of a postal worker who can verify your claim should any of them be dead. Then rush your new birds straight home to a cozy brooder box, water, and feed. Don’t take side trips with your chicks in tow.
When you get them home, remove the chicks from their shipping box one by one and examine them. If a chick has pasty butt (an affliction where crusty, dried droppings block a chick’s vent, making it impossible for the bird to eliminate), gently wash its little behind with a soft cloth dampened in warm water. This problem is common with mail-order chicks, especially in their first five or six days after arrival.
Check the toes. When caught early, crooked or curled toes can be splinted using wooden match sticks and strips of adhesive bandage snipped to size. Some straighten, some don’t, but you won’t know unless you try! If a chick looks normal, dip its beak in water so the chick knows where the water is and starts drinking, and then place the bird gently under the heat source.
Feed stores frequently offer day-old chicks for sale. Breed selection maybe limited, and feed-store chicks aren’t often sexed. However, you can choose the ones you want, buy just a
few, and get them home quickly. Select bright-eyed, active chicks with straight shanks, toes, and beaks as well as clean, unobstructed bottoms.
| Making a Chicken a Pet When you brood your next batch of chicks, pick one to hand tame. Carefully pull her out of the brooder for short periods every day. Cup her between your hands and hold her near your face. Speak gently for a minute or two and then put her back. If you work with her, she’ll bond with you. By the time she leaves the brooder, she’ll be your chick. To domesticate an older bird, work quietly and carefully. Hold her securely so she can’t flop. Stroke her wattles—chickens like that—and offer her goodies, such as bits of fruit or veggies. It won’t be long until she’s tame! |
The Big Guys
If you don’t want to deal with tiny chicks, you might be able to buy sixteen- to twenty-two-week-old, almost-ready-to-lay females called started pullets. Initially, they cost more per bird, but you won’t have the expense of brooding them and feeding them for months, so they can actually be a great buy.
Breeders will sometimes part with a few hens or a breeding trio (a cock and two hens), and you can often find chickens for sale at country flea markets, poultry swap meets, or via classified and bulletin board ads. However, buying adult chickens can be risky. Not all sellers are honest, and it’s easy to buy someone else’s problem hens.
Ideally, you should buy fowl only from flocks enrolled in the USDA’s National Poultry Improvement Plan (NPIP). These birds are certified free of pullorum (a severe, diarrheal disease) and typhoid and are healthier than your run-of-the-mill chickens. Choose active, alert, clear-eyed chickens with smooth, glossy feathers and bright, fleshy, waxy combs and wattles. Refuse birds that cough, wheeze, or have discharge or diarrhea. Tip the chicken forward and scope out the area around its vent, and also check under its wings. If you spy insects or eggs and you don’t want to deal with parasites, you’d best not buy the bird.
If you want eggs or plan on eating the chickens, you must buy young ones. Young adults have smooth shanks; older birds’ shanks are dry and scaly, and their skin is thick and tough. Cockerels have wee nubs where their spurs will grow, and some pullets have them, too; long spurs denote an older bird. Press on the chicken’s breastbone; a youngster’s is flexible, while old chickens have rigid breastbones.
| Which Breed? Breeds most likely to make great pets: Barnevelder, Belgian d’Uccle, Cochin, Dorking, Jersey Giant, Naked Neck (Turken), Orpington, Polish, Plymouth Rock, Silkie, Sussex Other easygoing, friendly breeds: Ameraucana, Araucana (usually), Aseel (cocks are aggressive toward one another), Brahma, Dominique, Faverolles, Java, Langshan, Sultan, Welsummer, Wyandotte (usually) Cold-hardy breeds: Araucana, Ameraucana, Aseel, Australorp, Brahama, Buckeye, Chantecler, Cochin, Dominique, Faverolles, Hamburg, Java, Jersey Giant, Langshan, Old English Game (dubbed), Orpington, Rosecomb, Silkie, Sussex, Welsummer, Wyandotte Breeds prone to frostbitten combs: Andalusian, Campine, Dorking, Leghorn, New Hampshire Red, New Hampshire White, Rhode Island Red (Roosters are more likely than hens to suffer frostbite; their combs are larger, and they don’t tuck their heads under their wings while sleeping as hens do.) Heat-tolerant breeds: Andalusian, Aseel, Brahma, Buttercup, Cubalaya, Fayoumi, Leghorn, Minorca, Modern Game, New Hampshire Red, Rhode Island Red, Rosecomb, Silkie, Spanish White Faced, Sumatra Flying breeds: Ancona, Andalusian, Campine, Fayoumi, Hamburg, Lakenvelder, Leghorn, Rosecomb, Sebright, nearly all bantams Noisy breeds: Andalusian, Cornish, Cubalaya, Leghorn, Modern Game, Old English Game Flighty breeds: Ancona, Andalusian, Buttercup, Fayoumi, Hamburg, La Fleche, Lakenvelder, Leghorn, Minorca, Sebright, Spanish White Faced Aggressive breeds: Ancona, Aseel (cocks), Old English Game, Cornish (cocks), Rhode Island Red (cocks), Cubalaya, Modern Game, Rhode Island Red (some strains), Sumatra, Wyandotte (some strains) Self-reliant breeds (good foragers, ideal free-range chickens): Andalusian, Australorp, Belgian d’Uccle, Buckeye, Buttercup, Campine, Chantecler, Dominique, Fayoumi, Hamburg, Houdan, Java, La Fleche, Lakenvelder, Marans, Minorca, New Hampshire Red, Old English Game, Orpington, Plymouth Rock, Rosecomb, Sebright, Silkie, Sussex, Naked Neck (Turken), Welsummer, Wyandotte (Note: Avoid all-white individuals; they’re more easily spotted by predators than colored and patterned varieties of the same breeds.) Breeds that tolerate confinement reasonably well: Araucana, Ameraucana, Australorp, Barnevelder, Brahma, Buckeye, Cochin, Cornish, Crevecoeur, Dominique, Dorking, Faverolles, Houdan, Java, Jersey Giant, La Fleche, Lakenvelder, Langshan, Leghorn, Naked Neck (Turken), New Hampshire Red, Orpington, Plymouth Rock, Polish, Rhode Island Red, Silkie, Sultan, Sussex, Welsummer, Wyandotte Breeds that don’t tolerate confinement well: Ancona, Andalusian, Buttercup, Cubalaya, Fayoumi, Hamburg, Malay, Minorca, Modern Game, Old English Game, Spanish White Faced, Sumatra |
How Many Chickens?
If you’re new at chicken keeping, don’t overextend yourself. Start small and learn as you go. The downside to this advice is that adding new birds to an established flock upsets its pecking order and spawns stress. Overall, though, it’s better for your birds to hatch out a new hierarchy than for you to bite off more than you can chew.
By the same token, if you’re experienced or you’re certain about how many you want to keep, you’ll save your chickens a lot of stressful infighting—and possibly disease—by buying all the birds you need up front and then maintaining a closed flock (meaning that you don’t add new adult chickens to an established flock) until you start back at square one again.
Unless you can spend a lot of quality time with a pet chicken (as you might with a house chicken), buy at least two. Chickens are sociable birds; a solitary cock or hen will be lonely.
You should also buy at least one layer hen per family member—or more if your family eats a lot of eggs or if you choose a dual-purpose breed. If you plan to maintain a closed flock, you should allow for several years’ flock mortality. To do this, purchase 10–20 percent more chicks than you initially think you’ll need, but don’t buy more birds than you can properly house.
City Chickens
If you live in the suburbs or in a city, you can still probably keep a few hens. True, there are limits and stipulations, and some of them are strict, but chicken fanciers across the land in cities as diverse as New York City, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Seattle, Des Moines, and Fort Worth keep city chickens. Chances are, your city or town allows them, too.
If you’re looking for a way to justify raising chickens, look no further. Here are seven very good reasons to raise city chickens:
1.Bring
