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Book Description

Your hands-on guide to modern chicken-raising methods

Thinking about raising chickens? You've come to the right place! This new edition of Raising Chickens For Dummies provides the most up-to-date, thorough information on the many aspects of keeping chickens in your backyard. Inside, you'll find hands-on, easy-to-follow instructions on choosing and purchasing chickens, constructing housing for your birds, feeding your chickens for optimal health, combating laying issues, controlling pests and predators, optimizing egg production, and much more.

Raising chickens on a small scale is a popular—and growing—pastime. If you're interested in keeping chickens as pets or as a source for eggs, Raising Chickens For Dummies gives you plain-English explanations of everything you need to know to about caring for chickens. Inside, you'll learn about basic chicken biology, breeds, and behavior, which chicken breed is best for you, how many you need, ways to spot healthy chickens, how to build a chicken coop, best practices for mating your chickens, how to incubate eggs, how to hatch and nurture chicks, manage laying hens, collect and store eggs, and butcher meat birds.

  • Offers practical advice on choosing and purchasing chickens
  • Helps you construct the right housing for your chickens
  • Provides tips on feeding and caring for your chickens
  • Includes top tips for raising healthy chickens

Whether you're a first-time poulterer or you've been raising chickens for years, this comprehensive guide provides practical how-to advice for keeping chickens in virtually any backyard.

Raising Chickens For Dummies (9781119675921) was previously published as Raising Chickens For Dummies (9781118982785). While this version features a new Dummies cover and design, the content is the same as the prior release and should not be considered a new or updated product.

Table of Contents

  1. Cover
  2. Introduction
    1. About This Book
    2. Foolish Assumptions
    3. Icons Used in This Book
    4. Beyond the Book
    5. Where to Go from Here
  3. Part 1: Getting Started with Raising Chickens
    1. Chapter 1: The Joy of Chickens
      1. First Things First: Dealing with the Legal Issues
      2. Assessing Your Capabilities: Basic Chicken Care and Requirements
      3. Focusing Your Intentions: Specific Considerations
      4. Considering Neighbors
    2. Chapter 2: Basic Chicken Biology and Behavior
      1. Familiarizing Yourself with a Chicken’s Physique
      2. Labeling a Chicken’s Many Parts
      3. A Picture of Health
      4. On Chicken Behavior
      5. Interacting with Other Poultry and Animals
    3. Chapter 3: A Chicken Isn’t Just a Chicken: Your Guide to Breeds
      1. What You Need to Know: A Brief Synopsis
      2. If You Want It All: Dual-Purpose Breeds
      3. For Egg Lovers: Laying Breeds
      4. Best Breeds for the Table
      5. Show Breeds
      6. Perfect for Pets: Bantam Breeds
      7. Heritage and Rare Breeds
    4. Chapter 4: Buying Chickens
      1. Planning Your Flock
      2. Counting the Costs
      3. Starting with Chicks
      4. Starting with Adults
  4. Part 2: Housing Your Flock
    1. Chapter 5: Choosing Your Housing Type
      1. What a Chicken Needs in a Home
      2. Surveying Your Housing Options
      3. Choosing a Type of Housing
    2. Chapter 6: Designing and Constructing a Coop
      1. To Repurpose, to Build, or to Buy? That Is the Question
      2. Choosing the Right Location
      3. Combining Form and Function: The Basic Coop Blueprint
      4. Wiring, Fixtures, and Other Important Amenities
      5. Being Mindful of Materials
    3. Chapter 7: Coop, Sweet Coop: Furnishing and Housekeeping
      1. Bedding Down
      2. Making Nests Comfy and Cozy
      3. Setting the Table and Crafting a “Pantry”
      4. Cleaning House
  5. Part 3: Caring for Your Flock: General Management
    1. Chapter 8: Feeding Your Flock
      1. Feeding Basics
      2. Choosing the Right Commercial Feed
      3. Supplementing Diets with Grit
      4. Deciding When to Put Out Feed
      5. Determining How Much to Feed
      6. Keeping the Diet Interesting by Offering Treats
      7. Hydrating Your Hens (And Roosters)
    2. Chapter 9: Controlling Pests and Predators
      1. Keeping Pests from Infesting the Coop
      2. Fending Off Predators
    3. Chapter 10: Keeping Your Flock Happy and Healthy
      1. Providing Biosecurity for Your Flock
      2. Keeping Disease and Parasites Away
      3. Controlling Environmental Conditions
      4. Safely Handling Your Flock
      5. Diffusing Stress
      6. Employing Optional Grooming Procedures
    4. Chapter 11: Handling Health Problems
      1. Making Decisions about Treatment
      2. Treating Injuries
      3. Getting Rid of Parasites
      4. Recognizing and Dealing with Disease
      5. Administering Medications
      6. Encountering Death
      7. Reporting Diseases and Deaths
  6. Part 4: Breeding: From Chicken to Egg and Back Again
    1. Chapter 12: Mating Your Chickens
      1. Rooster or Hen?
      2. Reviewing the Reproductive System
      3. Sperm Meets Egg: Fertilization
      4. Reproductive Behavior
      5. Mating Methods
      6. Selecting Birds for Breeding
      7. Getting Birds Ready to Breed
    2. Chapter 13: Incubating Eggs and Hatching Chicks
      1. Making More Chicks: Incubation Basics
      2. Choosing Your Hatching Method
      3. Letting Mother Nature Do It: The Hen Method of Incubation
      4. Going Artificial: The Incubator Method
      5. Looking Inside the Egg
      6. Hello, World! Hatching Your Eggs
    3. Chapter 14: Raising Chicks
      1. The Basics of Brooders
      2. Making Your Own Brooder
      3. Helping a Hen Provide Warmth and Protection
      4. Feeding and Watering Chicks
      5. Raising Chicks in Your Brooder
      6. Watching the Stages of Growth
      7. Chicks and Children
  7. Part 5: Special Management Considerations
    1. Chapter 15: Managing Layers and Collecting Eggs
      1. Knowing What to Expect from Your Hens
      2. Managing Your Hens’ Laying Years
      3. Encouraging Egg Production After It Has Begun
      4. Collecting, Cleaning, and Storing Eggs
      5. Assessing Egg Quality
      6. Storing and Handling Eggs
      7. Dealing with Production Problems and Bad Habits
    2. Chapter 16: Raising and Butchering Meat Birds
      1. Raising Meat Chickens
      2. Planning for D-Day
      3. Hiring Out the Butchering
      4. Preparing to Do the Deed Yourself
      5. Following the Play-by-Play of Butchering Day
      6. Packaging Home-Butchered Poultry
  8. Part 6: The Part of Tens
    1. Chapter 17: More than Ten Tips for Keeping Healthy, Stress-Free Chickens
      1. Choose the Right Breed for Your Needs
      2. Set Up Suitable Housing
      3. Supplement Lighting When Needed
      4. Control Pests
      5. Protect Against Predators
      6. Control Parasites
      7. Vaccinate
      8. Feed a Well-Balanced Diet
      9. Provide Enough Clean Water
      10. Beware Disease-Transmitting Dangers
      11. Use Quarantines Whenever Necessary
    2. Chapter 18: More than Ten Misconceptions about Chickens, Eggs, and So On
      1. Bird Flu Is a Risk to Reckon With
      2. You Can’t Raise Chickens If You Live in the City
      3. Roosters Crow Only in the Morning
      4. You Need a Rooster to Get Eggs
      5. Keeping Chickens Penned Is Inhumane
      6. Chickens Are Vegetarians
      7. Big, Brown, Organic Eggs Are Best in Taste and Quality
      8. Fertilized and Unfertilized Eggs Are Easily Distinguishable
      9. Egg-Carton Advertising Is the Absolute Truth
      10. Chickens Are Good for Your Garden
      11. Chickens Are Dumb and Cowardly
  9. Index
  10. About the Authors
  11. Advertisement Page
  12. Connect with Dummies
  13. End User License Agreement
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