chickens make good housepets?

I’ve recently (as in 2 am two nights ago) come to question the wisdom of my mother, “Chickens make good house pets”. While often the tagline for many family jokes, I have no doubt that my mother believes this phrase to be true. And over the years, I think I’ve slowly become a convert as well, that is until I came to Nicaragua.

My family raised chickens a good portion of my childhood. My chicken memories are very vivid: my first “pet”, my dad trying to get me to eat strange organs, my mom with the shot gun out the window- aimed at a raccoon, Easter = chicks, the chicken massacre of ’95, missing school to blow dry chickens, adopting a flock of “bobs”, egg breakers, biology and anatomy lessons, scaring exchange students (and a brother) with the slaughter of a wayward hen, just to name a few. I think back to raising chickens with fondness and have considered the merits of raising some urban chickens. However, I’m now of the realization that – at least in my family- raising chickens was something that always seemed to involve drama (and blood).

Reason #1: Bloody dramas should be the making of Shakespeare plays, not childhood memories.

I’m also starting to reconsider all other childhood notions about chickens- more specifically roosters. Roosters crow in the morning. I would have sworn this to be true. Growing up my roosters crowed in the morning, the cartoon roosters on TV crow in the morning, the Kellogg’s rooster in the commercial crows when the sun comes up- that is just what they do.

Except they don’t.

While living in Thailand, the roosters under my window crowed from noonish (right when I’d get home from my morning job) to 4pm (at which point I’d be leaving for my afternoon job). I somehow managed to conveniently forget this, until two nights ago. In Nicaragua, the rooster across the street seems partial to 2 am, though the one down the street seems to like 3 pm. Clearly international roosters are unable to tell time.

Reason #2 Unlike a dog, you can’t muzzle or put a barking collar on a rooster.

Yes chickens can contribute to healthy soils, and yes they can provide you with a source of food, but so do cows and pigs- and I don’t really think they would make good house pets either.