Backyard Chickens Beyond the Basics: Lessons for Expanding Your Flock, Understanding Chicken Behavior, Keeping a Rooster, Adjusting for the Seasons, Staying Healthy, and More!

by Pam Freeman

Overview

When you're ready for the next step, Backyard Chickens Beyond the Basics shows you the realities of raising productive flocks that are happy and healthy.

A must-have for every backyard chicken keeper, Backyard Chickens Beyond the Basics goes beyond introductory lessons and explores the realities of raising a flock for eggs — and entertainment, of course! From odd eggs and molting, to feeding and preparing for the seasons, this book covers the subjects beginner books don't adequately address and re-examines common knowledge that may not actually hold true. It's a resource to turn to time and again.

Author Pam Freeman draws on her years of experience fielding reader questions to identify and clearly explain many common - and some not-so-common - issues in chicken keeping, including: 

• How do you add new chickens to your flock?
• What is the pecking order and how can you change or control it?
• Is it better to raise chicks by hand or with a broody hen?
• What do you do when you collect eggs?

In Backyard Chickens Beyond the Basics, readers will find not just answers, but a book full of "coop truth" that helps them continue on their journey. Because as every chicken owner knows: Chickens are individuals and real-life chicken keeping often takes you far from the beaten path.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780760352007
Publisher:	Harvard Common Press, The
Publication date:	05/01/2017
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	883,630
Product dimensions:	7.50(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Pam Freeman is the editor of Backyard Poultry magazine and Countryside magazine. After she received four Silver Laced Wyandotte chicks from the Easter Bunny, her flock quickly grew and Pam launched pamsbackyardchickens.com. In the years that followed, she hand-raised chicks, nursed chicks and chickens back to health, and experienced the entire lifecycle many times over. During that time, Pam also joined the Countryside Network, where she is now an editor managing a roster of her fellow chickenkeeping writers. Pam is a resident “Ask the Expert” columnist for Backyard Poultry magazine and continues to write regular posts about chicken keeping and homesteading for Backyard Poultry and other publications.

Table of Contents

Introduction 8

Chapter 1 Expanding Your Flock 11

Considerations Before Expanding 14

Hand-Raising Chicks 16

Using a Broody Hen to Add to Your Flock 23

Adding Older Chickens 28

Chapter 2 Flock Behavior 33

The Pecking Order 35

Troubleshooting Relationships 43

Working With Your Flock 46

How to Safely Integrate Old and New 50

Chapter 3 Life with a Rooster 53

Identifying Hens and Roosters 55

Flock Dynamics with a Rooster 58

All About Spurs 62

Chapter 4 All About Eggs 67

Egg Formation and Egg Color 69

Collecting and Storing Eggs 76

Chapter 5 Chicken (and Egg) Health 83

Daily Check-Ups 85

Troubleshooting Egg Production 87

Imperfect Eggs and Oddities 90

Chicken Droppings 94

Worming 97

Wound Care 101

Chapter 6 Predators 109

What's Out There? 112

Keeping Your Flock Safe 120

Chapter 7 Feeding Your Chickens 127

How Chickens Eat and Digest 130

Feeds 131

From the Kitchen to Your Flock 137

Chapter 8 Chicken Keeping through the Seasons 141

Spring 144

Summer 151

Fall 155

Winter 158

Chapter 9 Coop Truth 165

Lessons from the Coop 168

Inside the Ideal Coop 172

Cleaning the Coop 179

Preparing for Emergencies 180

Resources 186

Acknowledgments 189

Index 190

About the Author 192

Editorial Reviews

"...has info not always found in other chicken primers"—The Cleveland Plain Dealer

From the Publisher