloin steak.

Yes, these things may be inert, but they can clog a chicken's digestive system. It's a dilemma. You need to keep her off the carpeting somehow. Think. Remind yourself you are smarter than a chicken. Right?

 

[DaintyBess]

If she can eat carpet, why can’t she forage?

Her lower beak is at a ninety degree angle to her upper beak. I think she is scraping the carpet with her upper beak and licking the fibers up. She does this with dirt too. She can't forage, because she can't eat anything that won't stick to her tongue.

 

[DaintyBess]

Mischief. Chickens seek it. Chickens find it. If it's inedible, chickens will eat it. My chickens go out of their way to beak their way under the wool blanket pulled down over fiberglass water heater insulation on their Igloo water tank and nibble on the insulation. They find silicone calk and pull that out and eat it. Styrofoam, same thing. You'd think it was sirloin steak.

Yes, these things may be inert, but they can clog a chicken's digestive system. It's a dilemma. You need to keep her off the carpeting somehow. Think. Remind yourself you are smarter than a chicken. Right?

Today, I have her barricaded in the office with me, where there is a tile floor. It will work for as long as I'm in here. I did have some luck this morning distracting her with "dust" I strained out of the scratch bucket. Corn dust! Mm-mm-Good!

 

[DaintyBess]

You could put up dog gates leading into the rooms with carpet. It might be unsightly for a while, but it’d be just until you get it out. I’m no expert, but I would think that the fibers might cause damage on the inside, like a blockage or something more serious.

That would be a good idea if I had a doorway that would work on. The doorways I need to block are all six feet or wider, plus my 95 yo dad can't manipulate or climb a gate. For now I'm just trying to keep her close and distracted. Thanks!
And you're right. Those fibers could cause bound crop, which I do not want to happen.