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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!
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.
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
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

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.