Excerpts

Chapter 1 Words You Should Know A number of words are peculiar to the language of poultry-raising. Knowing and understanding these words will help you communicate with other people about chickens, especially when a word possesses a different or more precise meaning than it has in common usage. This chapter is intended as a reference both when unfamiliar words come up in your conversations with other poultry people and when these words occur in later chapters. This chapter serves as something of a glossary, with explanations developed more fully later on. A bunch of chickens is officially called a flock. Chicken means a specific kind of bird, but it does not tell you the bird's sex. An adult female chicken is a hen, and an adult male is a cock or a rooster. Some folks just shorten it to roo. A male chicken younger than 1 year is a cockerel, and a female chicken under 1 year is a pullet. (Don't confuse this word with poult, which is a baby turkey and has nothing to do with this book). A baby chicken of either sex is a chick. The sound a chick makes is a peep, and you'll sometimes see "peep" applied to the chick itself. Chickens venture forth during the daytime, but they always return to the same place to sleep at night. This habit is called roosting, and the place they return to is the roost. Chickens like to sleep on something off the ground, like a tree branch or a ladder rung, which is referred to as a perch. Anytime a bird is sitting on such a thing, whether it is sleeping or not, it is perching. Chickens come in two basic sizes: large and bantam (affectionately called banty). Bantams are not a separate breed or species; they are simply small chickens. Some bantams have large counterparts; others do not. Those that do not are true bantams. Those that do are miniatures, although they are not exact miniatures--the size of their heads, tails, wings, feathers, and eggs is larger than would be the case if they were perfect miniatures. Chickens, like horses and dogs, come in different breeds. Purebreds are those of one single breed sharing distinguishing characteristics that make them all alike. Since no organization registers chickens, purists take exception to the use of the word "purebred," preferring straightbred. Hybrid-crosses, or crossbreeds, are developed for certain outstanding characteristics and are produced by always mating chickens of the same two different breeds. A chicken of mixed breed, often of unknown ancestry--a mutt of the chicken world--is a barnyard chicken or barny. To confuse the issue, however, when "barny" is capitalized, it refers to a specific breed, the Barnevelder. Chickens that are purebred will breed true, which means that the offspring of a pair of chickens of the same breed will also be of the same breed and will, more or less, have the same characteristics. Barnies of indeterminate origin, and to a limited extent deliberately developed hybrids and crossbreeds, will have offspring with wild conglomerations of characteristics that can rarely be predicted accurately (but can be quite spectacular). Pure breeds are grouped into different classifications, which usually tell the place of origin. Some classifications are Asiatic, American, and Mediterranean. Rhode Island Red is one of the breeds within the American classification, for example, and Leghorn is a breed within the Mediterranean classification. Breeds themselves are further organized into varieties, which tell more about the chickens' appearances. Brown Leghorn and white Leghorn are two varieties of the Leghorn breed. (Incidentally, Leghorn is pronounced LEG-ern, not LEG-horn.) The Standard, with a capital S, refers to either of two books that describe the appearance of each breed and variety--color, weight, shape, feathering, and so forth. Both large and bantam breeds are described in the American Standard of Perfection, a periodically updated book published by the American Poultry Association, and bantam breeds are additionally described in the Bantam Standard, published by the American Bantam Association. If you show your chickens, the extent to which they conform to their breed's standard description determines the prizes that they are awarded. A standard or standard-bred chicken is any one described in either of these two books. The word "standard" is sometimes used incorrectly to refer to large-size chickens, as opposed to bantams. The polite word for chicken excrement is droppings, also known as chicken poop. The polite word for the opening it comes out of is the vent, which also happens to be the same opening eggs come out of. Some of our friends find this fact appalling. (We refer them to the Manufacturer.) The eggs come along a different track, however, known as the oviduct. Just in front of the vent on the underside of the chicken are two sharp, pointed pubic bones coming back from the breastbone. By checking the distance between the pubic bones, you can tell how well a hen is laying. Chickens don't have teeth. Whatever a chicken eats goes into a little pouch at the base of its neck called a crop, which usually bulges by the end of the day. The crop's contents are gradually released into the gizzard, which is essentially a sack of gravel and other small, hard objects that grind up everything to make it easier to digest. The grinding agent is called grit. If your chickens can't find grit naturally, in the form of sand or small pebbles pecked from your yard, you can purchase gravel grit at the feed store. (We are occasionally asked if chicken grit is the same product as grits sold at the grocery store. It isn't.) Along with other types of chicken rations sold at a feed store is scratch, which consists of a mixture of corn and various grains. Scratch is not a nutritionally complete chicken feed. Think of it as candy for your feathered friends. The part of a chicken's leg from the foot to the first joint is the shank. It is usually naked and scaly, but in some breeds, feathers grow all the way to the ground. Spurs are the sharp, horny protrusions on a cock's shank, which he uses to protect himself when he feels threatened. Their length and condition give you a rough idea of the cock's age. Hens sometimes grow spurs, but they're rarely as formidable as a rooster's. The superstructure on a chicken's head is a comb, and the dangly things under the chin are wattles. The words "mate" and "breed" are not quite synonymous. Mating refers to the forming of an allegiance between a male and a female, or sometimes a male and several females. Mated birds hang around together and have more social interaction with each other than with the rest of the flock. Wild birds tend to form strong matings, sometimes seasonal, sometimes for life. Chickens exhibit this behavior only mildly, in that a rooster usually tries to gather a harem of hens to supervise. Breeding refers specifically to the performance of the sexual act. This word is also used in another sense--to refer to the genetic control exercised by a keeper to ensure that offspring are produced only by certain selective pairs of birds. Confusing these two meanings of the word can be rude, especially when you are talking to a chicken breeder. The chickens you own are sometimes called your stock. If you save certain chickens specifically for breeding, they are called your breeding stock or your breeders. If you have excellent specimens of chickens suitable for exhibition, they are called show stock or show quality (abbreviated SQ). Those not of show quality (NSQ) are pet quality (PQ). Serious breeders, and those who keep hens for economical egg production, periodically examine their chickens and remove any that are unhealthy, unproductive, or otherwise undesirable for their purposes. This process is called culling. For those who choose not to pass their problem chickens along to other chicken-keepers, cull means kill. For people who think of their chickens as beloved pets, cull is a four-letter word not to be mentioned in polite company. An egg is described as fertile or infertile according to whether or not it is capable of producing a chick. Fertility depends on how recently a rooster has bred the hen that laid the egg and how vigorous the rooster is. When an egg is laid, it has a slimy wet covering, called the bloom or cuticle, that quickly dries and protects the egg's contents. A batch of eggs in a nest is called a clutch. Eggs will hatch only if they are fertile, and they undergo a 21-day period of incubation, during which they must be kept suitably warm and moist. In nature, a hen accomplishes incubation by providing warmth and moisture from her body. This kind of sitting is called setting. Calvin Coolidge once remarked that, in his native rural Vermont, whether a hen was sitting or setting wasn't nearly as important as whether she was laying or lying. A hen in the mood to set is said to be broody. If you don't want a hen to set, you have to break her up, which means discouraging her broodiness through various means. Some people call it busting up, because they think that sounds tougher, but hens are not so easily intimidated. You needn't worry that if you break up a hen that her deepest primal urgings will go unconsummated. She'll forget all about it in a day or two. Assuming you elect not to break her up, or she elects to ignore your attempts, one day, a batch of chicks will hatch (chicks are never born). They make a hole in the eggshell through which they breathe while struggling to get out. The hole is called a pip, and making the hole is called pipping. The resulting batch of chicks is referred to as the hen's brood. Incubation may be accomplished artificially in an incubator, or, by chicken-keepers who don't like long words, a bator. The device may be large or small, simple or elaborate, but it must imitate the temperature and humidity underneath a setting hen. During incubation, you may want to see what's going on inside an egg by shining a light through it. This activity is called candling, even though it's no longer done with a candle. The same process, known by the same name, is also used to examine eggs for cracked shells or internal blood spots, when the eggs are sold for eating. It's nice to know a baby chick's sex as soon as possible after it hatches. The process of sorting the pullets from the cockerels is called sexing and is done by professional sexers employed by a hatchery--a place that specializes in hatching chicks. When you buy chicks, you can get all pullets (for more money) or all cockerels (for less money)--but don't expect perfection, as even expert sexers are only about 95 percent accurate. You can also buy straight-run or as-hatched chicks, which means they have not been examined and sorted by sex, and they are mixed in natural proportions of about 50-50 (unless you are unlucky enough to get one of those all-too-frequent hatches that turn out to be 60 percent or more cockerels). Chicks that are hatched without a hen are usually (but not necessarily) raised without a hen. While they are growing up, they must be kept warm and safe in an enclosure called a brooder. At the time they hatch, chicks are covered with soft downy fluff rather than feathers. They begin to grow feathers immediately, however, and after they have a complete set of actual feathers, they are said to be feathered-out. Now they can fly and keep themselves warm, but they haven't yet acquired their full set of adult plumage. Plumage refers generally to a bird's configuration of feathers in all their different lengths, shapes, and colors. Once a year, usually in autumn, the feathers fall out and regrow. This occurrence is called the molt. Fortunately, the process occurs gradually, so a bird is seldom completely naked, though we've seen some come close. Chicks sometimes pick each other, pulling out each other's feathers at the back, head, or vent. Older birds will also pick if too many are kept in too small a space, they get too hot, or they are simply bored. Sometimes, picking goes on so extensively that it turns into cannibalism. Shockingly, chickens will devour each other, if they have a mind to. They may also discover that eggs are good to eat. Then you have an egg-eating problem on your hands, which can be difficult to reverse. A chicken yard is called a pen or a run, and the building where they lay their eggs and sleep is called a coop. Another common term is henhouse, which originated in the days when farmers kept a rooster only long enough to produce spring chicks for the next year's flock, then served him up for Sunday dinner. For most of the year, the chicken coop housed hens only; hence, henhouse. Coop floors and brooder floors should be strewn with an absorbent material that is durable, does not pack easily, and permits quick evaporation of moisture from chicken droppings. Such material is called litter and commonly consists of pine shavings or shredded paper. If the litter in a brooder gets wet and messy, chicks might get coccidiosis, or coccy (COCK-see), a disease to which chickens are especially susceptible when young. Rations for baby chicks often contain a disease-inhibiting agent called a coccidiostat that greatly reduces the danger of this illness. Chickens like to take dust baths, or thrash around in the dirt, raising a cloud of dust around their feathers to clean themselves and to discourage body parasites. Chickens have a pecking order, whereby they arrange themselves socially by rank. With this brief synopsis of a chicken's world, let's go into the nitty-gritty details. Chapter 2 Protecting Your Chickens Too many beginning chicken-keepers find out the hard way that chickens need to be fenced in. For one thing, you may want to protect your garden (not to mention your neighbor's) and other vegetation from the chickens. More important, you certainly want to protect your precious chickens from predators such as hawks, raccoons, skunks, weasels, cats, dogs, kids, and cars. We've heard many a sad tale of the disappearance of feathered pets. The following accounts offer examples of what happens when chickens are exposed to the cruel and hungry world. Grim Tales We frequently see hawks flying around our area, and several times, we have managed to chase them away from our yard before they did any damage. But one year, before we put up a covered run, we witnessed a hawk carry off our little black bantam hen. One minute, she was happily scratching the soil nearby, the next minute, she was in the hawk's clutches, disappearing into the sky. Some of our friends with hawks living on their properties are certain that the raptors would never touch their chickens. Maybe, maybe not. Trust us--all it takes is one swift and sudden swoop to result in the loss of a beloved pet. Excerpted from Chickens in Your Backyard: A Beginner's Guide by Gail Damerow All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.