Preventing heat stress in your backyard chicken flock involves a combination of commonsense management measures. The following seven simple strategies will help your chickens stay cool in summer. Heat Tolerant Breeds If you live in a climate that’s warm year-around, you might consider keeping a heat tolerant breed. Some chicken breeds naturally tolerate warm weather […]
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Chicks, ducklings, and babies of other barnyard birds are precocial, meaning they are able to feed themselves almost from the moment of hatch. Precociality is the reason why chicks peep before hatching. The word precocial comes from the Latin word praecox, meaning early to mature. A fancier word for precocial is nidifugous — from the […]
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Most chickens have four toes on each foot. Of the chicken breeds found in the United States, five breeds typically have five toes on each foot. The condition is technically known as polydactylism — from the Greek words poly meaning many, and daktylos meaning a finger or toe. The trait of having five toes represents […]
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Peafowl (Pavo cristatus) are large, attractive birds that originated in India and Sri-Lanka. They are about the same size as turkeys (Meleagridis gallopavo), to which they are closely related. The term peafowl denotes the species. The male is a peacock, the female is a peahen. The babies are peachicks. Like everything in life, raising peafowl […]
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A chick’s baby feathers are delicate and vulnerable while the bird grows a complete set of adult plumage. Until then, unsightly feather loss in baby chicks may be caused by rubbing or picking. Sequential Molting When a chick reaches the age of three and four weeks, its body feathers grow and fill out. By the […]
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Most chicken keepers know that a hen will lay eggs whether or not a rooster is present. But a rooster is needed in order to get fertile eggs that will hatch. Less well known is that eggs can hatch without a rooster. Virgin Birth Virgin birth, or parthenogenesis, is the process whereby an unfertilized egg […]
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Some chicken breeds thrive better on forage compared to others. Breeds that have been kept in confinement for many generations generally forage less aggressively than breeds that have continued to exercise their foraging instinct. If you want a low-maintenance flock, and you have space for them to roam, consider these chicken breeds that are exceptional […]
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Longtail chickens require specialized treatment to maintain the beauty of their lavish tail feathers. Here are 7 ways the care and feeding of longtail roosters differs from that of other chicken breeds. 1. Plenty of Perches A lot of what we know about caring for longtail chickens comes from the traditional management of Onagadori roosters […]
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How many eggs your ducks lay, and for how many years, depends on several factors. Most of these factors are easily within your control as the ducks’ keeper. Here are six considerations that influence how to keep your ducks laying well. Breed and Strain Some duck breeds, or strains within a breed, lay better than […]
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One of the great benefits of keeping chickens is that it gives you an opportunity to expand your vocabulary. The world of chicken keeping is full of odd or potentially confusing words and phrases, like those in this mini glossary of chicken terminology. Bloom: The moist, protective coating on a freshly laid egg that dries […]
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