TIPS AND TRICKS FOR HAPPY, HEALTHY CHICKENS

Based on some of the poultry forums we see online, many first-time chicken-keepers appear to be scared witless by warnings about things that can go wrong. But rest assured that if you provide your flock with a clean and healthy environment, a nutritionally balanced diet, abundant fresh water, and plenty of loving care, major problems are unlikely to arise. The tips described in this chapter are offered to help further smooth the way toward making your chicken-raising venture easy and enjoyable.

CATCHING A CHICKEN

A handy thing to know is how to catch a chicken, which is fairly easy—once you’re onto chicken psychology. If it fits into your plans, the best way to catch a chicken is at night after the flock has gone to roost. They will be asleep when you come in, and you can easily pick one right off the perch.

On the other hand, if you have raised your chickens as pets, and they are used to being handled, simply reach down and pick one up anytime during the day. Having calm, friendly chickens is one excellent reason for being on familiar terms with every bird in your flock.

To catch a less-friendly chicken, corner it in the coop or against a fence and grab it either by the legs or by clamping down on both wings. If you miss the first time, the chicken will become wilier and more difficult to corner.

HOW TO CARRY A CHICKEN

A chicken that’s tame is easy to carry. Grasp its legs with one hand and cradle it in the crook of the same arm. Keep hold of both legs, so the chicken can’t scratch you with its sharp toenails. Gently stroking the chicken’s neck and wattles will make it easier to catch in the future.

A chicken that’s frightened will flap its wings and paddle its feet trying to get free. In this case, cradle the chicken with the same arm as the hand holding the legs, and place your other hand over its back to hold down the wings. Laying a handkerchief over the chicken’s head to cover its eyes will usually calm it down as well.

For catching an intractable chicken, a long-handled net is ideal. It looks like a fishnet, and, in fact, if you already have a fishnet, it’ll work fine for the purpose. Throw down some scratch to attract the bird’s attention and distract it while you sneak up with the net.

Whatever your method, move rapidly but deliberately, rather than run or lunge suddenly. A frightened chicken may fly up into the rafters, into a tree, or over the fence. Having a helper to run interference can make things easier. On the other hand, someone who is unfamiliar with the ways of chickens can be worse than useless. We usually advise such well-meaning visitors to please stand out of the way.

A neighbor once told us we could have all her banties, if we could catch them. Confident that we would have no trouble, we went over only to find them running loose in a large backyard. Even though we had brought along two friends, the bantams were so wild that we succeeded only in scattering them into the trees, into the vacant lot next door, and under the neighbor’s house. We suspect that someone had attempted to catch those chickens previously, causing them to become leery of further attempts to be caught. The trick to catching a chicken is to get it right the first time.

WING-CLIPPING

Some breeds, and especially bantam breeds, typically like to fly. Others might tend to fly while they’re growing but then settle down after they mature. Chickens that fly out of their yards can be a nuisance, as well as exposing themselves to predators.

Where to clip the wing

If you have chickens that like to fly about and get themselves into trouble, and covering their run is not an option, you might want to ground them by clipping their wings. Wing-clipping is easily done by using a pair of sharp shears. Cut back the end one-third of the flight feathers of only one wing. The feathers will grow back after a molt, so you may eventually need to reclip them.

Wing-clipping does not harm a chicken, although to hear some of them squawk, you might think it was killing them. The idea behind wing-clipping is to upset the bird’s balance enough that it can’t lift itself far off the ground.

Wing-clipping has a few disadvantages. It does somewhat spoil the bird’s appearance, which bothers some chicken-keepers. If you expect to show the bird, it will be disqualified if the feathers don’t grow back before the show. Also, chickens with clipped wings that forage in a pasture or orchard may have difficulty escaping a predator.

PREDATORS

Once upon a time, a female cat lived in the field behind our house. Each spring, she would slip over our fence to find food for her latest litter of kittens, and our little chicks disappeared one by one. If you have a mysterious marauder pillaging your flock, you might set a live trap to catch it. That way, if the midnight skulker turns out to be your neighbor’s pet, you will not only have positive proof who the offender is but also you may be able to avoid a possible feud by returning the animal unharmed.

The culprit might be anything from a weasel or skunk to a fox or raccoon, which means you may need professional help or at least a depredation permit. In many areas, to trap animals legally, you need a permit, which will be issued only if you can prove that you have diligently attempted all other means of excluding predators from your poultry yard. This concept is important, because it means that you bear the ultimate responsibility for providing secure fences and housing to keep your chickens safe from predators.

Dogs roaming loose are by far the most common poultry predator. Should you ever have an issue with a neighbor’s dog, be aware of your legal rights. Laws vary with the locale, but nowhere need you put up with a dog marauding chickens in your own yard. Hopefully, you can settle the matter amicably with your neighbor. If not, and the problem persists, you might want to prosecute the uncooperative owner for recovery of your loss.

Some areas have pretty stiff laws covering such eventualities. A fellow we know, for instance, raises awesome show bantams. The neighbor’s dog broke in and killed one of his chickens. The neighbor was uncooperative about controlling his dog, so our friend took the neighbor to court. The law in his area provided for compensation in the amount of double damages. As luck would have it, our friend could prove he had recently sold one of his show birds for $100. The dog owner ended up paying court costs plus $200 for the dead chicken. You can bet that ended the dog’s chicken-killing adventures.

CONTROLLING RODENTS

Sooner or later, you will almost certainly have an infestation of rats or mice in your coop, robbing the chicken’s rations. Rodents tend to move indoors during fall and winter, when they seek food and shelter. Rats eat eggs and chicks, and both rats and mice can consume copious amounts of chicken feed.

Discourage rodents by eliminating piles of wood, scrap, unused equipment, and all other potential hiding places. Store feed in containers with tight-fitting lids, and immediately sweep up any spills. Remove feed from the coop at night, and place the feeder where rodents can’t get to it. Rats need lots of water, so if the drinker is removed overnight, that measure alone may be sufficient to encourage rats to vacate.

Trapping is an option, but all traps are messy to deal with. Consider poisoning as a last resort. You might end up poisoning a pet, a child, or innocent wildlife. Besides, poison works best when rodents can’t find anything else to eat, and when that’s the case, they will leave on their own anyway.

HOT WEATHER

During hot summer days, chickens stand around in the shade with their wings held away from their bodies, panting through wide-open beaks. Chickens cannot tolerate extreme heat and can easily die from heat stress. Since chickens don’t perspire, air circulation and lots of drinking water are their methods of keeping cool.

SIX HEAT-TOLERANT BREEDS

Andalusian

Fayoumi*

Leghorn

Naked Neck*

Polish

Sultan

*Gail’s top picks

An ample supply of cool drinking water is especially important in hot weather. As water circulates through the chicken’s digestive system, it picks up body heat, helping cool the chicken down. Chickens, therefore, drink much more than usual during hot weather, and, as a result, their poop becomes moister. But they won’t drink sufficient amounts if the water is warm. Keep drinkers in the shade, and refresh them often. If you can’t be there to frequently provide cool water, place chunks of ice in the drinker. Plastic soda bottles filled two-thirds to three-quarters with water, and kept in the freezer, are handy reusable cool-water devices.

When the temperature is extremely high but humidity is low, spray the yard and coop roof with a hose or set a sprinkler out to create cooling through evaporation. On exceptionally hot and dry days, we sometimes spray the chickens with a fine mist. Above all, make sure they have a shady place in which to loll, and lots of space so they can spread away from each other to enjoy good air circulation.

FROSTBITTEN COMBS

In colder climates, frostbite is potentially a hazard to chickens during freezing weather, especially where conditions are damp and drafty. Particularly vulnerable are large combs and dangly wattles. Frostbite is less likely to affect breeds with tight-fitting combs.

The first sign of a frostbitten comb is a tip that appears pale, gray, or white. Swelling follows, then blistering, and finally the affected part may eventually die back and fall off. If you suspect that a chicken has been frostbitten, thaw the comb by carefully applying a warm, damp cloth for 15 minutes, rewarming the cloth, as needed. Do not directly apply heat (such as from a hair dryer or heating pad), which would increase the pain, and do not rub the affected area, which would increase the damage. After the comb has thawed, gently apply a hydrogel wound spray, such as Vetericyn, to promote healing and protect the comb from infection.

SIX COLD-HARDY BREEDS

Australorp

Buckeye*

Chantecler*

Delaware

Orpington

Wyandotte

*Gail’s top picks

Frostbitten combs and wattles are extremely painful once they have thawed. The bird may become listless and stop eating. Isolate such a bird and provide a feeder and drinker of a type that won’t rub against the comb and cause further pain. Although pet bowls are generally not the best feeders and drinkers for chickens, in this case, they are a good option. If infection sets in, amputation of the comb and wattles may be necessary.

Controlling coop humidity is an important frostbite-prevention measure. During winter, when chickens tend to spend more time inside the coop, moisture released by both droppings and respiration can easily become excessive. If the inside of the coop window drips with moisture, improve the ventilation.

Providing a flat-panel heater where chickens can opt to roost beneath it, or not, is a helpful measure, although heating the entire coop is a decidedly bad idea. Chickens adapt to weather as the seasons change, and providing heat for full-grown chickens will only confuse their metabolisms and make them even more vulnerable to the cold.

LEG BANDS

A handy way to keep track of such things as a chicken’s age or where it came from is to apply a numbered or color-coded leg band around the chicken’s shank. Bands may be purchased from suppliers of general poultry equipment and come in several sizes for different size chickens.

If you band your chickens, watch to make sure that the shank doesn’t expand around the band, which will cause swelling, infection, and lameness. When bands are applied to young birds, take care to increase the band size as the birds grow.

FEATHER LOSS

First-time chicken-keepers are sometimes alarmed by the molt, when chickens lose their feathers and get new ones, which usually occurs each autumn. It doesn’t happen to all the chickens at once, and, most of the time, it happens so gradually, it’s hardly noticeable. But, sometimes, a chicken may look almost bare naked. You can tell a molt has started when your chicken yard suddenly seems to be littered with feathers. During the molt, make sure your birds are getting a proper diet, with plenty of protein to help their bodies build new feathers. Chickens that appear to be going through a hard molt—as indicated by a major loss of feathers all at the same time—can benefit from a molting supplement, available at pet shops for caged birds.

Expandable banding spiral

Feather loss occurring in the spring in the form of bare patches across a hen’s back or on her head occurs when a rooster holds on with his claws and beak during breeding, as described on this page. Once the feathers have been rubbed off a hen’s back, the cock may claw through the skin, causing serious wounds. As soon as you notice a hen’s feathers are missing, either isolate the hen, remove the rooster, or outfit the hen with a breeding saddle.

Another cause of feather loss is a type of mite, appropriately known as the depluming mite, which burrows into the chicken’s skin. To relieve the irritation, the chicken scratches and picks at its feathers, and sometimes pulls them out. To prevent this cause of feather loss, keep the coop clean and mite-free, as described in “Mites and Lice” (this page).

Feather loss may also result from picking, or the pulling out of one chicken’s feathers by another chicken. Feather picking is typically the first sign of cannibalism.

CANNIBALISM

Yikes! It sounds scary, but bored or overcrowded chickens sometimes resort to cannibalism as an interesting diversion. This bad habit most commonly involves young birds, often because they are too crowded, too hot, or subjected to bright lights 24/7. Nutritional deficiencies or inadequate watering and feeding space may be contributing factors, as is brooding chicks on hardware cloth rather than on a solid floor.

Bored chicks often start by picking each other’s toes, or even their own. Brooded chicks may enjoy having a toy of some sort to play with. For instance, they like to peck at shiny objects hanging from the ceiling or attached to the wall, such as an aluminum pie tin or an acrylic mirror. They also enjoy reaching for and eating suspended leafy greens, which might be enclosed in a hanging treat ball designed for this purpose.

Preventing overcrowding is essential. Chicks grow with astonishing rapidity—just like popcorn. So plan ahead. Increase the size of the available space as the chicks grow. Also, feed them a high-protein diet suitable for their age. And once they are eating and drinking well, dim the lights or, better yet, provide a heat source other than a light bulb so you can turn off the lights altogether at night. For providing brooder heat, a flat-panel radiant heater is ideal.

If cannibalism appears to be starting in the brooder, replace the light source with a red bulb and keep the brooder away from direct sunlight. A red light neutralizes the red color of blood, making it less attractive. A variety of antipicking preparations are available that supposedly taste awful enough to discourage cannibalism, but, in our experience, they don’t work well.

As chicks grow, they may start picking at the base of the tail. Mature chickens often start picking near the vent. Sometimes, you can identify a ring leader or a single persistent picker, and removing that bird from the flock may resolve the problem.

An injury of any sort provides a terrific opportunity for picking to start. Whenever a bird has been injured in any way, move it into isolation until the wound has healed completely.

In grown chickens, boredom is less likely to occur when they spend time outdoors with adequate space to run around and to scratch and dust in, and where they can find all manner of things to peck at besides each other. Also, be sure all birds can easily get to feed and water stations. When cannibalism is just getting started, supplementing the flock’s diet with alfalfa meal or sunflower seeds sometimes helps get the problem under control.

Eye guards that look like sunglasses—called blinders, peepers, or specs—are sometimes used to prevent cannibalism. They work by preventing a bird from seeing directly ahead to aim a peck. Their disadvantage, aside from making the chicken look embarrassingly ridiculous, is that the wearer may develop eye disorders.

Industrial chicken-raisers often deal with cannibalism by amputating the tips of the chickens’ beaks, called debeaking or, euphemistically, beak trimming or beak conditioning. Debeaked chickens can’t properly peck or groom themselves, and we think the deformity makes them look ugly. Anyone who loves their chickens wouldn’t wish debeaking on them.

Once cannibalism has gotten started, it can be nearly impossible to stop unless the conditions that caused the problem in the first place are changed. Early prevention through vigilance, proper care, and rapid adjustments as needed are the best ways to deal with this perennial problem.

EGG-EATING

A particularly insidious form of cannibalism is egg-eating, which most chicken-keepers have to deal with at one time or another. You will know you have this problem when you find empty shells in the nest and yolk smeared around in the nesting litter or on other eggs. Egg-eating typically gets started when a hen accidentally breaks an egg in the nest, eats it, and finds out how good it is. Usually, an egg breaks because the shell is too thin, which may be a result of calcium deficiency.

Layer ration contains calcium, but usually not enough. If your hens have not had access to a calcium supplement in the form of crushed oyster shells, put out a supply. If they dive into it, calcium deficiency may well be the trouble. To make sure your hens get plenty of calcium, leave a containerful of oyster shells where they can get to it any time they feel the need.

Egg-eating may start when unground eggshells are fed back to the chickens. It’s a great idea to recycle eggshells, but the shells should always be dried and mashed or ground in the blender. Feeding shells back to your hens does not provide an adequate amount of calcium, so it is not a complete substitute for oyster shell.

Boredom sometimes leads to egg-eating, so try to let the chickens out where they can scratch around and have plenty to do. Frequent collecting of eggs during the day removes temptation. Locating the nests in a darkened area usually helps discourage egg-eaters. Where moving a nest isn’t practical, hang a fabric flap in the nest box opening to block direct light from shining into the nest.

If you can identify the guilty hen, isolate her for a while and hope she forgets about eating eggs. Roosters will also eat eggs, so the offender may not be a hen. To identify the culprit, look for the chicken literally with egg on its face.

Egg-eating can spread like wildfire through a flock, once others catch on to what they’ve been missing. If you see it starting, stop it while you can. We have occasionally had cases of egg-eating among our chickens, and all have been stopped by following the suggested procedures. But should you get an inveterate egg-eater, remove it permanently from the flock before it teaches its bad habit to the rest of the chickens, leaving you permanently eggless.

PARASITIC WORMS

Like young cats and dogs, young chickens have the tendency to pick up infestations of worms. The two main worm categories are familiar to dog and cat owners: roundworms (nematodes) and tapeworms (cestodes). However, the worm species that affect chickens are not the same as those that infect a dog or a cat, and therefore chickens cannot acquire worms from a dog or cat. Many of the worm species that affect chickens do affect other types of birds, including other poultry species as well as wild birds.

Some chicken-keepers deworm their chickens too often. Others don’t deworm often enough. How often your chickens need deworming, or whether they need it at all, depends on numerous factors, such as your climate, how your flock is housed and managed, and the kind of worms that are present in your chickens’ environment.

Chickens raised in a warm, dry climate are less at risk for a worm load than chickens raised in a damp climate. Chicken-keepers in dry climates sometimes claim their birds don’t have worms because they’re fed herbs or other natural concoctions. But the truth is that parasitic worm eggs and larvae in a dry environment quickly die when exposed to air and sunlight.

In a rainy climate, or in any area experiencing more than the usual amount of rainfall, worm eggs and larvae in the environment survive longer, because they are protected from drying out by moisture and mud. Since more parasites survive, the potential for a worm overload in chickens increases, and therefore more-aggressive parasite control and deworming measures are needed to avoid reduced resistance to disease.

Each worm species has one of two types of parasitic life cycles: direct or indirect. Direct-cycle worms move from one chicken to another by means of worm eggs or larvae expelled by an infected chicken into the environment that are then eaten by another chicken that thus becomes infected. Indirect-cycle worms must first enter some other creature during an immature stage of their lives. Such a creature—called an alternate or intermediate host—might be an ant, beetle, earthworm, fly, grasshopper, slug, snail, or termite. A chicken gets infected by eating the alternate host.

All tapeworms and more than half the roundworm species that infect chickens have indirect life cycles. Effective worm control therefore involves monitoring alternate hosts that can potentially infect your chickens. Beetles and grasshoppers, for instance, are more abundant in late summer. Earthworms come to the soil’s surface after heavy rains. Slugs and snails are also more plentiful in warm, wet weather than in either cold weather or hot, dry weather.

The presence of alternate hosts is also influenced by flock housing and management. A caged chicken is most likely to be infected by flies. Chickens housed on litter are most likely to be infected by cockroaches, beetles, and other indoor-living creatures. Free-range flocks are more likely to be infected by earthworms, grasshoppers, slugs, snails and other outdoor-living creatures. In a warm, humid climate, where alternate hosts are prevalent year-round, more aggressive deworming is required compared to a cold climate where alternate hosts are inactive for part of the year.

DEWORMING

Of the many livestock dewormers on the market, the only one approved for chickens is piperazine, sold under the trade name Wazine, which is effective only against large roundworms, but not other roundworm species or tapeworms. Piperazine affects only adult worms, not the young worms attached to a chicken’s intestinal lining. Treatment must therefore be repeated in 7 to 10 days to catch young worms that have matured and released their hold on the intestine. Piperazine is not approved for hens laying eggs for human consumption. The withdrawal period for meat birds is 14 days. The indiscriminate routine use of any dewormer is not the best answer to parasite control, because repeated use causes worms to eventually become resistant to the dewormer.

Despite convincing arguments to the contrary, do not rely on such things as garlic, pumpkin seeds, herbal concoctions, or diatomaceous earth as methods of deworming your chickens, especially if you would like to see them live long, healthy lives. Natural methods may control worms by making the environment inside a chicken less attractive to parasites, but unlike a chemical dewormer, they cannot be counted on to remove existing parasites.

The only way to know for certain if and when your chickens need deworming is through regular fecal tests. Most veterinarians offer fecal tests for a nominal fee and can tell you if your chickens are wormy, what kind of worms they have, how often they might require deworming, and what kind of dewormer to use. You can also learn to do your own fecal tests following directions available online. Luckily, once a healthy chicken reaches maturity, it becomes resistant to parasitic worms and is less in need of deworming.

After a deworming treatment, thoroughly cleaning out and replacing coop litter reduces the rate of reinfestation. The spread of direct-cycle parasites may be minimized by having a droppings pit beneath the roost, so the chickens can’t pick in the accumulating poop. Outdoors, rotating the run and either tilling the soil or mowing vegetation in the previous run reduces the parasite population by exposing expelled worms, larvae, and eggs to drying sunlight, helping reduce the overall population.

MITES AND LICE

Body parasites can be a serious problem for chickens. They crawl all over the head and body, biting and chewing and sucking blood until the poor bird is driven to distraction. These parasites can cause a good deal of blood loss, reducing the bird’s resistance to disease. A setting hen provides an ideal stationary home for them, and they may so totally infest her body that she dies. Neither are mites and lice a pleasure to the person whose hand and arm are crawling with the things after handling an infested bird or equipment in the coop.

Chickens confined completely by a coop and run usually won’t get mites or lice unless an affected chicken is brought in, and then the vermin will spread through the whole flock. When wild birds and rodents can gain access, they sometimes bring along body parasites and leave them with the flock.

All sorts of mites and lice can affect various parts of a chicken’s body. Some kinds of mites spend the day on the perches and in the cracks of the coop but crawl onto the chickens at night, when they go to roost. Others live perpetually on the birds’ bodies.

Mites are minute spiderlike specks that are difficult to see but may sometimes be observed by looking closely in the fluff between the feathers on the underside of a chicken, especially around the vent. They are red or light brown. If you see little bugs crawling around in the litter or nesting boxes, they are probably mites. The northern fowl mite is a particularly bad specimen because it spends its entire life cycle on a chicken’s body, and each generation matures rapidly to produce another generation.

Chicken louse

Lice are brownish yellow in color and are generally larger and thus easier to see than mites. They, too, spend their entire lives on the chicken’s body. Their eggs, called nits, stick to the feathers in clumps and look something like gray rice. An easy way to reduce their population is to gather up and remove nit-laden feathers from the coop and yard during a molt.

If your chickens are exposed to lice and mites, check them occasionally and eliminate the vermin before they get out of hand. Go out at night and examine one or two chickens. You won’t have to check them all—if one has vermin, they all will. Avoid getting these parasites on your clothing and body. Should you fail, put the clothes in the washer and yourself in the shower.

SCALY LEG MITES

Scaly leg mites may be spread by wild birds but are more often introduced by infected chickens. These pests, which are too tiny to see without a microscope, burrow under the scales on a chicken’s shanks, generating debris that causes the scales to stick out and the shanks to appear rough and thickened. The irritation may cause the affected bird to do the goose step, like a Russian soldier, and eventually become lame.

These mites spread by traveling along the roost. They may be controlled by brushing the roost once a month with linseed oil or any kind of vegetable oil.

Getting rid of the mites on a chicken is not so easy, because they burrow in so deeply. Dipping each affected leg daily in vegetable oil is messy but works. Unless the infestation has been allowed to progress too far along, eventually the old scales will pop off and the shanks will become shiny and smooth. A less-messy method is to coat the shanks and feet with petroleum jelly, which stays on longer than drippy oil, so it needs to be applied only about once a week. Routinely applying oil or petroleum jelly to your chickens’ shanks as part of your regular grooming routine will help prevent these mites from getting a foothold, or rather, a leghold, in the first place.

Dust-bathing helps eliminate body parasites, so your chickens should be able to dust when they want to. If they don’t have a natural dusting place, provide them with a bin of plain soft, dry dirt. The latest legally approved preparations designed to prevent or control body parasites are available at feed stores and from poultry-supply outlets. Treatment must be repeated, as directed on the label, to kill vermin that hatch after the first application.

TEN COMMON DISEASES OF BACKYARD CHICKENS

DIRE DISEASES

Even in the healthiest of chicken flocks, the occasional bird may die. So finding a dead chicken in your yard, as tragic as that may be, is no reason to become totally unglued. A rational approach would be to watch your remaining chickens for signs of disease. Of course, if more than one chicken suddenly die, you will certainly want to find out whether or not you have an epidemic on your hands and what you should do about it.

Disease organisms are always lurking about the coop, waiting for a chance to pounce on a likely victim. These organisms may be kept under control through periodic cleaning and disinfecting of the coop and related equipment. To ensure your chickens have healthy immune systems, provide adequate space, fresh air, and a nutritionally balanced diet.

By far the best way to introduce some dire disease into your backyard flock is to bring in new chickens. Much can be said for maintaining a closed flock—that is, one to which additions are not made through outside sources. Any time a new chicken is brought into your flock, it brings with it the possibility of potential problems. If you wish to expand your flock, the safest way is to acquire chicks and raise them yourself.

If you must bring mature birds into your flock, or when returning show birds home from a competition, isolate them for at least a month to see if any symptoms of disease develop. Doing so may be a nuisance but could prevent the loss of an entire flock that was formerly healthy.

Since a chicken may be a carrier of a disease for which it shows no signs, you may want to put a chicken (one that you are willing to sacrifice) into isolation with the new or returning birds. If your chicken does not develop any signs within about a month, then it, along with the new ones, may be returned to the flock.

Recognizing the signs of disease will help you provide prompt treatment. The best way to recognize signs of disease is to know what healthy chickens look and act like. Then you will readily notice when something is wrong with one or more of your birds.

Signs of illness in chickens are many and varied. Some signs are indicative of several different diseases, making diagnosis difficult even for an experienced veterinarian unless lab tests are performed. To make matters worse, a sick chicken will hide its misery as long as possible to avoid showing any sign of weakness to the bullies in the flock or to potential predators.

A WORD ABOUT BIRD FLU

Avian influenza, or bird flu, is a viral disease common in wild aquatic birds, which themselves rarely become ill but can spread the virus to other species. Just like the viruses for which we humans are offered flu shots every fall, bird flu viruses keep mutating and developing new strains. All the various bird flu viruses fall into one of two categories based on their pathogenicity—the degree to which they are capable of causing disease.

Low-pathogenic avian flu viruses are common throughout the United States, as well as in the rest of the world. They rarely cause disease in chickens but are of concern, because they can mutate into highly pathogenic viruses.

High-pathogenic avian flu viruses spread rapidly and produce serious, typically fatal, illness in chickens. And the disease is not always purely respiratory. The viruses may affect digestion (causing appetite loss and diarrhea), reproduction (reduced laying and soft-shelled eggs), or nerves (resulting in twisted necks and paralyzed wings). Sometimes, the first sign is the sudden death of healthy-looking chickens. To keep the disease from spreading, whenever a high-pathogenic virus is detected, the entire flock is destroyed.

How high-pathogenic flu gets around is a matter of contention. It may be introduced by migratory birds passing through an area where large numbers of industrial poultry reside. It is then spread by workers who travel from one industrial facility to another, causing outbreaks in completely confined industrial flocks. Indeed, studies show that avian influenza doesn’t necessarily follow migratory flyways, but rather typically spreads along commercial trade routes. Bottom line: Even during one of the periodic outbreaks that flash through the poultry industry, the probability is low that your backyard chickens will become infected with bird flu.

Often, the first sign of illness in a hen is a decrease in egg-laying. But, of course, reduced egg production has many other causes, as described on this page. Another sign of illness is sitting around listlessly with feathers ruffled. But if the weather is bad, ruffled feathers could simply mean the bird is cold. So watch for other signs: an unexplained drop in the amount of feed eaten, weight loss (a sharp, meatless breastbone can be the tip-off), wheezing and sneezing, runny nose, gulping, eyes swollen shut, yellow face and comb, black comb, lameness, and runny or bloody droppings (on the ground or sticking to feathers around the vent).

If you notice any of these signs in one of your birds, isolate it at once, well away from the others, to prevent spreading the disease and to allow the chicken to get plenty of rest. Chickens seem to know when one among them is weakened and will often pick on that one. Try to keep the ailing chicken warm, and especially avoid housing it in a drafty place. A light bulb placed nearby will provide warmth and might hasten recovery. Provide fresh feed and plenty of clean, fresh water. To avoid possibly spreading a disease, tend to your healthy chickens before caring for any in your ER. And carefully watch for further developments.

If several members of the flock appear affected, you would be wise to consult a vet or a veteran poultry-keeper in your area. Be selective in who you turn to for advice. Old-time folk remedies abound. Some may well be valid and effective treatments for chicken diseases; others may not do any good at all. Meanwhile, the ailing bird is suffering without proper help. Still other remedies may be downright detrimental and actually hasten the death of your favorite feathered friend.

Federal laws require a prescription before you can buy antibiotics or other medications to treat chickens. Find out in advance if a local vet is knowledgeable about poultry health and diseases. Getting professional help is especially prudent if a disease seems to be spreading among your flock. (For more information, The Chicken Health Handbook, by Gail Damerow, is a comprehensive source of chicken health-care information.)

We cannot overemphasize the fact that healthy chickens with strong immune systems, kept away from potential carriers of disease, fed properly, and housed in a clean, dry area of adequate size, are unlikely to come down with some dread disease.