RESOURCES

Search in book...
Toggle Font Controls
Create new playlist

Name your new playlist

Playlist description (optional)
Sign In

Email address

Password

Forgot Password?

or

Continue with Facebook

Continue with Google
Sign Up

Full Name

Email address

Confirm Email Address

Password

or

Continue with Facebook

Continue with Google

RESOURCES

GLOSSARY

Bantam: This is the smaller counterpart to a large fowl breed. Every large fowl has a bantam option, too. Some breeds come only in bantam size and are therefore called true bantams.

Bloom: A protective coating of proteins on a just-laid egg

Brood patch: An area on the breast with no feathers and increased vascularization where the eggs come in direct contact with the hen’s skin during incubation

Brooder: This is a box or pen that provides a warm, dry home for new chicks during their first weeks of life. It contains a fresh and continuous supply of food and water and protection from predators.

Broody: This is a hormone-driven condition that occurs when a hen is willing to sit on and hatch eggs. It can become detrimental to the hen if she will not conduct other regular activities such as eating or drinking. She does not lay eggs at this time.

Chicken: A domesticated fowl, originally from Southeast Asia, used for both meat and eggs

Cocks: Male chickens older than one year of age, sometimes called roosters

Cockerels: These are male chickens younger than one year of age.

Crop: The outpocketing for the esophagus in the neck region just above a chicken’s breast

Crumble: A feed mixture for chickens that includes broken up pellets in small pieces

Dander: The small flakes of feather follicles shed as a bird grows new feathers

Egg tooth: This is the hard part of the beak a chick uses to break through its shell during hatching. It falls off a few days after the chick hatches.

Feeder: The container in both the brooder and the coop where food is stored

Fluff: A chick’s first feathers, technically called natal down

Hen: Female chickens older than one year of age

Hock: The joint of a chicken’s leg where the feather meets the scale

Marek’s disease: A virus found worldwide that attacks a chicken’s nervous system, causing partial paralysis.

Mash: Food for chickens that’s a powdery mixture of chicken feed

Natal down: See fluff.

Oviduct: The organ in the hen which accepts the yolk after ovulation, where the egg is completed

Pasty vent: A collection of fecal matter around the chick’s vent that a hen would take care of in nature but that a chick owner must clean

Pipping: This is the two-part process by which chicks hatch. During internal pipping, the chick breaks through the air cell inside the egg and takes its first breath. The second stage is external pipping, during which the chick makes its first break through the eggshell.

Primary wing feathers: These are part of the wing. When you fold out the wing, the primary feathers are furthest from the body.

Pullets: These are female chickens younger than one year of age.

Roosting pole: The place where chickens perch and sleep at night

Run: The fenced-in area outside the coop where chickens can range, scratch for bugs, and take dust baths

Secondary wing feathers: These are the wing feathers closest to the body. When a chicken folds up its wing, secondary feathers are visible. Primary feathers are tucked up underneath.

Waterer: The container in both the brooder and the coop where water is stored

Vent: The opening through which a hen lays her eggs or any bird drops its fecal matter.

WEB RESOURCES

ALCRAFT EGG ARTISTRY, LLC
www.alcrafteggartistry.com

AMERICAN BANTAM ASSOCIATION
www.bantamclub.com

AMERICAN POULTRY ASSOCIATION
www.amerpoultryassn.com/breed_classifications.htm

CHICKEN WHISPERER, LLC
www.chickenwhisperer.com

THE CITY CHICKEN
www.thecitychicken.com

THE EGGERY PLACE
www.theeggeryplace.com

FEATHER SITE
www.feathersite.com

INTERNATIONAL EGG ART GUILD
www.eggartguild.org

INTERNET CENTER FOR WILDLIFE DAMAGE MANAGEMENT
www.icwdm.org