Kimberley Willis has raised numerous breeds of chickens and other poultry for eggs, meat, and showing for more than 40 years.

Robert T. Ludlow owns and manages [...], the largest and fastest-growing community of chicken enthusiasts in the world.

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