Chickens: Tending a Small-scale Flock for Pleasure and ProfitHobby Farms Chickens: Tending a Small-Scale Flock for Pleasure and Profit is geared toward the hobby farmer looking to begin his or her own flock of chickens on a small farm or even backyard. Author Sue Weaver, who keeps various exotic breeds and countless barnies on her farm, is an expert on all things livestock and an avowed chicken fanatic. This photo-filled guide begins with "Chickens 101” and details the physiology of chickens, members of the Phasianidea family, providing beginning hobby farmers with a basic education in the chicken’s unique physical makeup (from wings and feathers to beaks and digestive tracts), behavior, mating, and its unexpected high intelligence. The author offers advice on choosing the right types of chickens to get started: meat, egg, or dual purpose, or maybe even "just for pets.” The book is an excellent resource for selecting which breed of chicken is best for the hobby farmer based on the birds’ traits, such as aggression, personality, noise factor, tolerance for heat, confinement, cold, etc. Chickens also provides information on selecting or building a suitable chicken coop for the hobby farmer’s brood, outlining the basic requirements (lighting, ventilation, flooring, waterers, insulation, safety, and so forth). A detailed chapter on feeding chickens offers essential guidance on nutrition, commercial feeds, supplements, and water requirements. For the chicken hobby farmer looking to start with a clutch of baby chicks (from his own hen or an outside source), the author provides excellent info on incubators and hatching as well as all of the accommodations and preparation required for hens in the nest box. A chapter on selling eggs and broilers provides timetables, requirements, and dos and don’ts to get a hobby farmer’s business off on the right foot. All chicken keepers will find the chapter on health of particular value, with expert advice on preventing common problems and dealing with various maladies and diseases. Much detailed information about all of the topics in the book is encapsulated in sidebars. A glossary of over 125 terms plus a detailed resource section of chicken and poultry associations, books, and websites complete the volume. Fully indexed. |
Contents
Introduction Why Chickens? | |
Chapter Two Which Chickens Are Best For You? 21 | |
Chapter Three Chicken Shack or Coop de Ville? 35 | |
Copyright | |
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Common terms and phrases
Agriculture American Poultry Association Andalusian animal Australorp Avian Backyard bantam birds Brahma breeder broiler brood bulb chicken bulletins chicken coop Chicken Feed chicken tractor choose clean Cochin cockerels cockfighting color comb commercial feed diet disease dual-purpose Eggnus enclosure EXTENSION Faverolles Fayoumi feathers feeders feet fence floor space Free-range chickens fresh Gallus grit hatch chicks hatcheries hatching eggs healthy henhouse hens hobby farm humidity hygrometer inches incubator indoor inside Jersey Giant keep chickens lay eggs layers Leghorn Light breeds litter live Livestock Marek's Disease meat chicken Minorca nest boxes Old English Game Orpington pastured poultry peck peeps Phasianidae pick Piggy predators production protein pullets raise readings more closely Red Jungle Fowl Rhode Island Red rooster roosts scratch shell Silkie starter stress supplement temperature tion UNIVERSITY vent ventilation vitamins weeks of age weeks old Wyandotte