My special little girl, Peanut Butter, needs an upgraded indoor set up so I’m looking for suggestions.
PB is a “large fowl” Barnevelder who weighs in at a whopping 3 lbs. She’s an indoor/outdoor girl, but she doesn’t do well in extreme weather conditions. As it gets colder, she’ll need to spend more time inside.
For almost a year now, Peanut Butter has spent her nights in a small metal dog crate sitting up on an end table w/ puppy pads in my living room. Her days are mostly spent in the garden or helping me with lawn chores. When the weather is bad or her condition deteriorates, she spends more time indoors listening to the radio and watching the dogs
Presently Peanut Butter is doing very well. This means she’s eating regularly and relatively active- which is such a relief, but also means she’s pooping more. She has issues with her balance, so when she poos on the puppy pads, she sometimes falls in it. She can’t perch so sleeps on the bottom of the crate- along with the overnight poop. (She gets more baths than she would like).
PB is very accustomed to being indoors and even when feeling her best, she’s not a terribly active bird. I’d like to get her set up in something a little bigger than the dog crate, but she doesn’t require deluxe accommodations. She’ll still get outside as much as possible. If I give her too big of a space, she’d have to be moved to the guest room and isolated from the other pets & activity in the house.
I want to put her on a type of substrate that will help keep her out of her droppings (something it will fall into or dry it up).
I’m leaning toward a guinea pig cage with the plastic bottom and wire top, but am open to other ideas.
If you’ve ever kept a chicken indoors, can you please share how you set them up and what substrate worked best? Is there something better for an indoor bird than pine shavings or pellets? Thanks for your ideas!
And just to clarify- one of the reasons PB is indoors is because she hates chickens.
And here’s my baby girl. She asked me to vote for whoever would ban chicken nuggets, lol.
PB is a “large fowl” Barnevelder who weighs in at a whopping 3 lbs. She’s an indoor/outdoor girl, but she doesn’t do well in extreme weather conditions. As it gets colder, she’ll need to spend more time inside.
For almost a year now, Peanut Butter has spent her nights in a small metal dog crate sitting up on an end table w/ puppy pads in my living room. Her days are mostly spent in the garden or helping me with lawn chores. When the weather is bad or her condition deteriorates, she spends more time indoors listening to the radio and watching the dogs
Presently Peanut Butter is doing very well. This means she’s eating regularly and relatively active- which is such a relief, but also means she’s pooping more. She has issues with her balance, so when she poos on the puppy pads, she sometimes falls in it. She can’t perch so sleeps on the bottom of the crate- along with the overnight poop. (She gets more baths than she would like).
PB is very accustomed to being indoors and even when feeling her best, she’s not a terribly active bird. I’d like to get her set up in something a little bigger than the dog crate, but she doesn’t require deluxe accommodations. She’ll still get outside as much as possible. If I give her too big of a space, she’d have to be moved to the guest room and isolated from the other pets & activity in the house.
I want to put her on a type of substrate that will help keep her out of her droppings (something it will fall into or dry it up).
I’m leaning toward a guinea pig cage with the plastic bottom and wire top, but am open to other ideas.
If you’ve ever kept a chicken indoors, can you please share how you set them up and what substrate worked best? Is there something better for an indoor bird than pine shavings or pellets? Thanks for your ideas!
And just to clarify- one of the reasons PB is indoors is because she hates chickens.
And here’s my baby girl. She asked me to vote for whoever would ban chicken nuggets, lol.
