You step into your chicken coop, a place you’ve lovingly put together for your little egg-layers. Instead of the cozy home you envision, a pungent odor assaults your senses, and you notice your chickens’ once cheery eyes now teary and their breathing labored. This is the unwelcome reality of ammonia, an unseen, unheard menace lurking … Read more
The Sky is Falling! Imagine the panic that would grip you if you came home to find your beloved chicken lying injured or ill. The helplessness you’d feel, the fear for their well-being, the frantic rush to seek help. This is a situation no chicken owner wants to experience. Fortunately, there’s a way to be … Read more
What is Chicken Vent Gleet? Chicken Vent Gleet is a potentially chronic chicken vent inflammation usually accompanied by an abnormal discharge. It is also called cloacitis because it occurs in the cloaca and subsequently the vent. The cloaca is a common cavity at the end of the digestive tract for the release of both excretory … Read more
Understanding the Dangers: Poison Threats to Your Chickens Chickens, curious and industrious as they are, have a knack for pecking around in places they shouldn’t. Keeping chickens safe from poisons is a must, but unfortunately, sometimes, they come into contact with substances that can be harmful or even deadly. From the chemicals we use to … Read more
Special thanks to the Animal Sciences Department at the University of Kentucky Chicken prolapsed oviduct is a natural condition that occurs when a chicken lays an egg. The oviduct naturally turns inside out to let the egg out, then returns to its normal position. If a chicken prolapse vent doesn’t go back inside, it can … Read more
Hello again, friendly chicken keepers. If you have ever forgotten to clean the water container for your chickens, you probably noticed that slimy layer forming inside your chicken’s waterer and wondered what in the world is going on. Well, that’s what is called a biofilm, and it’s something you should definitely know about. Today, we … Read more
When the frost is on the pumpkin and the days get shorter in the late autumn, that’s when you need to start thinking about how your chickens are going to weather the winter. You see, frozen chicken at 99 cents a pound in the grocery store is a great find. Frostbite on chickens is not … Read more
Cannibalism in chickens is the habit of chickens pecking one another. I have not seen a chicken eat another chicken, but they will kill each other for some reason. Once a chicken gets a blood spot on it, other chickens will peck at that spot reflexively until they eventually kill that unfortunate chicken. So cannibalism … Read more
Will rats kill chickens? They will if they can, but it is very unusual for a rat to kill an adult chicken. Do rats kill chickens? The answer to this question is YES. But hold on a minute. You just said they don’t??? It’s not a simple “YES”. You might, on occasion, find chewed-up chicks … Read more
It really doesn’t matter whether it’s trees, plants, people, or chickens; anytime you put too many of the same species in one gathering, the opportunity for a disease to take hold and take off is greater than if those same populations were spread out. That is why we are going to discuss chicken vaccination techniques. … Read more