Well, I keep a few chickens around for the eggs. They also dig around and eat a lot of bugs. Plus they just add something to the farm environment. What's a farm without a few chickens? I don't really think of them as pets, though. I mean, I talk to them. Greet them and what not, but I'm not particularly cuddly with them. At least not now days. I have had chickens in the past that I thought of as pets. Ones that I would pick up and hold on my lap for awhile when I was outside enjoying the evening air. Ones that had actual names.
My husband is fond of raising animals for slaughter. He would buy piglets and when fully grown would be sold for profit. He also had chickens and goats. But when we had our first dog and we became dog lovers, he had stopped thinking of raising animals. He said that how could he sell an animal for slaughter when he is already an animal lover. But when he was young, he used to have a pet rooster that he kept in a cage and play with when there was no school.
I have seen this, but have always thought it very odd LOL I personally wouldn't keep chickens as pets. -and if I did, there's no way I'd be able to kill them for food. I'm a meat lover, but I'm one of those people who choose to not get involved in the slaying of the animals for food LOL
I think the easy solution to this would be to separate your chickens into two flocks. One would be for food and other will be special, get all the special treatment pets get. Good thing about them chicken pets is that the money you save on eggs can be used buy them food. Since they won't cost too much to care for, they're worth considering if you intend to have some "cheap" pets.
If I had the space I would definitely have chickens for pets and no I wouldn't kill them and eat them. That just wouldn't be me. I could never do that. I have never had chickens but growing up we raised ducks, rabbits and even had a goat and a pig. We always had cats and dogs, too. So it is just the norm for me to have animals around. That is what I miss most about living in an apartment building in the city, you are limited to the pets you can have. My dream was always to have a farm with lots of animals but it never happened.
