Introduction 1
About This Book 1
Foolish Assumptions 2
Icons Used in This Book 3
Beyond the Book 3
Where to Go from Here 4
Part 1: Getting Started with Raising Chickens 5
Chapter 1: The Joy of Chickens 7
First Things First: Dealing with the Legal Issues 7
Knowing what info you need 8
Finding the info 9
Confronting restrictions 10
Assessing Your Capabilities: Basic Chicken Care and Requirements 11
Time 11
Space 12
Money 12
Focusing Your Intentions: Specific Considerations 13
Want eggs (and, therefore, layers)? 14
Thinking about home-grown meat? 14
Enticed by fun and games or 4-H and FFA? 16
Considering Neighbors 17
Chapter 2: Basic Chicken Biology and Behavior 19
Familiarizing Yourself with a Chicken’s Physique 20
Labeling a Chicken’s Many Parts 21
Checking out the differences 21
Honing in on the head and neck 22
Checking out the bulk of the body 24
Looking at the legs and feet 25
Checking out chicken skin 25
Finding out about feathers 26
A Picture of Health 28
On Chicken Behavior 29
Processing information 30
Communication 31
Table manners 32
Sleeping 33
Socializing 33
Table of Contents
Romance 34
The celibate hen — living without a rooster 35
New life 35
Bath time 36
Interacting with Other Poultry and Animals 36
Dogs and cats 37
Ducks and geese 38
Turkeys 39
Guineas 40
Pheasants and quail 40
Livestock 40
Chapter 3: A Chicken Isn’t Just a Chicken:
Your Guide to Breeds 41
What You Need to Know: A Brief Synopsis 42
Common breed terminology 42
How breeds are categorized 44
If You Want It All: Dual-Purpose Breeds 45
For Egg Lovers: Laying Breeds 46
White-egg layers 47
Brown-egg layers 48
Colored-egg layers 50
Best Breeds for the Table 51
Show Breeds 53
Perfect for Pets: Bantam Breeds 55
Heritage and Rare Breeds 57
Chapter 4: Buying Chickens 61
Planning Your Flock 61
Deciding what you’ll start with: Eggs, chicks, or adults 62
Choosing the Sex 65
Getting the right number of chickens 65
Counting the Costs 66
Starting with Chicks 68
Where to get chicks 68
When to buy chicks 71
What to look for 72
Handling chicks 75
Starting with Adults 75
Where to buy adult chickens 75
What to look for 76
Transporting your birds safely 78
Raising Chickens For Dummies
Part 2: Housing Your Flock 81
Chapter 5: Choosing Your Housing Type 83
What a Chicken Needs in a Home 84
Shelter from wind and rain 84
Protection from predators 85
Temperature control 85
Enough space to move about normally 86
Sufficient lighting 87
Fresh air 88
Clean surroundings 89
Surveying Your Housing Options 90
Raising chickens in cages 91
Keeping birds cage-free, but indoors only 94
Pairing a shelter with a run 94
Offering shelter with free-range access 95
Mobile housing methods: Pastured poultry 96
Choosing a Type of Housing 101
Chapter 6: Designing and Constructing a Coop 105
To Repurpose, to Build, or to Buy? That Is the Question 106
Checking on housing restrictions 106
Making do with what you’ve got 107
Building from scratch 108
Buying a chicken coop 109
Choosing the Right Location 111
Combining Form and Function: The Basic Coop Blueprint 113
Coop size and shape: Giving your birds some breathing room 113
Ventilation: Allowing fresh air to flow 114
Roost and relaxation 114
Feathering their nests 117
Wiring, Fixtures, and Other Important Amenities 120
Providing the hookups (electrical, that is) 120
Lighting up 121
Baby, it’s cooold outside! 122
Fighting the heat 123
Being Mindful of Materials 123
Getting to the bottom of flooring 124
Constructing the frame 124
Wrapping your head around fencing 125
Supporting fencing with posts 126
Table of Contents
Chapter 7: Coop, Sweet Coop: Furnishing and Housekeeping 127
Bedding Down 128
Making Nests Comfy and Cozy 129
Setting the Table and Crafting a “Pantry” 130
Feeding containers 131
Watering containers 133
Proper feed storage 135
Cleaning House 136
Gathering cleaning supplies 137
Seeing what you need to do and when 138
Disposing of manure and old bedding 140
Part 3: Caring for Your Flock: General Management 143
Chapter 8: Feeding Your Flock 145
Feeding Basics 146
Understanding why you need to manage your birds’ diet 147
Knowing what nutrients chickens need 149
Comparing your feed options 151
The plain truth about homemade feed 155
Food to avoid feeding chickens at all costs 158
Choosing the Right Commercial Feed 159
Demystifying commercial rations 160
Selecting a form of feed 162
Double-checking the label 163
Supplementing Diets with Grit 164
Deciding When to Put Out Feed 165
Determining How Much to Feed 166
Keeping the Diet Interesting by Offering Treats 167
Hydrating Your Hens (And Roosters) 168
Chapter 9: Controlling Pests and Predators 171
Keeping Pests from Infesting the Coop 172
Preventing pests 172
Identifying and eliminating common culprits 173
Fending Off Predators 177
Providing safe surroundings 177
Recognizing common chicken predators 178
Figuring out who’s causing trouble 183
Catching the troublemaker 185
Dealing with the neighbor dogs 186
Raising Chickens For Dummies
Chapter 10: Keeping Your Flock Happy and Healthy 189
Providing Biosecurity for Your Flock 189
Maintaining biosecurity 190
Knowing when to quarantine chickens 191
Keeping Disease and Parasites Away 192
Giving vaccinations 192
Putting up barriers against parasites 194
Learning about chickens and human health 196
Controlling Environmental Conditions 198
Dealing with heat, cold, and dampness 198
Keeping your chickens from eating poisons 200
Safely Handling Your Flock 201
Catching chickens 201
Carrying and holding chickens 203
Taming chickens 203
Diffusing Stress 205
Managing the molt 205
Introducing new birds carefully 206
Discouraging bullying behaviors 207
Employing Optional Grooming Procedures 208
Marking birds for easy identification 209
Trimming long, curled nails 209
Trimming wings and other feathers 210
Chapter 11: Handling Health Problems 213
Making Decisions about Treatment 214
Choosing to treat ill chickens 214
Deciding to eliminate chickens 215
Finding a vet to treat chickens 215
Treating Injuries 216
How to give your bird the once-over 216
Ways to keep an injured bird safe 217
Skin injuries, cuts, and puncture wounds 217
Foot sores (also known as bumblefoot) 218
Head injuries 219
Broken legs or wings 220
Frostbite 221
Egg binding 221
Getting Rid of Parasites 222
Internal parasites 222
External parasites 226
Table of Contents
Recognizing and Dealing with Disease 230
Checking for signs of disease 230
Understanding some common chicken diseases 231
Administering Medications 237
Encountering Death 238
Reporting Diseases and Deaths 240
Part 4: Breeding: From Chicken to
Egg and Back Again 243
Chapter 12: Mating Your Chickens 245
Rooster or Hen? 245
Sexing young chickens 246
Sexing mature chickens 247
Reviewing the Reproductive System 248
Roosters 248
Hens 249
How an egg forms 250
Sperm Meets Egg: Fertilization 251
Reproductive Behavior 252
Courtship and mating 252
Nesting and brooding behavior 253
Mating Methods 253
Flock mating 254
Pair and trio mating 255
Artificial insemination 255
Selecting Birds for Breeding 256
Choosing the right combinations 256
Producing purebred chickens 256
Producing hybrids 258
Producing sex-/color-linked colors 259
Getting Birds Ready to Breed 260
Feeding future parents 261
Maintaining lighting and temperature 261
Trimming feathers 262
Chapter 13: Incubating Eggs and Hatching Chicks 263
Making More Chicks: Incubation Basics 264
Choosing Your Hatching Method 265
Looking at the two methods: Hens versus incubators 265
Determining which method is best for you 266
Letting Mother Nature Do It: The Hen Method of Incubation 268
Understanding why some hens brood and others don’t 268
Encouraging your hens to brood 269
Adding eggs to the nest 270
Raising Chickens For Dummies
Giving a sitting hen what she needs 271
Caring for a hen and chicks 273
Going Artificial: The Incubator Method 275
Choosing an incubator 275
Accessorizing your incubator 277
Setting up and caring for your incubator 278
Finding and storing fertile eggs 281
Caring for eggs in the incubator 283
Looking Inside the Egg 284
Egg ultrasound: Candling an egg 285
Knowing what to look for: Stages of embryonic growth 286
Hello, World! Hatching Your Eggs 288
Playing doctor: Helping a chick hatch 288
Handling the bad hatch: When things go wrong 290
Chapter 14: Raising Chicks 291
The Basics of Brooders 292
Knowing when chicks need a brooder 292
Choosing the brooder size and shape 293
Getting the temperature just right 293
Lighting the brooder 295
Choosing brooder bedding 295
Buying a commercial brooder 296
Making Your Own Brooder 297
Building the body of the brooder 297
Heating the brooder 299
Putting safety first 301
Helping a Hen Provide Warmth and Protection 302
Feeding and Watering Chicks 303
Starter feed choices 303
Medicated feed 304
The feeding process 305
You can lead a chick to water 306
Raising Chicks in Your Brooder 306
What to do the first hour 307
The first few days 307
Trimming beaks 309
Preventing disease 310
Watching the Stages of Growth 310
One month: Tween-agers 311
Six weeks to maturity: Teenagers 311
I’m a big chicken now: Young adulthood 312
Chicks and Children 312
Human health issues 313
Lessons on proper handling 314
Table of Contents
Part 5: Special Management Considerations 315
Chapter 15: Managing Layers and Collecting Eggs 317
Knowing What to Expect from Your Hens 317
The layer’s life cycle 318
Internal factors that influence laying 319
External factors that influence laying 320
Managing Your Hens’ Laying Years 321
Getting young hens ready to lay 321
Helping your pullets avoid stress 321
Providing encouragement 322
Using lighting to encourage laying to start 322
Encouraging Egg Production After It Has Begun 323
Providing supplemental lighting to keep hens laying 323
Keeping up a routine and minimizing stress 324
Retiring old birds when the laying days are done 324
Collecting, Cleaning, and Storing Eggs 325
Getting your eggs in one basket 325
Cleaning your cache 327
Assessing Egg Quality 327
Identifying parts of an egg 328
Looking at the outside 328
Looking at the inside 332
Storing and Handling Eggs 334
How to store eggs 334
Eggs to discard 335
What to do with excess eggs 335
Dealing with Production Problems and Bad Habits 337
Addressing the failure to lay 338
Bringing order to hens that lay all over the place 340
Getting a broody hen to go back to laying 342
Handling hens that break and eat eggs 342
Chapter 16: Raising and Butchering Meat Birds 345
Raising Meat Chickens 345
Looking at the three main approaches to raising meat birds 346
Choosing the right chickens 347
Choosing the right time of year to raise chickens 349
Deciding how many chickens to raise 350
Caring for meat chickens 351
Planning for D-Day 355
Knowing when your birds are ready 356
Deciding whether to hire a butcher or do it yourself 357
Hiring Out the Butchering 359
Finding a butcher 360
Knowing what to expect 360
Raising Chickens For Dummies
Preparing to Do the Deed Yourself 362
Choosing the location 362
Gathering equipment and supplies 363
Following the Play-by-Play of Butchering Day 367
Beginning with the kill 367
Removing the feathers 371
Cleaning and inspecting the bird 372
Packaging Home-Butchered Poultry 376
Rinsing and checking the chicken 377
Cutting the chicken in a usable fashion 377
Avoiding freezer overload 378
Part 6: the Part of Tens 379
Chapter 17: More than Ten Tips for Keeping Healthy, Stress-Free Chickens 381
Choose the Right Breed for Your Needs 382
Set Up Suitable Housing 382
Supplement Lighting When Needed 383
Control Pests 383
Protect Against Predators 384
Control Parasites 384
Vaccinate 385
Feed a Well-Balanced Diet 385
Provide Enough Clean Water 386
Beware Disease-Transmitting Dangers 386
Use Quarantines Whenever Necessary 387
Chapter 18: More than Ten Misconceptions about
Chickens, Eggs, and So On 389
Bird Flu Is a Risk to Reckon With 390
You Can’t Raise Chickens If You Live in the City 391
Roosters Crow Only in the Morning 391
You Need a Rooster to Get Eggs 391
Keeping Chickens Penned Is Inhumane 392
Chickens Are Vegetarians 392
Big, Brown, Organic Eggs Are Best in Taste and Quality 392
Fertilized and Unfertilized Eggs Are Easily Distinguishable 393
Egg-Carton Advertising Is the Absolute Truth 393
Chickens Are Good for Your Garden 394
Chickens Are Dumb and Cowardly 394
Index 397
