Table of Contents
Introduction 1
Free range or not? 1
Pollution 2
Regime 2
Why keeps hens at all? 3
Why keep hens in town? 4
Check your deeds-are you allowed to keep poultry? 7
You have to work harder to keep hens in the city 8
A word about holidays 9
1 New to Chickens 10
Hens in the garden 10
Predators 12
Hen housing 14
Criteria for a happy hen 21
Minimum requirements 22
Notes on how to buy chickens 22
Introducting hens to their new home 25
Chickens and children 28
Diseases 30
Coping with horrid jobs 31
How to kill a chicken 32
Breeds 35
Other pets 36
So, should I keep hens? 36
2 Anatomy of the Chicken 38
Simple creatures 38
Immunity 39
Externally 39
Internally 43
The egg factory 46
3 Breeds 51
Why are there so many different breeds of chickens? 51
How to buy hens 53
Pure breeds and hybrids 56
Pure breeds 57
Pure breeds for the garden 57
Pure breeds unsuitable for the urban situation 68
Hybrid birds 69
Battery Hen Welfare Trust hens 71
Breed checker 73
4 Feeding Your Chickens 75
No teeth 75
The hen's digestive system 76
Recognising good chicken poo 78
How to find a local supplier of hen feed 78
Rations for laying hens 79
Supplementing their diet 81
The compost box 83
Water 84
Grit 85
Oyster shell 85
Should I use a hopper? 86
Cannibalism 87
Points to remember 88
5 Poultry Care 89
Daily jobs 90
Jobs for every couple of days 91
Weekly jobs 91
Monthly jobs 92
Bimontly jobs 93
Six monthly jobs 93
6 Chicken Diseases 94
What does a healthy bird look like? 96
External signs 96
Compacted crop 97
Poultry parasites 97
Internal parasites 102
Marek's disease 105
Coccidiosis107
Mycoplasma 110
Pecking birds and cannibalism 111
Avian flu 114
Fighting damage 115
Calcium deficiency 116
Food supplements for healthy birds 117
Chicken diseases at a glance 119
7 Chicks-Making Your Own 121
Why fertilised eggs? 121
When a hen goes broody 122
Stopping a hen from going broody 123
What you need for a hen to incubate her eggs 123
Hatching 124
Sexing chicks 125
Incubation by machine 126
Hatching 130
Moving chicks 131
Expect mortality 132
Daily routine 132
Vaccination 134
8 The Egg 135
The assembly line 136
The egg's construction 136
Poo on my eggs 137
How to collect eggs 137
Storing and preserving eggs 138
Cooking eggs 140
9 Getting Help 143
Bio-security 144
Getting help with illness and finding a poultry vet 145
Poultry clubs 146
Help with hybrid hens 151
Publications 153
Glossary 155
Index 161
