Want to keep your rooster? You’ll have to move him into the house.
In secret or out in the open, more and more people are keeping chickens inside.
When the pandemic hit last year, coinciding with baby chick season, a chick shortage soon swept the nation. “What a great time to finally get some pet chickens!” the United States (and many other countries) apparently thought all at once. This year the chicken situation seems to have leveled off somewhat. That said, plenty of people are still adding to existing flocks or starting new ones this year.
And it’s only April which means that most chicks are still adorable balls of peeping fluff. Not for long. Posts are already trickling into backyard chicken groups asking the same question, “Do you think this is a hen or a rooster?”
The problem, of course, is that while many suburbs and cities allow chickens, virtually none of them allow roosters. Despite the best efforts of hatcheries, oopsie-roos (as I like to call them) are not uncommon. The roosters have a knack for becoming the favorite chick of the flock which makes it hard to part with them. Rehoming can be even more emotionally fraught because sanctuaries are overflowing with requests to take in roosters and often the only people who want one intend to turn him into dinner. As a result, an untold number of people have been trying to get around the problem by keeping their roosters…and moving them inside the house.
Thanks to the invention of “chicken diapers” there are many popular social media accounts that show hens and roosters hanging out inside with their owners. (I’ve yet to meet any pet bird that has been reliably house trained.) Undoubtedly even more live inside without broadcasting their lives online. Of course the CDC, which regularly sends out sternly worded advice not to snuggle or kiss chickens because of the threat of getting salmonella or other diseases, would likely frown upon putting chickens under the same roof as humans.
In New York City, the most common illegal pet to own year after year seems to be roosters (though it’s hard to know how many of these are kept for cockfighting versus beloved pets their owners can’t let go of). When New Yorker Camille Licate rescued an abandoned chick from the bird sanctuary she volunteered at who grew up into a strapping rooster with a loud crow, she actually moved out of the city to be able to stay with the bird, who she named Bree.
Not everyone is so law abiding.
“I’ve had this ongoing battle with a new neighbor over a fence and her chopping off half of my 100-year-old lilac bush,” says Sandra, a Portland, Oregon woman who only wants to be identified by her first name. “Now when the roosters start crowing, I pick them up and hurry them into the house.”
While Portland might be a backyard chicken hotspot, roosters are very much illegal. And, at first, Sandra, 63, actually did follow the rules. “2011 was the first year we got into chickens,” Sandra recalls. “I suppose getting one rooster out of six [chicks] is probably standard. At the time, of course he was my favorite.”
Her nearest neighbors encouraged her to try and keep the rooster, who went from Iris to Ira. “But naturally a neighbor on the next block didn’t much care for him,” Sandra says.
The Barred Rock had a big personality and was already large when she rehomed him to a man named Pete who lived out in a rural area. She dropped off the rooster and took two chicks back home with her. “One ended up being a rooster so, you know, back out to Pete’s we went.” Pete had a farm with chickens of all kinds and Sandra found herself walking around to look at all the birds. “This little rooster just kept following me around inside the pen. He was absolutely adorable and when he crowed I just about melted,” Sandra recalls. Like most Seramas, the smallest chicken breed in the world, this rooster was about the height of an ankle boot. Their crows sound more like squeaky toys than a resonant COCK-A-DOODLE-DOO. It was love at first sight.
“So I brought him home,” Sandra says. She named him Django after the musician.
Kathleen Demanti, 39, lives in a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco with her husband, a cat, a small duck, and five small chickens (one of whom, Kermit, is a rooster). “Sometimes people are like, ‘You can’t keep a chicken inside!’ and I’m like, ‘Well I do,’” Demanti says. She’s never had typical indoor birds like a parakeet or cockatiel but says she isn’t sure it would be very different. “They’re also loud and shit everywhere too,” she laughs. Her birds all wear specially made diapers in the house.
People seem enchanted to see the pint-size chickens which she’ll bring with her to run errands or go to the farmer’s market. The chickens always get a little treat when they accompany Demanti to a restaurant or bakery (croissant crumbs are very much beloved).
These days it seems like people are happy to bring unusual pets out with them. I’ve seen a rabbit next to its owner at an outdoor café, multiple men with large parrots on their shoulders, and even a 600-pound pig out for a stroll. I have yet to see a pet chicken out with its owner but it’s likely only a matter of time.
“I think people are a little more intrigued when they see the smaller chickens,” Demanti says. If people think of chickens at all, it’s usually full size birds, but there are hundreds of recognized breeds in all colors, shapes, and sizes. Lambchop, a Serama, is only eight ounces. “She can’t even jump on the couch. She’ll jump on my foot and I raise it up like a chicken elevator.”
Demanti also has backyard chickens but says that living with them inside has given her a different view into their world. “I like seeing the little chickens. I like petting the little chickens. I like their little chicken noises,” she says. “I think it’s cute in the evening when they’re like ‘it’s bedtime’ and go roost on the back of the couch.
Like any pet—traditional or not—whose owners take the time to get to know them, they can change your life.
Django the rooster died three years ago but Sandra still speaks of the red and black Serama fondly. If she and her family were having popcorn for movie night, Django was right there with a small bowl of his own. “We’d make a little bowl of whatever we were eating,” Sandra says, some broccoli or mashed potatoes from dinner. Often she’d wake up from naps to find him sitting right next to her. “He was such a little companion,” Sandra says. Django had a real hen to spend time with but acted like Sandra was part of his flock too. “He could sense when people needed him and he was there.”
Before she got her hip replaced, Sandra regularly got muscle spasms so painful she’d find herself unable to get up from the floor. “I’d start crying and the next thing I knew, Django was right there. He wouldn’t leave until I was able to get up.” When she was in the hospital, Django went into her room at home every day, jumped on the bed, and crowed.
Sandra had a country upbringing but has changed everything about her relationship to chickens. “Django made me rethink it all in ways I can’t even explain. There’s so much more to them than people would want you to believe.”
Lately she’s been hearing more and more chickens in the neighborhood—even a few roosters. “Naturally, I only heard it a few times but it is a nice noise,” Sandra says. “My neighbor across the way said it reminded her of her childhood.” She muses that someday maybe she’ll return to the country again. “I’d prefer to be in a place where I can hear my roosters crow.”
News from the Coop
It’s the end of April and that means Peggy has gone broody again! In a week or two I’ll have to bring her inside to send her to broody jail (I find it works better when you give them a little bit of time first). We’re still getting more eggs than we know what to do with though the fact that it’s ice cream season again should help me get rid of them. I got an ice cream maker last year and the recipe book A Perfect Scoop. Even if you don’t have chickens, making your own ice creams and sorbets is a blast.
Work on the book is swinging into full gear and I’ll be getting my second vaccine next week which means it’s finally time to plan the travel I need to do to finish the last few chapters.
I wrote an article about the efforts to end the practice of culling male chicks and why it’s so hard to do. Give it a read!
If you need a chicken fix before the next newsletter, you can follow me on Twitter or Instagram.
If you liked this email, please share the newsletter with a chicken or animal lover in your life! As always, email me at underthehenfluence@gmail.com with any tips or comments. See you next month.
-Tove
I feel like this article was written about me. I ended up with an oopsie rooster (a white silkie) who now lives inside the house with his two bantam hens because I'm not allowed any roosters in my town. Thank goodness for chicken diapers!!
Beautiful article, I always had that doubt about what people do with so many chickems inside. Now I know for sure they just wear diapers, I guess it's still cumbersome but you can keep your little flappy friends indoors with no trouble at all. I love it.