Chicken Health For Dummies E-Book

Julie Gauthier

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 465

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

Everything you need to care for and keep happy, healthy chickens

With directives on diagnosing and treating sick or ailing chickens, as well as general information on how to keep chickens in peak condition, Chicken Health For Dummies is your go-to guide on how to best care for and keep chickens.

Inside, you'll get everything you need to know about chicken health and wellness: an encyclopedia full of common and not-so-common diseases, injuries, symptoms, and cures that chicken owners may encounter. Chicken Health For Dummies provides chicken owners with one handy, all-encompassing resource.

• Helps you identify potential hazards and signs of ill health in your chicken
• Shows you how to properly examine chickens to identify and isolate potential health issues before they spread to the rest of the flock
• An encyclopedia full of common and uncommon diseases, injuries, symptoms, and cures for chickens

Chicken Health For Dummies joins Raising Chickens For Dummies and Building Chickens Coops For Dummies to round out the For Dummies reference library as a must-have resource for both rural and urban chicken owners.

Leseprobe

Chicken Health For Dummies®

Published byJohn Wiley & Sons, Inc.111 River St.Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2013 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey

Published simultaneously in Canada

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2012954765

ISBN 978-1-118-44427-6 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-118-46096-2 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-46097-9 (ebk); 978-1-118-46098-6 (ebk)

Manufactured in the United States of America

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About the Authors

Julie Gauthier graduated from veterinary school at Michigan State University in 1993, earned a master’s degree in public health from Yale University in 2002, and became board certified in veterinary preventive medicine in 2009. Julie practiced large and small animal medicine for nine years in three different states; during that time, her favorite patients were chickens. Joining the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service in 2002 gave Julie the opportunity to see all kinds of flocks, great and small, all over the world, in her work as a veterinary epidemiologist (an animal disease detective). On her small farm in North Carolina, Julie raises heritage breed chickens, ducks, and turkeys for exhibition, good food, and conservation of these vanishing breeds.

Rob Ludlow owns and manages www.BackYardChickens.com (BYC), the largest and fastest growing community of chicken enthusiasts in the world. Rob is also the co-author of the books Raising Chickens For Dummies and Building Chicken Coops For Dummies (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.).

Rob, his wife Emily, and their two beautiful daughters, Alana and April, are the perfect example of the suburban family with a small flock of backyard chickens. Like countless others, what started out as a fun hobby raising a few egg-laying machines has almost turned into an addiction.

Dedication

From Julie: To my family, Kenna, Garret, and Mark, who picked up the slack on the poultry chores.

From Rob: To the many wonderful chickens that have been part of our flock-family over the years including Goldie, Blackie, Blackie-Whitey, Whitey, Reddy, Cleo, Lilly, Sparkles, and especially Ginger!

Authors’ Acknowledgments

From Julie: I want to send out a crow of thanks to my brother, Dr. Dave Gauthier, for photographing deconstructed feathered creatures (rather than his usual finned subjects) on one hot summer day. To my flock mates I.K., S.K., M.M., S.L, W.C., and J.L.: I’ll express my thanks for your encouragement, support, and enthusiasm by saving the biggest, juiciest worms for you. Thanks also to Ms. Elizabeth Clark and Dr. Tahseen Aziz for contributing excellent photographs, and being just as intrigued as I am by cyanotic combs and torticollis. I sincerely appreciate the professionalism, skill, and good nature shown to me by staff of Wiley, especially Alissa Schwipps, Erin Calligan Mooney, Chad Sievers, David Hobson, and the Wiley Composition team. Our intrepid and patient illustrators Kathryn Born and Barbara Frake deserve an appreciative cackle, too. Best regards to my friends of the Delaware Poultry Club, the Triangle Area Gardeners and Homesteaders, and the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy; thanks for giving me my start as a flock keeper self-help coach.

From Rob: A ton of appreciation and love to the countless members of BackYardChickens.com, and especially the BYC moderators who have collectively (and patiently) educated me over the years. Thanks to the team at Wiley for all their amazing work, patience, expertise, and diligence, especially that from Erin Calligan Mooney, Alissa Schwipps, and David Hobson.

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

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Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Acquisitions, Editorial, and Vertical Websites

Senior Project Editor: Alissa Schwipps

Acquisitions Editor: Erin Calligan Mooney

Copy Editor: Chad R. Sievers

Assistant Editor: David Lutton

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Technical Editor: Teresa Y. Morishita, DVM, PhD, Dipl. ACPV

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Editorial Assistants: Rachelle S. Amick, Alexa Koschier

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Cover Photo:©Chelsea Fuss / Getty Images

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Publishing and Editorial for Consumer Dummies

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Chicken Health For Dummies®

Visit www.dummies.com/cheatsheet/chickenhealth to view this book's cheat sheet.

Table of Contents

Introduction

About This Book

Conventions Used in This Book

What You’re Not to Read

Foolish Assumptions

How This Book Is Organized

Part I: The Healthy Chicken

Part II: Recognizing Signs of Chicken Illness

Part III: A Close-Up Examination of Chicken Woes and Diseases

Part IV: Your Chicken Repair Manual (and Advice for When to Close the Book)

Part V: The Chicken/Human Interface

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Appendix

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I: The Healthy Chicken

Chapter 1: A Picture of Backyard Flock Health

Introducing the Backyard Chicken

Creating a Healthy and Contented Life for Your Flock

Recognizing risky free-range encounters

Feeding chickens for good health and production

What Can Go Wrong?

Common health problems

Major causes of death

Doing Your Part to Keep Your Flock Fit

Safely sourcing new birds

Practicing biosecurity

Medicating and vaccinating backyard flocks

Finding help for chicken health problems

Chapter 2: The Anatomy and Body Functions of the Happy, Healthy Chicken

Taking a Closer Look at Chicken Parts: The Body Systems

The outside of the chicken: Eyes, ears, skin, and feathers

Breathing and circulating blood

Eating and digestion

Moving around: The skeletal system

Defending against disease

Starting with the Chicken and then the Egg: Growth and Development

Reaching sexual maturity

Making eggs (and chicks, maybe)

Knowing what goes on in the egg

Life Outside the Egg: A Chick’s First Few Weeks

Chapter 3: That’s What Chickens Do: Healthy Chicken Behavior

A Day in the Life of a Chicken: The Daily Routine

Starting the day and going to work

Settling down for the night

Getting Along in the Flock

Keeping the peace: The rooster’s job

Pecking order

Sibling rivalry

Comprehending Chicken Communication

Crowing he’s the boss: A rooster

Clucking away: A hen’s chatter

Talking among themselves: The sibling chickens

Understanding basic chicken predator vocabulary

Romancing the Hen: Courtship

Chapter 4: More Than an Ounce of Prevention: Biosecurity for the Backyard Flock

How’s Your Biosecurity? Evaluating Your Current Efforts

Recognizing How Disease Is Spread in Chicken Flocks

The big risk: The new chicken (or the new egg)

The other risks: People, other animals, and equipment

Potential critters in chicken feed

Designing Your Biosecurity Plan

Keeping out disease

Developing biosecurity habits in your daily chore routine

Considering biosecurity for show chickens

Chapter 5: Keeping the Flock Clean and Comfortable

Cleaning and Disinfecting (C&D) 101

Beginning with construction

Grasping the art of cleaning

Getting a hold on disinfection

Safely using and disposing of disinfectants

Providing a Healthy and Comfortable Environment

Considering your chickens’ coop

Creating comfy bedding

Handling outdoor runs

Managing adverse weather events

Chapter 6: Feeding the Flock Well

Meeting Your Chickens’ Nutritional Needs

Understanding nutrients

Recognizing nutritional needs of different life stages

Comprehending Feeds and Feeding Programs

Spelling out the forms of feed

Eyeing the array of feeding programs

Keeping Feed Fresh

Part II: Recognizing Signs of Chicken Illness

Chapter 7: Inspecting the Flock and Examining the Sick Chicken

Tuning in to Your Flock

Inspecting the flock

Spying on the flock: Observing chickens from a distance

Measuring performance and writing it down

Recognizing the General Signs of Illness

Zeroing In on the Problem: The Physical Examination

Catching and holding the sick chicken

Examining the head

Evaluating the respiratory system and overall body condition

Looking at skin and feathers

Looking at wings, legs, and feet

Checking the abdomen and vent

Recording Your Findings

Chapter 8: Troubleshooting Common Illnesses in Adult Chickens

Sneezing and Coughing: Chicken Head Colds

Diagnosing chicken respiratory illness

Giving supportive care for chicken respiratory illness

Dealing with the Runs: Diarrhea in Adult Chickens

Diagnosing diarrhea in adult chickens

Giving supportive care for an adult chicken with diarrhea

Egg-Laying Troubles: Egg-Binding and Vent Prolapse

Identifying vent prolapse and egg-binding

Providing treatment and care

Popping Out Strange Eggs: Egg Quality Issues

Finding the cause

Handling odd-shaped eggs with care

Seeing Trouble: Poor Sight and Sore Eyes

Eyeing potential eye problems

Getting treatment for eye issues

Digging into Skin Problems and Feather Loss

Noticing feather and skin issues

Soothing skin problems

Focusing on a Dizzy Chicken and Other Alarming Signs

Mapping out nervous system issues

Reacting to nervous system problems

Limping or Swelling: Leg and Foot Issues

Zooming in on your chicken’s leg and foot pains

Seeking treatment help

Chapter 9: Sizing Up Sick Chicks

Before Hatching: Ensuring a Healthy Chick

Spotting Problems of the Newly Hatched

Finding reasons for chick malformations

Straightening spraddled legs

Singing the belly-button blues

Unpasting a pasty vent

Recognizing Problems of Growing Chickens

Suffering from respiratory problems

Dealing with diarrhea in young chickens

Identifying nervous system illnesses in young chickens

Chapter 10: Sleuthing Subtle Signs of Illness and Mysterious Sudden Death

Investigating Not-So-Obvious Signs of Illness

Stunted growth in young chickens

Skinny hen or rooster

Decreasing egg production

What Happened?! Investigating Sudden Death

Identifying what causes sudden death in chicks

Knowing what causes sudden death in growing chickens

Identifying what causes sudden death in adult chickens

Letting the pros figure out the reason for sudden death

Part III: A Close-Up Examination of Chicken Woes and Diseases

Chapter 11: Accidents of Flock Management

Identifying and Defending Against Predators

The air attack: Possible countermeasures

The ground assault: Possible countermeasures

Addressing Flock-Mate Persecution or Cannibalism

Noticing persecution behavior

Taking action to prevent or correct these behaviors

Eyeing Nutritional Disorders

Not just fluffy: Obesity

Excess calcium

Vitamin and mineral deficiencies

Recognizing Sources of Poisonings in Your Backyard

Botulism

Household poisons

Lead poisoning

Mold toxins in feed (Mycotoxins)

Toxic gas

Toxic foods and plants

Identifying Housing and Environmental Dangers

Frostbite

Hardware disease

Heat stress

Starve-outs

Suffocation

Chapter 12: My Chicken Has What? Diseases Caused by Bacteria and Viruses

Flock Keeper Beware: Infectious Diseases Caused by Bacteria

Avian intestinal spirochetosis

Avian tuberculosis

Colibacillosis (E. coli infections)

Fowl cholera

Infectious coryza

Mycoplasmosis

Necrotic enteritis

Pullorum disease and fowl typhoid

Treating Infectious Diseases Caused by Viruses

Avian encephalomyelitis

Avian influenza

Chicken infectious anemia

Fowl pox

Infectious bronchitis

Infectious bursal disease

Infectious laryngotracheitis

Lymphoid leukosis

Marek’s disease

Newcastle disease

Chapter 13: Exterminating Chicken Parasites and Other Creepy-Crawlies

Taking a Look Inside: Internal Parasites

Coccidiosis

Parasitic worms

Other internal parasites

Examining the Outside: External Parasites

Poultry lice

A menu of mites

Preventing and treating lice and mites

Chiggers, fleas, and bedbugs: Are you itching yet?

Chapter 14: Identifying Miscellaneous and Mystery Chicken Diseases

Recognizing Fungal Infections: Molds and Yeasts

Brooder pneumonia (Aspergillosis)

Candidiasis (Thrush)

Ringworm (Favus)

Eyeing Diseases with Multiple or Mysterious Causes

Broiler breakdowns

Bumblefoot (Pododermatitis)

Crop problems: Sour crop and impactions

Gout and kidney stones

Misfires of the reproductive tract

Part IV: Your Chicken Repair Manual (and Advice for When to Close the Book)

Chapter 15: Making a Diagnosis: Getting Advice or Going It Alone

Finding Professionals Who Can Help You and Your Flock

Locating a chicken vet

Exploring other sources of help

Collecting Samples for Your Chicken-Health Advisor

Submitting a chicken for postmortem examination

Collecting specimens for parasite identification

Performing a DIY Postmortem

Gathering equipment and getting started

Necropsying a chicken, step by step

Chapter 16: Medicating and Vaccinating Chickens

Grasping the Link between Drugs and Food-Producing Animals

Deciding to Use Antibiotics

Answering the Big Question: To Vaccinate or Not to Vaccinate?

Reviewing vaccines for backyard chickens

Vaccinating successfully

Giving Medications and Vaccinations

In drinking water

By mouth

Eyedrop

Wing web stab

Under the skin

In the muscle

Chapter 17: Performing Chicken Maintenance and First-Aid Procedures

Giving Your Chicken a Spa Treatment

Trimming a wing

Trimming toenails

Trimming rooster spurs

Trimming a beak

Installing peepers

Taking Care of Your Flock: Chicken First Aid

Knowing your first-aid philosophy

Treating injuries

Giving some TLC for sick or injured chickens

Chapter 18: Euthanizing a Chicken and Disposing of the Remains

Making the Decision

Identifying Humane Methods of Euthanasia

Being prepared and considering bystanders

Injecting a euthanasia solution

Performing cervical dislocation

Creating a CO2 chamber

Using exsanguination or decapitation

Considering Disposal Options

Burial

Composting

Off-site options

Part V: The Chicken/Human Interface

Chapter 19: Can You Get That from a Chicken?

Eyeing Two Bacterial Infections You Can Get from Chickens

Itching at Minor Irritations You Can Get from Chickens

Bird mite bites

Wandering lice

Newcastle disease

Ringworm

Naming What You Can Get from Cleaning Chicken Coops

Histoplasmosis

Farmer’s lung

Considering Rare Diseases You Can Get from Chickens

Using Common Sense to Protect Yourself

Chapter 20: Food Safety and Quality of Homegrown Eggs and Meat

Properly Handling Eggs

Managing layers and nests

To wash or not to wash?

Inspecting and storing eggs

Producing Safe, High Quality Meat from Your Own Flock

Choosing and preparing your birds

Preparing the work area

Sanitizing between birds

Inspecting your processed chickens

Passing judgment

Chillin’ the chicken

Preparing and storing the meat

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Chapter 21: Answers to Ten Common Questions about Chicken Health

What Is That Lump on the Side of My Chicken’s Neck?

Why Is My Chicken Losing Her Feathers?

Why Do Some Eggs Have Soft Shells or No Shells?

How Do I Treat My Chicken’s Skin Wounds?

What Causes My Chicken to Have Runny Poop?

Should I Feed My Chicks Medicated Starter Feed?

I Gave My Hen Medicine. Is It Safe for Me to Eat Her Eggs?

What Are These Bugs Crawling on My Bird (and Me)?

What Is Causing My Hen’s Swollen Foot and Her Limping?

Can I Feed Bugs and Worms to My Flock?

Chapter 22: Ten Common Misconceptions about Chicken Health and Treatments

Mixing a New, Healthy-Looking Chicken with the Flock Is Safe

You Can Get Worms from Eating Eggs from Wormy Hens

You Can Use Horse or Dog Medicine for Chickens

Many Medicines Are Approved for Use in Laying Hens

Natural Remedies Are Always Safer Than Synthetic Drugs

Vaccinating Is the Best Way to Prevent Flock Infections

Surgery Will Stop Your Rooster from Crowing

You Must Regularly Deworm and Vaccinate Backyard Flocks

Chickens Catch Colds, and They Recover in a Few Days

A Hen That Eats Her Eggs Has a Nutritional Deficiency

Appendix: Chicken Health Formulary

Cheat Sheet

Introduction

Welcome to Chicken Health For Dummies. If you want to know practical ways to keep a small flock healthy, or know what to do when a backyard chicken is ill or injured, this book is for you.

At this point in your chicken-keeping career, more than likely, you’re already (or you’re about to become) thoroughly hooked on the freshest of eggs, you’re perpetually surprised by the voracious curiosity of your foraging flock, and you’re up-to-date with the soap opera of the hen house. Along with the joys of raising chickens, though, you (or one of your flock-keeping friends) probably have experienced at least one disappointment: a devastating predator attack, a droopy chick, or the horrifying discovery that the gorgeous hen you picked up at the swap meet is crawling with lice.

We’ve been there, and dealt with that, and we want to share our experiences — joyful and dismaying — to help you fly through the challenges of caring for your flock. In these pages, we have something for everyone, from wanna-be flock keepers to old hands, and from high-rise rooftop farmers to people at home on the range.

About This Book

We want Chicken Health For Dummies to be your second book about caring for chickens. Your first chicken raising how-to manual, Raising Chickens For Dummies by Kimberly Willis and Rob Ludlow (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.), can help you begin with these feathered friends by giving you plans for hen starter homes and dropping hints about critical basic points on flock keeping, such as, “hens don’t need a rooster to lay eggs.” That book touches on chicken health problems, but Chicken Health For Dummies can take you to the next level — what you need to know as a small flock keeper about keeping chickens healthy and treating illnesses and injuries. We wrote this book so that you can have an easy-to-use reference for poultry preventive care and chicken repair.

We’re confident that every procedure we guide you through is doable and practical in a backyard setting — because we’ve used the procedures ourselves to manage our own backyard flocks.

Another great part about this book is that you decide where to start and what to read. It’s a reference you can jump into and out of at will. Just head to the table of contents or index to find the information you want.

Conventions Used in This Book

We use the following conventions throughout the text to make things consistent and easy to understand:

All web addresses appear in monofont.

New terms appear in italics and are closely followed by an easy-to-understand definition.

Bold is used to highlight the action parts of numbered steps and emphasize keywords.

Traditionally, books about animal health refer to livestock in a gender-neutral way, but we feel coldhearted calling a hard-working, personable hen or rooster “it.” The majority of backyard chickens are female, in part because rowdy roosters are unwelcome in many suburban and urban communities, so we bow to majority rule and refer to any chicken with the pronouns she,her, and hers (except when we are specifically talking about male chickens, in which case, he,him, and his apply). We also use the word who, not that, to refer to our poultry companions. It and its are reserved for chicks or birds of unknown gender and inanimate objects.

What You’re Not to Read

Although we’re attached to every word on these pages, and we hope you feel the same way, we understand if you don’t read the book cover to cover, and want to skip around instead. That’s why we’ve set some text off from the main information, stuff that will fascinate poultry science nerds and start some unusual conversations at parties, but it’s not crucial for most small flock keepers to know. You can live without reading these items, but they’re interesting, so come back to them when you get a moment. These items are:

Text in sidebars: Sidebars are shaded boxes that discuss poultry science topics in more depth or give information that’s important to a small segment of flock keepers, such as organic producers.

Anything with a Technical Stuff icon: If the information in these tidbits applies to your exceptional situation, you’ll be really glad we answered your pressing, but not-so-common technical question.

Foolish Assumptions

We love to talk chicken: broilers, gamefowl, bantams, wild junglefowl, and fowl of all purposes and all sizes — they’re universally interesting to us. Going off on a tangent would be easy for us (What’s your favorite “Why did the chicken cross the road” joke?), so to keep us focused on what you, a backyard flock keeper, want to know about chicken health, we need to understand your goals and concerns. We figure that your goals and concerns are similar to ours, because we’re backyard flock keepers, too. Based on that connection, here’s what we assume about you:

Although you have some basic knowledge of chickens, you aren’t a poultry expert.

You take care of chickens (or plan to) and you want to find out more about keeping them healthy.

You like animals and believe that taking good care of them involves understanding their needs and treating them with kindness.

You keep (or are planning to keep) a small home flock. You don’t intend to raise chickens on a commercial scale of 1,000 or more laying hens or broilers.

You have some very basic first aid, gardening, carpentry, or crafts skills (or a friend who has these skills) and a desire to use them.

You’re not afraid to handle chickens or get your hands dirty.

Some things we won’t assume about you are the reasons you keep chickens or your specific flock keeping philosophy. We think chickens are great, for many reasons — they’re great for pets, eggs, meat, competition, a small family business, garden decorations, and more. In this book, we try to include a wide range of perspectives of small flock keeping. We’re sure you can find tips and information in these pages that can suit your style of flock keeping, whatever that may be.

Just as you’re certain to find advice in these pages that suits your particular style, you’re bound to come across some uncomfortable notions, too. Is a diapered apartment chicken not your kind of pet? Skip that point and move on to the next. Does the thought of eating a chicken disturb you? Forgive us, please; the references to the nutritional qualities of chicken eggs or meat aren’t aimed at you, but someone else who values that information.

How This Book Is Organized

Chicken Health For Dummies is organized into seven parts. We provide a nugget of an explanation for each part’s topic here.

Part I: The Healthy Chicken

In order to spot a sick chicken, you need to know how a normal one looks and behaves. In Chapter 2, we provide a primer on chicken anatomy and body functions, so you can recognize a healthy chicken, inside and out. Chapter 3 gives a view of fowl society, behavior, and communication. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 focus on maintaining a healthy flock by keeping chickens clean, comfortable, and well-fed.

Part II: Recognizing Signs of Chicken Illness

How do you know a chicken is sick? In this part, we help you distinguish normal from abnormal chicken body functions and behavior, narrow down the possibilities to get you closer to a diagnosis, and provide advice about common concerns of flock keepers. We cover the most common ailments of adult chickens in Chapter 8 and health problems of chicks in Chapter 9. Chapter 10 tackles the extremes of chicken disease: mild, hard-to-put-your-finger-on-it illnesses on one end of the spectrum, and mysterious sudden death on the other.

Part III: A Close-Up Examination of Chicken Woes and Diseases

In this part, we discuss the major chicken diseases, briefing you on the cause, the signs and means of spread, prevention tips, and treatment advice. The chapters in this part are very helpful if you need to zoom in to a particular chicken disease that you’ve heard about. Wonder why you should buy chicks from a pullorum-clean flock? Chapter 12 is the place to look. Worried about worms? Check out Chapter 13.

Part IV: Your Chicken Repair Manual (and Advice for When to Close the Book)

We get down to the dirty work in this part. Here we help you make a diagnosis for a flock problem, whether you have the help of a chicken health advisor, or you’re on your own. We show you how to do basic procedures, such as giving an injection or trimming a wing. Finally, we provide advice on closing the repair manual and killing a sick or injured chicken humanely.

Part V: The Chicken/Human Interface

The chicken/human interface is the time and place where chicken health and human health collide. These accidents can happen, but they’re not common and they’re rarely serious. What’s good for you is often good for your chickens, and vice versa. Find ways to protect yourself and your chickens in this part.

Part VI: The Part of Tens

In this part, we take ten questions that we hear backyard flock keepers ask frequently and we answer them as succinctly as possible. We also take on ten common misconceptions about chicken health and present the facts, briefly.

Appendix

The appendix contains a few important lists. We’re sure you’ll find the chart of medication dosages for chickens in small flocks an extremely handy reference when you need it. The same goes for the list of disinfectants and the list of parasite treatments that we refer to in other parts of this book.

Icons Used in This Book

To make this book easier to read and simpler to use, we include some icons that can help you key in to main ideas.

This icon appears whenever an idea or item can save you time, money, or stress when taking care of your chickens.

Any time you see this icon, you know the information that follows is so important that it’s worth reading more than once.

This icon flags information that highlights dangers to your chicken’s well-being or to human health.

This icon appears next to information that’s interesting, but isn’t essential for all backyard flock keepers to know.

Where to Go from Here

Although starting at the beginning is customary, this book is organized so you can jump to whatever chapter you urgently need and find complete information. Got a sick hen? Head straight for Chapter 8. Concerned about a chick? Go to Chapter 9. Are you standing in the feed store, puzzling over crumbles or pellets? Check Chapter 6.

If you have no pressing concerns and all’s well in the backyard, you may want to start with Part I, which can help you keep your happy flock healthy. You can also peruse the table of contents or index, find a topic that interests you, and go there. We wish you and your coop’s residents health and good fortune!

Part I

The Healthy Chicken

In this part...

In Part I, we give you a view — inside and out — of a hen and her family, and we tour the fascinating behavior of chickens in chicken society. Why do we wax poetic about healthy chickens in a book about chicken health problems? First, you can’t recognize a sick chicken if you aren’t thoroughly familiar with healthy ones. And second, attending to a chicken’s behavioral needs (respecting her chickeness?) avoids many preventable stress-related illnesses and injuries.

The keys to chicken health are keeping the flock clean, comfortable, and well fed. We glean tips from wisdom handed down by generations of flock keepers to share with you in this part of the book.

Chapter 1

A Picture of Backyard Flock Health

In This Chapter

Appreciating the useful and fascinating backyard chicken

Increasing your awareness of the hazards of the backyard chicken’s lifestyle

Scrutinizing the stats of common backyard chicken illnesses, injuries, and causes of death

Investigating how flock keepers prevent, treat, and find help with chicken health problems

Chickens have fascinated people for thousands of years, ever since humans and red junglefowl met in Southeast Asia and began a productive relationship together. Humans have taken full advantage of the partnership and of the chicken’s versatility. The wild junglefowl hen lays a scanty 15 to 30 eggs a year; after thousands of years of selection and care by people, modern domesticated hens can surpass the 300-egg-per-year mark. Today, chicken meat is a major source of protein for human nutrition around the globe.

People clearly benefit from the human/chicken bond, but what does the chicken get out of this relationship? In exchange for eggs, meat, entertainment, and a wholesome connection with nature, backyard flock keepers protect their birds from danger and disease, and free them from worries of finding a good meal and a cozy place to sleep at night. In this book, we offer advice to help you keep up your end of the bargain.

Ideally, flock keepers also remember that chickens are, down deep, still wild junglefowl, driven to dustbathe, forage, and establish pecking orders. Caretakers can and should provide opportunities for chickens to be chickens and to express their inner junglefowl.

In this chapter, we introduce you to backyard chickens, their troubles, and what you can do to prevent health problems and respond to unfortunate events.

Introducing the Backyard Chicken

Throughout this book we make the distinction between backyard and commercial chicken flocks. Although you can probably point out general, sometimes overlapping differences between commercial and backyard flocks in terms of management style, reasons for raising chickens, types of birds, and farm sizes, we stick with a simple definition. For the purpose of this book, we consider a farm with 1,000 or more chickens a commercial flock, and call a place with fewer than 1,000 chickens a backyard flock.

Okay, 999 birds is extreme backyard flock keeping, and as you may suspect, most backyard flocks have far fewer than 1,000 birds. The majority of backyard flock keepers in the United States have fewer than 25 chickens, according to informal surveys.

You may already be savvy to the lingo of backyard flock keepers, but to keep us all on the same page, we provide a list of poultry terms used in this book:

Pullet/hen: In poultry show circles, a pullet is a female chicken less than a year old, and a hen is a female chicken 1-year-old and up. Other folks consider a pullet to be a female chicken that has not yet laid an egg, and a hen as one who has.

Cockerel/rooster: A cockerel is a male chicken less than a year old. A rooster is a male chicken 1-year-old and up.

Egg-type chickens: Chickens of breeds developed for egg production. Commercial white egg layers are Leghorns, and commercial brown egg layers were developed from the Rhode Island Red, New Hampshire, and Plymouth Rock breeds of chicken.

Broiler: A young chicken suitable for grilling, roasting, or barbecuing. Very fast-growing meat-type chickens that make excellent broilers were created from the Cornish and Plymouth Rock breeds of chickens. You may hear meat-type chickens described as “Cornish cross” or “Cornish Rocks.”

Dual-purpose chickens: Chickens of breeds that are suitable for both egg and meat production, such as the Delaware or Plymouth Rock breeds.

Gamefowl: Chickens of breeds developed for the purpose of producing fighting cocks, such as the Modern Game and the Old English Game breeds.

Bantams: Very small chickens belonging to breeds that are often miniature versions of larger chicken breeds.

Heritage breed chickens: Chickens belonging to breeds that were recognized by the American Poultry Association prior to the mid–20th century. Heritage chickens are ideal for backyard settings, because they’re active, long-lived, outdoor foragers.

Backyard menageries are the norm

In a 2004 USDA survey, backyard flock keepers were asked what types of birds they kept. Four out of five flocks had more than one type of bird. The following shows the percentage of backyard flocks that had different types of chickens and other birds:

Chickens

Chickens for egg production: 63 percent

Gamefowl: 23 percent

Chickens for meat production: 17 percent

Show chickens: 10 percent

Other types of birds

Ducks: 21 percent

Guinea fowl: 12 percent

Turkeys: 7 percent

Caged pet birds: 4 percent

The 2004 USDA backyard chicken study is the most recent scientific survey on this topic. You can read the entire report to get a bigger picture of U.S. backyard flocks at www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_health/nahms/poultry/downloads/poultry04/Poultry04_dr_PartI.pdf.

Visit the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy website at www.albc-usa.org/heritagechicken/definition.html for more information about heritage breed chickens.

Creating a Healthy and Contented Life for Your Flock

A free-range backyard hen seems to have an idyllic life, enjoying the freedom to scratch and forage for interesting, wiggly things to eat, and experiencing the contentment that comes with flopping in a dustbath and snuggling close with her flock mates on a nighttime perch. See Chapter 3 for a more complete account of chicken behaviors that apparently express a cheerful enjoyment of life.

A backyard hen, however, trades that full and interesting life for a higher risk of early death due to predators or disease, compared to hens kept in cages on commercial poultry farms. In fact, surveys from around the world have shown that the typical mortality rate in free-range chicken flocks is at least twice the mortality rate of flocks kept in cages.

Despite the stacked odds, you can prevent many of the injuries and illnesses in backyard chickens. That’s why good management of a backyard flock is so important — to make sure that rich quality of life is also a long and healthy life. These sections highlight a few areas that you can help make your flock safer and sound. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 cover additional ways to protect your flock by keeping your birds clean, comfortable, and well fed.

Recognizing risky free-range encounters

Almost all backyard flocks are free-range — by that, we mean they have at least part-time access to the outdoors. Some backyard flock keepers have an extremely liberal free-range policy and allow their chickens to roam away from their backyards; the rest confine their birds to a yard, coop, barn, or less commonly, cages.

Most backyard flocks have regular contact with other animals. The animals that often coexist in a backyard with a flock keeper’s chickens are

Wild birds

Flock keeper’s dogs or cats

Neighbors’ dogs or cats

Neighbors’ poultry

Meeting your fellow flock keepers

You probably have a lot in common with other backyard flock keepers, including your reasons for keeping chickens, where you get them, and how you care for them. If you’re just getting started with raising chickens, you’re in a large class of students; our informal poll suggests to us that most U.S. backyard flock keepers have been raising birds for less than three years.

By far, having fresh eggs is the most important and common reason that people keep backyard chickens. When we ask backyard flock keepers why they keep poultry, they often tell us the following reasons, listed roughly in order of importance:

Eating fresh eggs

Having chickens as pets

Controlling bugs with a foraging flock

Fertilizing a garden with chicken manure

Eating fresh meat

Exhibiting at poultry shows

Making extra income from selling eggs, meat, or birds

Free-range chickens risk becoming the neighborhood dogs’ next snack (or chew toy), or picking up an infectious disease from wild birds or someone else’s backyard poultry. See Chapter 4 for tips on protecting your flock from hazards outside of your yard with common sense biosecurity measures.

Feeding chickens for good health and production

Feed is the major ongoing expense of raising chickens. Good nutrition pays off in healthy chickens who lay lots of eggs, so wise flock keepers carefully consider what they pour into the feeder each day. Chickens must get protein, energy, vitamins, and minerals from their food. Daily requirements for these nutrients change according to the bird’s age and occupation. Flock keepers can choose among different diet formulas for different types of chickens and stages of life, including:

Meat-type chicken starter, grower, and finisher diets: These rations are intended for broiler chicks as they grow up.

Egg-type or dual-purpose chicken starter, grower, and finisher diets: These rations are designed for feeding chicks destined to lay eggs. They work well for young pet chickens.

Layer diets: These rations are formulated for hens laying eggs for eating or hatching.

Commercially prepared feed takes the guesswork out of chicken nutrition. The tag on the feed bag tells you what type of chicken the feed is designed for, and how to feed it. Flock keepers can prepare nutritious homemade chicken feed, but that’s a project that takes more time, skill, and attention to detail than opening a bag of complete commercial chicken feed. Chapter 6 provides more information about practical options for feeding your flock well.

What Can Go Wrong?

Chickens that are well fed and kept in clean, comfortable quarters have remarkable natural resistance to disease. As tough and resilient as chickens are, however, they’re far from invulnerable or immortal. Despite your best care, you’re likely to be faced with a sick chicken at some point in your flock-keeping career. In this book, we cover common health problems of adult chickens and chicks, guide you to a diagnosis for puzzling signs of illness, and help you investigate sudden death when it occurs in your flock. Read on for a preview.

Common health problems

In general, larger backyard flocks are more likely to suffer health problems than smaller flocks. Closed flocks (ones in which no new birds are introduced) are less likely to catch something than flocks where birds come and go. The following list gives common backyard chicken health problems along with the chapters in this book where you can find more information:

External parasites, such as mites, lice, and fleas (see Chapter 13)

Unexplained death (see Chapter 10)

Respiratory signs, such as cough, sneeze, swollen face, or discharge from nostrils or eyes (check out Chapters 8 and 9)

Weight loss (refer to Chapter 10)

Diarrhea (check out Chapters 8 and 9)

Droopy birds (birds who show they don’t feel well for any number of reasons by drooping their heads) (see Chapter 10)

Lameness (refer to Chapters 8 and 9)

Decreased egg production (check out Chapter 10)

Neurologic signs, such as lack of coordination and weakness (flip to Chapters 8 and 9)

Major causes of death

Most backyard flock keepers experience the death of at least one of their chickens each year (other than chickens slaughtered for human consumption). On average, about one out of ten chickens in a backyard flock dies during one year (a mortality rate of about 10 percent).

The following list shows major causes of death for free-range hens that we compiled from a number of surveys around the world. We list them roughly in order of importance along with the chapter where we discuss the cause of death in greater detail.

Predator attacks: Almost everywhere in North America, raccoons, opossums, foxes, and skunks prowl around chicken coops, and hawks and owls patrol the skies. These predators love a nice chicken dinner. See Chapter 11 for how to protect your flock from four-legged and winged marauders.

Cannibalism or vent pecking: They’re aggressive acts by flock mates; refer to Chapter 11.

Colibacillosis: Also called egg peritonitis; check out Chapter 12.

Vent prolapse: This is when part of the internal reproductive tract becomes misplaced and protrudes outside a hen’s body; refer to Chapter 8.

Fatty liver hemorrhagic syndrome: This is internal bleeding from a diseased liver; see Chapter 10.

Flock keepers can take many precautions to prevent predator attacks, cannibalism, and vent pecking, three of the most common causes of death for backyard hens.

Doing Your Part to Keep Your Flock Fit

Preventing disease is far more successful and less frustrating for small flock keepers than treating health problems after they appear in the flock. We emphasize prevention over cure throughout this book.

Although you can’t keep your chickens in a sterile bubble, we have some practical tips to help you maintain a healthy flock. Start your flock with disease-free chickens, and help keep them that way by choosing new birds wisely and building biosecurity routines into daily flock chores.

All’s not lost if a minor disease does show up in your flock. Often, you can medicate or vaccinate chickens to limit the damage, and chicken health advisors are available to coach you in your battle against flock ailments.

Safely sourcing new birds

About one-third of backyard flock keepers in the United States introduce at least one new bird each year to the flock. Most flock keepers get their birds from friends or neighbors, a feed store, or by mail-order. Auctions, flea markets, fairs, and shows are other places where chickens destined for backyards can be found. Bringing home new birds is risky business, because a flock keeper can unknowingly bring home an infectious disease along with a new chicken.

Some sources and age groups of chickens are riskier to bring home than others. Generally, younger chickens are less likely to be carriers of infectious diseases than older ones, so hatching eggs and day-old chicks are safer to add to a flock than adult birds. (Notice we didn’t say “completely safe.”) See Chapter 4 for more tips on reducing risk to your flock when you introduce new birds.

Practicing biosecurity

Biosecurity is a set of practices — things you do every day — that helps keep infectious organisms, such as viruses and bacteria, out of your flock. If a disease-causing organism manages to find its way into your flock, the same biosecurity practices can help prevent the spread of the disease between your chickens, or the spread outside your flock to someone else’s chickens.

The following list presents some biosecurity practices that are practical for most backyard flock keepers:

Control rodents in bird areas

Isolate new birds before adding them to an existing flock

Keep birds confined to their own yard

Change clothes between visiting other birds and caring for own flock

Dedicate footwear for bird area or clean footwear before entering bird area

Wash hands before handling poultry

How does your biosecurity compare with that of your fellow flock keepers? Take the biosecurity self-assessment test in Chapter 4 to rate your efforts to protect your flock from infectious diseases.

Medicating and vaccinating backyard flocks

Flock keepers in the United States can purchase medications over the counter to treat their chickens according to the directions on the label. The most common place to buy them is at a local feed store. Backyard flock keepers most frequently use antibiotics, coccidiosis preventives or treatments, vitamins, and dewormers.

Any use of a medication in a way that isn’t listed on the label is called extra-label use, which is illegal in the United States without a prescription from a licensed veterinarian. Talk to a veterinarian if you’re considering using a medication for a chicken in an extra-label way.

Most backyard flock keepers don’t find it necessary to vaccinate their chickens. We tend to agree, but we think vaccination may be useful in these circumstances:

You take chickens to poultry shows and bring them back home.

You buy chickens from auctions, poultry shows, or other places where birds gather, and add them to your existing flock.

Your flock has had a vaccine-preventable disease problem in the past.

Outbreaks of a vaccine-preventable chicken disease occur in the area where you live.

In Chapter 16, we show you how to administer medications and vaccinations to your chickens. The most common methods for getting medications or vaccinations into a chicken are by mouth, by eyedrop, into the skin of the wing web, or by injection under the skin or into a muscle.

Finding help for chicken health problems

Backyard flock keepers consult a variety of sources for chicken health advice, most often the Internet, feed store staff, or other flock keepers. A few flock keepers consult a veterinarian who is willing to work with poultry. We suggest the following go-to people who are in the best position to give you expert advice for treating a sick chicken or managing a backyard flock:

Avian veterinarians

Cooperative Extension Service agents

Veterinary diagnostic laboratories

Poultry nutritionists

National Poultry Improvement Plan inspectors

Poultry veterinarians

State veterinarians

Chapter 15 offers suggestions for finding and working with these chicken-savvy professionals.

Disappearing poultry science departments

Quick! Take advantage of these sources of chicken-raising wisdom, before they’re gone from your area. Poultry scientists investigate the best ways to manage flocks, hatch eggs, feed birds, and keep chickens healthy, so their knowledge and innovations are invaluable for flock keepers of all types and flock sizes.

Unfortunately, for several reasons, the number of poultry science departments at U.S. universities has declined by more than 80 percent in the last 50 years. The amount of poultry health research and the number of poultry researchers have also decreased with the shrinking departments. Because extension offices are closely tied to universities, the number of poultry experts that extension agents can tap into has decreased as well.

The following six poultry science departments were still standing at the time we wrote this book:

Auburn University Department of Poultry Science (www.ag.auburn.edu/poul/)

University of Arkansas Department of Poultry Science (www.poultryscience.uark.edu/)

University of Georgia Department of Poultry Science (www.poultry.uga.edu)

Mississippi State University Department of Poultry Science (www.poultry.msstate.edu)

North Carolina State University Department of Poultry Science (www.cals.ncsu.edu/poultry/index.php)

Texas A&M University Poultry Science Department (http://gallus.tamu.edu/)

Chapter 2

The Anatomy and Body Functions of the Happy, Healthy Chicken

In This Chapter

Appreciating the unique structure of a bird’s body

Understanding normal body functions of chickens

Watching a chick grow

Lacking the ability to fly ourselves (or at least become momentarily airborne, chicken-style), we think the structure and function of birds’ bodies is amazing. Curiosity is reason enough to figure out a bird’s anatomy, but for flock keepers, some knowledge of the parts of a chicken and how they work is practical, too. If you know what’s normal, you can recognize what’s abnormal, and do something to fix the problem. You can also accurately describe the problem and communicate clearly with your chicken health advisor.

In this chapter, we introduce you to the body systems of the chicken, which seem vaguely familiar to a mammal, but with some unique bird twists. The hen’s egg-laying machinery is a topic of extreme interest for flock keepers, so we give some details on how the hen’s edible “gifts” are delivered several times a week. Finally, we describe a chick developing within the egg, hatching, and growing up to become a personable, useful member of a backyard flock.

Taking a Closer Look at Chicken Parts: The Body Systems

Chickens and other birds have a number of specialized features — characteristics that make them unique in the animal kingdom. Most of the specializations are related to getting off the ground and into the air. Here are a few of the most remarkable body features:

Feathers: Feathers conserve heat and streamline the body. A feather is amazingly strong for something so light and flexible.

A light-weight skeleton: Aircraft designers must wish they could use those super-light bird bones as construction materials.

Simple digestive and urinary systems: No teeth, short intestines, and no bladder are also weight-saving features.

Reproductive organs: They shrink when they’re not being used.

We hope we’ve sparked your curiosity about the fascinating body systems of chickens. In the next sections, we give you more highlights of chicken anatomy and physiology.

The outside of the chicken: Eyes, ears, skin, and feathers

Being able to refer to the common names of the outside parts of the chicken is helpful when describing a problem to someone long distance. Refer to Figure 2-1 as you read the following list and see the outside parts of a chicken:

Illustration by Kathryn Born

Figure 2-1: Outside parts of a rooster and a hen.

Eyes: Chickens have better vision than people, by several measures. Their ability to bring objects into sharp focus and to notice very small differences in color is better than human vision, even in newly hatched chicks. Chickens can even see ultraviolet light. (Unless you have super-human powers, you can’t.) In case you were wondering, the most common chicken eye color is reddish-brown.

A chicken’s upper and lower eyelids aren’t meant for blinking. Instead, chickens have a third eyelid for that — the thin, translucent nictitating membrane. When it’s not in use, the third eyelid is stowed in the corner of the eye nearest the beak. It acts like a windshield wiper, or sometimes, safety goggles. A chicken reflexively pulls the third eyelid up over the eye whenever she needs to clear some eye gunk or avoid flying debris (or a kid’s curious finger). When a chicken is sleeping, the lower lid is pulled up to close the eye; the upper eyelid doesn’t move much.

Ears: A fringe of feathers surrounds the opening to a chicken’s ears. This opening leads to a canal that ends at the ear drum. Chickens’ sensitivity to sound and ability to hear low and high pitched sounds is similar to human hearing ability.

Skin: The skin of chickens is very thin and stretchy compared to yours. Chicken skin has no sweat glands. You can find skin glands on a chicken’s body in only two places:

• The ear canal: The glands in chicken’s ear canals have the same function yours do: making ear wax, which provides a barrier to germs and water.

• The base of the tail: The preen gland, also called the uropygial (say it: yur-o-pie-jee-el) gland or oil gland, is on the back of the chicken where the tail meets the body. It produces oily stuff that a chicken works into her plumage with her beak. We suspect she does this to make her feathers water resistant, but there may be other beauty secrets involving preen gland oil that she’s not sharing with us.

Feathers: Chickens have between 7,500 and 9,000 feathers (someone counted them!), that are made of the protein keratin, the same stuff that beaks, horns, hooves, hair, and fingernails are made of. Chickens shed old worn-out feathers and replace them with new ones in a normal, orderly process of molting. Molt is an annual event for most chickens, typically happening in the fall, although stress or changes in weather can trigger molting, too. Molt follows a regular pattern of feather loss over areas of the body, in this order: head, neck, breast, body, wings, and finally, tail. Large wing feathers are dropped in a definite order, starting at the center of the wing and working out toward the wing tip and then, from the center of the wing toward the body. The process of molting can take as little as six weeks, or as long as six months, depending on the bird.

How a hen molts can give you a clue about her egg-laying prowess. Your best layers are the ones who quickly finish molting, and they often look terrible while it’s happening — they’re the raggedy hens with bald patches. The pretty girls who molt gradually and never have “bad plumage days” probably don’t produce many eggs.

Toes: Chickens have four or five toes, depending on the breed. Bony outgrowths on the insides of the legs, called spurs, appear in both males and females, although spurs are more well-developed on roosters.

Combs and wattles: The comb is a fleshy crest on top of a chicken’s head. Wattles are the pair of skin flaps hanging from a chicken’s throat.Both males and females have combs and wattles, which come in a variety of sizes and shapes, also depending on the breed of the chicken.

Breathing and circulating blood

The main job of the respiratory system of birds is to absorb oxygen and rid the body of carbon dioxide. In addition, the respiratory system also gets rid of excess heat, detoxifies some of the waste products of the body, and makes noise — most noticeably, crowing noise, much to the annoyance of our neighbors.

Like humans, birds have a windpipe and two lungs, but from there, birds are distinctly unlike mammals. Air flows into a bird’s lungs during the intake of breath, it continues through the lungs into nine air sacs, and then it goes back out through the lungs again. Birds get two doses of oxygen for the price of one breath! The air sacs are arranged around the inside of the chest and abdominal cavity, and they connect with some of the bones of the skeleton, as Figure 2-2 shows.

Humans breathe with the help of the diaphragm muscle, which divides the chest and abdominal cavities. Birds don’t have a working diaphragm; instead, a bird moves its rib cage and keel (breastbone) to draw air into the lungs and force it back out.

Holding a chick or other small bird firmly around the body stops them from breathing, and it may quickly kill them. This is just one of several reasons why small children should be supervised when holding chicks.

Illustration by Kathryn Born

Figure 2-2: The respiratory system of a chicken.

The voice box in chickens is called the syrinx, located down in the chest cavity where the windpipe splits to enter each lung. Both male and female chickens have a syrinx, so hens can crow, too, if they feel like it. The syrinx isn’t an optional piece of anatomy though. A rooster can’t live with his syrinx removed. We talk more about chickens’ voices in Chapter 3.