friends confined when the weather turns bad? Mud, slush, and fancy-feathered fowl usually don’t mix.
•Would you like to preserve a smidge of living history and raise old-fashioned or endangered breeds?
•Finally, if your chicken is a pet, will you keep it outdoors with the rest of the chickens or as a household pet?
Although we can’t tell you exactly which breed to buy, we can offer general advice and suggest birds that will meet certain criteria.
| Did You Know? •The genus name for chicken-like fowl is Gallus, which means “comb.” •Insulating a rooster’s comb with a layer of petroleum jelly during extremely cold weather usually prevents freezing. •The large single combs of the hens of certain breeds flop over in a jaunty manner instead of standing up like those of roosters. •Chickens recognize some colors and are attracted to red combs. However, Silkies, Sumatras, and several varieties of game fowl have purple combs, and Sebrights’ combs are deep reddish-purple. |
Chickens for Eggs or Meat
Birds with the greatest egg-laying capacity are not the same as those who plump up into the best candidates for the local chicken fry. Still different are those chickens that are the best choices for providing both eggs and meat.
If you want eggs—and a whole lot of them—Mediterranean-breed chickens are just your thing. Small, squawky, and hyperactive, these birds mature quickly, and then everything they eat goes into laying eggs. Undisputed queens of the nesting box are white Leghorns and hybrid layers based on this breed. Other impressive Mediterranean-class layers are the Minorca, Ancona, Buttercup, Andalusian, and Spanish White Face.
Some chickens from other classes are laying machines, too. The Campine (Belgium), Fayoumi (Egypt), Lakenvelder (Germany), and Hamburg (Continental Europe) are popular examples. Like their Mediterranean sisters, they tend to be flighty, specialist hens.
Meat chickens (called broilers or fryers)—usually White Cornish and White Plymouth Rock hybrids—have broad, meaty breasts and white feathers, and they mature at lightning speed. Broilers are ready for the freezer in about seven weeks, and roasters (which are just larger broilers) are ready in just three more.
Be aware that because they’re hybrids, these birds don’t breed true—meaning that their chicks won’t possess these stellar features. They also require careful handling; because of their abnormally wide breasts and rapid growth patterns, most become crippled as they mature.
Dual-purpose breeds lay fewer eggs than superlayers and mature a lot more slowly than meat hybrids, but they’re ideal all-around hobby-farm birds. They’re quieter, gentler, and friendlier than the specialists, and they’re hardy and self-reliant to boot. They are broody, so hens will set and hatch their own replacements. Nearly all lay brown eggs and are meaty enough to eat, should you wish to do so.
With a few notable exceptions, dual-purpose birds hail from the English and American classes. There are scores of interesting breeds and varieties.
Chickens as Pets
Do chickens make good pets? Absolutely! They’re smart and affectionate, and a chicken costs little to maintain. You can teach your chicken to do tricks—it’ll sit on your lap, and it may even sing if it likes you a lot. You don’t need a lot of space to keep a chicken. It won’t bark at the neighbors while you’re at work. You can raise it from a peep for just a few dollars. All in all, a chicken makes a mighty fine friend. You can even take it along when you run errands; a chicken in your car turns heads!
If pets are your pleasure, but you don’t plan to handle them, almost any sort of fowl will do. If you want pet chickens that are tame, that’s another proposition.
Some breeds are rowdy, antisocial, and just not much fun to have around; others are downright cuddly. You want to choose pets from the latter group. Silkies, Cochins, Brahmas, Naked Necks, and Belgian d’Uccles, for example, are easy to tame and make quiet, affectionate, companion chickens. Flighty Leghorns and their ilk can be tamed—but it takes a lot more time and effort.
If you’d like eggs from your pets, that narrows the equation. Not all hens lay scads of eggs. However, most young hens of the generally calm and amiable old-fashioned, dual-purpose breeds crank out one hundred to two hundred (or more) tasty brown cackleberries (eggs) a year. If a rooster fertilizes their eggs, and you allow it, most dual-purpose biddies will hatch chicks. Some ornamental breeds are friendly and lay well, too. But avoid flighty, sometimes pugnacious hybrid superlayers and breeds from the Mediterranean class. They don’t want to be your friend; they just want to lay eggs. Choose something a tad more laid back.
Chicken Little orBig Bird?
Once you’ve chosen a breed, you’ll have to decide: chicks or full-grown birds? In most cases, the correct answer is chicks. In addition to getting the most for your fowl-shopping dollar, you’ll know exactly how old they are. Plus, when purchased from reliable sources, chicks are nearly always healthy.
The Little Guys
Order day-old chicks from commercial or specialty hatcheries. The former sell dozens, sometimes hundreds, of breeds and varieties of quality chicks at modest prices. For most of us, this is the logical way to fly. Specialty hatcheries are run by knowledgeable poultry aficionados who specialize in specific sorts of fowl. You’ll pay more at a specialty hatchery, but if you want to show chickens or to one day breed show-quality fowl, paying extra for specialty-hatchery chicks is the way to go.
A newly hatched chick can live for three days without food and water, subsisting solely on nutrients absorbed from its egg. Therefore, you can purchase chicks from hatcheries on the other side of the country, and—shipped overnight air—they should arrive safely at your nearest post office without a hitch. However, sometimes a chick does die in transit; thus, it’s wise to order from the closest responsible source so that your chicks needn’t travel farther than necessary. Some hatcheries will replace chicks that are dead on arrival, but others won’t. Read the seller’s guarantee before ordering chicks. If the service is available, pay to have your chicks vaccinated for Marek’s disease. This can only be done when they’re newly hatched, meaning it’s now or never, and it’s better to be safe than sad.
Be aware that you can’t mail-order five or six chicks. For the birds to stay warm enough in transit, a certain number of bodies must be in the shipping box, generating heat. It generally takes about twenty-five large-fowl chicks or twenty-five to thirty-five bantams to do the trick. Some hatcheries allow you to order Guinea keets or other similar-size hatchlings to fill the quota. You can also find others interested in buying a few chicks and place a combined order that will be shipped to one address.
If you don’t want to deal with roosters, buy sexed pullets. Straight-run chicks (an equal mixture of males and females) are cheaper, but at least half will be cockerels. If you can raise and butcher the excess roosters, fine. Otherwise, buy just two or three sexed “roos” to add to the mix—or buy none at all. Hens don’t need roosters to lay eggs.
Before your chicks arrive, assemble everything you’ll need to feed, water, and brood them (brood means to keep them warm inside a heated enclosure). Have the brooder box ready and waiting.
Plan to be home the day your chicks are scheduled to arrive. In most cases, they won’t be delivered to your door; someone from the post office will call you
