Frequently Asked Questions

A feeder is the item you use to dispense feed for your flock. Of course, you could always just dispense feed on the ground or in a dish, but there would be a lot of feed wasted that way. Chickens tend to scratch and scatter the feed around, so chicken feeders are designed to minimize that. There are many different types of chicken feeders to choose from. For example, there are the common and inexpensive basic plastic feeders. They're tried and true, but they aren't fancy! Then there are the feeders with special features. For example, some feeders can be...

Fertile eggs are those that contain both ova and sperm, and will develop into a baby chick if incubated. If you have nothing but hens in your flock, you will not have fertilized eggs---you would need a male rooster for that.  Fertilized eggs are fine to eat; there is just a slight difference between a fertile and infertile egg. There is no difference in taste, and you can only tell the difference between infertile and fertile (unincubated) contents if you're very sharp-eyed. Illustration by Ray Yang for My Pet Chicken

|A chicken's shank is the bottom part of her leg, above the foot, but below the hock. The spur is the chicken's chief weapon, and grows out of the shank. It's something every chicken has... but generally only the spurs of males grow very large. Older hens may grow larger spurs as their hormones change, and there are some breeds where it's fairly common for younger hens to have spurs, too. But for the most part, hens will simply have small spur numbs.

When a hen is broody, that means she wants to hatch her eggs and raise chicks. A breed known for frequent broodiness has hens that often, individually go broody. These hens may not even need eggs to set on to be broody--they may brood in a nest with no eggs. Or in a corner on rocks. Further, if there ARE eggs in the nest, if there is not a rooster in your flock, your hens will not know that their eggs won't be fertile. Your hen will seem to be in a sort of bad temper while she broods, she...

Molting occurs once a year in adult birds older than one year, normally in late summer or autumn. During this time, birds will lose their feathers and regrow new ones. It's a way of refreshing their plumage for the winter so they'll stay warm. There are three types of molts: A hard molt. A hard molt means all the feathers are lost almost at once, so molting is over relatively quickly. A soft molt. A soft molt means the feathers are lost and regrown gradually. Sometimes you may hardly notice a soft molt, except as a reduction in laying. A...

Debeaking or "beak trimming" is what it's called when a baby chick's beak is burnt or seared off. It is painful and cruel. Here we explain more about the practice and why we're against it. Why do some breeders debeak their birds? Most rare breed hatcheries and breeders do not beak trim newly-hatched baby chicks, but often trim beaks of birds they're planning on selling when they're a bit older. The reason they do this is so they can pack the birds into a very small space. Keeping chickens in close confinement naturally causes severe stress, and in response to...

An apron fence is a fence that helps to keep out digging predators. But it isn't normally a special type of fence that you buy; it's more of a special way to install your fence. You can install a dug apron fence or a bent apron fence. For a dug apron fence, you might bury a foot or so of your fence in the ground... so if you buy a six foot fence, one foot of it would be buried, and the fence would be five feet high. When a predator like a rodent, dog, or fox tries to dig...

Scarce as hens' teeth." Have you ever heard that expression before? Of course, chickens don't have teeth... and that's a problem, since their diet consists of grains, seeds, grasses, insects and other things that need to be chewed. Nature solved this problem by giving chickens a gizzard where their food is ground up. But they sort of digest it backwards, at least from our perpective. We chew food and then it goes to the stomach. They get it to their stomachs and then chew it. Weird, right? Here's how it works: When chickens swallow food, it first goes into their...

The traditional way to manage bedding in the coop is to put a light layer of bedding down--for bedding recommendations, see the related questions below--and then change out the bedding once a day or once every few days. (How often you'll have to clean depends on how many chickens you're keeping in how much space.) It's pretty straightforward; you more or less clean it like a cat litter box. By contrast, in the deep litter method, you start with five or six inches of organic, compostable bedding such as pine shavings, and then simply add new bedding on top to...

A chicken coop is any structure in which your chickens shelter. In most areas of the country, a chicken coop is an enclosed space, but in warmer areas many people use a three sided coop to make sure it doesn't get too hot inside (the last side of the coop is usually secured with something like welded wire hardware cloth). A coop can be made of plastic, wood, metal or fiberglass. It can be made of recycled pallets, or it can be a re-purposed playhouse. It can be built by hand or purchased. Chicken coops usually contain nests for laying...

A comb is the fleshy (usually) red erectile tissue on top of a chicken's head. Different breeds have different combs. There are a few main comb types. A single comb is probably what you think of when you think of a chicken's comb. It has a single row of spiky fingers sticking up from a "blade." But all single combs are not alike. Some can be large and others quite small. Not only does it vary by breed, but it also varies by individual.This is why the size of a comb is not a good way to tell roosters from...

There ARE a lot of different terms for chicken, aren't there? It can be a little confusing, especially when you're just starting out. So let's define these terms. Male and female chicken terms Hen, rooster, roo, capon, chicks, peeps: You probably know the terms "hen" and "rooster," which refer to female chickens and male chickens respectively. "Roo" is just short for "rooster," and "capon" refers to a neutered rooster. What you may not know is that we don't normally refer to young chickens or chicks by those terms. A baby chick is not a hen or a rooster. "Hen" and...

Let's talk about Designer Chicken Breeds, Breeds, and Varieties, so you'll understand the differences in terminology.       Designer Chicken Breed There are two main differences between Designer Breeds and real Breeds: Designer chicken breeds will not breed true, and they are not American Poultry Association (APA) recognized. Not recognized A Designer chickens such as Favaucanas are not an APA-recognized chicken breed, the same way a Goldendoodle---crossing a Golden Retriever and a Poodle---is not an American Kennel Club (AKC) recognized dog breed. That is to say: they are recognized in the sense that you've probably heard of them, but Favaucanas and Goldendoodles...

Frizzles and sizzles are not breeds of chickens so much as they are words describing three very showy feather types that chickens can exhibit. Most pet chicken aficionados, for example, know what Silkies are. They are a breed of chicken with a feather type that is lacking in the barbicels that help the feather keep its tidy shape. So, silkie feathers end up looking very much like fur--and their feathers feel a lot like fur, too! The Silkie chicken breed is named after its feather type. This White Silkie is showing off her unique feather type. There are other unusual...

Straight run chicks are an "as hatched" mix of male and female chicks. Over large numbers (hundreds or thousands), the hatching ratio of straight run orders averages out to be a 50-50 mix, but with small orders the ratio can vary considerably. For instance, if you were to order eight straight run chicks, you will get between zero and eight roosters and between zero and eight hens--there is no way to tell. Hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst! So keep in mind that it's possible to order 8 straight run chicks and end up with 8...

A chicken's hackle feathers are the feathers around the neck. These feathers can sometimes be showy in roosters. People that "fly tie" (for trout fishing) usually use long, slender hackle feathers from a rooster. Hackles are actually differently shaped in hens and roosters. Rooster hackles are longer and pointier. But don't be fooled. Hen hackles can look a little pointy, too. However they're not as thin or as long as rooster feathers. Take a closeup look at hen hackles: Now here's a closeup of rooster hackles to compare: Notice that you can really tell more of a difference in the...

A chicken's crop is a part of her digestive system, and is located on her breast. You see it in the illustration below, closest to the front. When it fills up with food, it may stick out a little bit. It will be smaller in the morning before she has eaten, and larger after she is full. The crop or craw holds food before it goes further down their digestive tract. Chickens basically store food in their crops; it is like a chicken lunchbox. Then it moves into the stomach or proventriculus and gets soaked with digestive juices, before finally...

A droppings tray is a great coop feature, if yo're lucky enough to have it! It's like a shallow drawer in your coop that can be pulled out and dumped or scraped to make for quick and easy cleaning. This prevents you fram having to scoop or shovel out dirty bedding. Droppings tray The droppings tray usually located under roosting poles, because that's where most of the mess occurs (your flock remains on the roosts for long periods at night). In smaller coops, it may make up the entire floor! Again, just pull out your droppings tray, then turn out...

"Fancy feathering" refers to unusual feathering that some varieties of chickens have. There are different types of fancy feathering. Crestedness, for example, is when a chicken has a crest or puff of feathers on the head. Rumplessness refers to a chicken that naturally (not from plucking or molting) has no tail. Araucanas are rumpless. Tuftedness refers to feathers up near the ears. They grow out of a fleshy nub called the peduncle. Note that tuftedness is a fatal gene; that means that chickens that get two copies of the gene typically die in the egg before they hatch. Since tuftedness...

Candling is the process of shining a bright light into an egg to have a look at the contents. It used to be done with a candle in a dark room, but now high intensity light can be used in a darkened box. For instance, here is Brinsea's egg candler: Commercially, eggs are candled to make sure they are free of blood or meat spots. This is why, incidentally, white eggs used to be the most popular type of commercial egg. It's not just a matter of finding a high production, breed, but also of easy examination to make sure...

The bloom, cuticle, or cuticula is a natural protective covering of an that helps keep bacteria from invading the porous shell. It also helps to regulate the loss of moisture from the egg. It is a thin coating and will be removed if you wash the egg.

Bedding or litter is the material added to the coop floor and nest box in order to absorb odor and droppings and provide a soft surface for your chickens to walk on. The most common material that works well is wood shavings. There are other materials that can be used, though. Please read about good choices in the related questions below.

A spur is a horny growth on a chicken's legs, right above the toes. In most breeds, roosters are the only ones who grow spurs. Roosters use their spurs as weapons. Rooster spur Older hens can sometimes grow spurs, too. In baby chicks, you can usually see small spur buds in both males and females.

A bantam chicken is a smaller version of a regular chicken. Bantam chickens are typically one-fourth to one-fifth the size of standard chicken breeds.

The Latin name for chicken is Gallus gallus domesticus. In fact, all breeds of chicken, no matter how schmancy, are the same species!

A dust bath is essentially a "bath" your birds will take in dry dirt. They'll flop around looking as if they're dying. But don't be alarmed! They're okay. They might even be blissfully happy. They're tossing dust into their feathers, which helps to repel external parasites like mites or lice. If you're wondering how they get a dust bath, well... they'll create their own in most cases! If they have access to an outdoor space, they'll find a corner or go under a bush and wallow out their own dust bath. You can also provide your chicken with a dust...

Starter, grower, finisher, layer, and developer are all considered "complete feeds" to offer your chickens, but they come in different varieties,depending on your chicken's current needs. In other words, it's a lot like purchasing dog food for your dog or cat food for your cat. You may start your new pup on puppy feed, then move to an adult feed, and years later give him a feed designed for senior dogs. With a cat, you may start with kitten feed, and from there go to adult feed, or even hairball formulas. You might get grain free--or you might find they...

In the modern day, factory farm chickens are kept for laying or meat production. Laying breeds, or "layers," tend to produce impressive quantities of large eggs and use most of their resources for egg production. Layers may also be called "production breeds," because they are kept specifically for the purpose of egg production. By contrast, "meat birds," often called "broilers," are large-bodied and grow extraordinarily fast. Many are just 6 weeks old when they are processed. "Processed" is a nice way of saying, "killed and butchered for market." So, a dual-purpose breed is generally regarded as a chicken breed that...

Incubation is similar to "gestation" in animals that give live birth. It's the process in which the embryo in a fertilized egg develops into a baby and hatches out. Successful incubation of chicken eggs requires heat, humidity---and time. Incubating chicken eggs takes 21 days. A hen will incubate or set on her eggs when she is "broody." Her body temperature and the conditions in the nest provide the appropriate conditions to hatch baby chicks. If you don't have a broody hen to incubate your eggs, you might use an automatic incubator to provide the appropriate environment. Those can range from...

A roost is a perch for a chicken---what s/he sleeps on, usually a branch, pole, or board that is elevated. It also refers to the act of resting on it: roosting. Here you can see a roost through the chicken pophole door of this coop. Chickens don't have grasping feet the way songbirds do, for instance, so chickens prefer a flat surface. Even an elevated 2 x 4, with planed, sanded, or slightly rounded edges work nicely. Round poles or branches are okay, too, but they should be on the larger side. Whatever you do, be sure not to use...

The word "coop" simply refers to the structure that your chickens live in. A run refers to the enclosed part of the chickens' area that is outside, ideally with access to pasture. In hot dry areas, sometimes coops are three-sided, with the fourth wall made of welded wire for security against predators. The "missing" wall provides extra ventilation and makes sure the coop doesn't get too hot inside. In cold areas, they can be quite small. A coop can be a purpose-built structure or a converted shed or building, made of wood, plastic, adobe, etc. They can be large or...

Wattles are the red flaps of tissue that hang down beneath a chicken's throat. Wattles can be large or small, or mostly nonexistent. Bearded birds, for example, have very small wattles hidden in the fluff of their faces. Wattles are thought to be there as one of the ways that chickens can help cool themselves down and regulate their body temperatures. Note: "Wattles" - what she flutters when she Talks, and "waddles" - what she Does when she walks! A chicken's earlobes are generally smaller and further back along the sides of his or her head.

A Poultry Show or exhibition is very much like a dog show. Breeders and fanciers, and sometimes 4-Hers, bring their best chickens to show them at the exhibition and have them judged according to "breed standards," in other words by what the American Poultry Association (APA) says the ideal bird of that breed is like. (Did you know that a lot of the photos you see on our website come from special breeding lines at poultry shows?)  APA breed standards outline what color feathers, legs, skin, earlobes and so on the ideal bird should have. It also points out if...

"Pecking order" is the social hierarchy of the chicken flock. Those at the top of the pecking order get the best nesting spots and roosting spots, for instance... and those at the bottom get what's left. Small flock with plenty of space This arrangement works out well so long as there is plenty of space on roosts, in nests, and plenty of food and water for everyone. If there is not enough, then the girls at the low end get picked on, and may not be getting enough to eat and drink. Always make sure your chickens have more than...

A setter is a hen who will hatch her eggs. A non-setter is a hen who will not hatch eggs. The vast majority of chicken breeds will occasionally go "broody," meaning they will set their eggs and try to hatch them. However, a "setter" usually refers to a breed (or a specific hen) that frequently goes broody. Orpingtons and cochins are setters, for instance. Buff Orpington Hen Some high production breeds like Rhode Island Reds and Leghorns seldom if ever go broody and want to set eggs. Those are non-setters. Which is best just depends on your perspective. If you...

A nest box is an enclosed area meant to give chickens a place they feel comfortable laying their eggs.Chickens generally prefer darkened, cozy places where they feel safe. We say "generally," here, because new layers may not understand what their instincts are telling them to do. Many lay an egg or two on the floor. Some feel like they need to find a spot outside the coop to lay (such as under your porch!), and so on. It may take some time and effort to "teach" them to lay in the coop. And some may always prefer to lay in...

A waterer is simply the vessel or system you use to provide water for your birds. Waterers may be basic and made from plastic or metal. Here is our best-selling chick waterer. They may be designed for use with nipples or cups. Waterers designed to accommodate bucket heaters are very handy if your temps regularly drop below zero. For that matter, a waterer could be a large bowl or dish---but we don't recommend that, really. In general, you want a chicken's waterer to be difficult to topple over, and designed to keep scratched up bedding out of the water so...

A "wormer" is a medication used to help rid your chickens of infestations of internal parasites like round worms or other worms, the same way you might use a wormer for your dogs or cats. However, if you are eating your chickens' eggs - and medications can be transmitted through the eggs - there are only certain types of wormers that should be used, and you may have an "egg discard" period, where you have to throw away any eggs laid (so you're not getting low doses of wormer, too!). Some wormers do not have a discard or "withdrawal" period...

Hackles, sickles, saddles: these are all terms referring to different types of chicken feathers. "Hackles" are the feathers around the neck. Here's a photo of a rooster with its hackles up: With roosters, the hackles are long and thin. For instance, here's a rooster. He has hackle feathers around his neck, but if you look closely, you'll see they are far more magnificent, iridescent even, although they're not a spectacular color. When roosters face off with an opponent, all their hackles will stand up in order to make themselves look larger and more intimidating. If you say something "got your...

Prepare yourself for this: a chicken's vent is the opening where she expels waste AND the opening from which she lays her eggs. It's all one thing--eww, gross! It's actually not quite as shocking as you might think. You can see here that the intestinal tract and the reproductive tract ARE separate things in your chicken. They just end up venting from the same opening, the vent, which is under your chicken's tail. You can't quite see the vent in this photograph; it's just below the tail and just above the "fluff" (the soft feathers around her rear end). "Cloaca"...

When you're looking at fencing or hardware cloth for your flock's enclosure, you may run into the term "wire gauge," and wonder that that is, and which is best! Wire gauge is essentially just a measurement of how thick the wire is. In terms of fencing here in the US, the LOWER the gauge, the thicker the wire. Thicker wire, of course, is sturdier and will provide more predator protection, because predators will be less likely to be able to tear through it. On the other hand, thicker wire will also be harder to manipulate, and will require a lot...

BBS stands for "Blue-Black-Splash." But that doesn't tell you a whole lot, either, if you don't know how the genetics of blue plumage colors works! When you breed a blue bird to a blue bird, about 50% of the offspring will be blue (a grey color), 25% will be black, and 25% will be splash (a white or pale grey color with splashes of darker grey and black). So, when you order BBS Cochin chicks, for example, you'll receive a mix of blue, black, and splash colors. To get 100% blue birds, you would want to breed black to splash....

NPIP stands for National Poultry Improvement Plan, and it's a voluntary certification system that poultry breeders and hatcheries can participate in. (Our hatchery and all breeders associated with My Pet Chicken are NPIP certified.) Essentially, NPIP certification means you submit the birds in your breeding flock to regularly scheduled testing to assure they are Pullorum-Typhoid-free. While NPIP participation is voluntary, typically states have certification or monitoring requirements if you want to ship birds into that state, so large hatcheries all participate. (At the time of this writing, we don't know of a major hatchery that isn't NPIP certified.) Pullorum and...

A lash egg is less of an egg than it is a roughly egg- or sausage-shaped exudate, consisting of thickened pus and other materials. It is probably the grossest egg your hen will ever lay, and will often look like cheesy, bloody strata or other matter arranged in strappy, skin-like layers. You may think she's expelled an internal organ. Ew. Seriously.  If your hen lays a lash egg, it means she is sick with salpingitis, which is an infection of the oviduct. Please take her to a veterinarian immediately.

Well, let's start with the idea that we literally count our chickens before they've hatched. :) The exhortation against doing that is pretty good advice... unless you're a hatchery or breeder! Then it's your business to predict how many eggs your chickens will lay and how many of those will hatch, AND how many of each sex you'll get. So because these are all estimates, we're pretty conservative in our predictions, because we don't want to disappoint our customers if possible. It's understandably disappointing if you've ordered some Silkies, for instance, and after the long wait when hatch day comes,...

In your backyard flock, quarantine is the act of isolating a chicken or chickens who has been potentially or actually exposed to contagious illness from the rest of your flock. When you introduce new chickens into your established flock, for example, you must quarantine the new chickens for four weeks from the rest of your flock. You don't want them to share feeders, waterers, or even the same air. You also want to be careful not to carry anything between the flocks on your person (on your shoes, for example) during this time. Hens in the Hen Pen Chicken run...

A chicken run is the fenced or enclosed outdoor space you provide for your chickens. The coop is the indoor space---where they go to sleep on their roost and lay eggs in their nests---and the run is the outdoor space, where they may sun bathe or dust bathe, forage in garss and scratch in the dirt. In general, you want to provide your chickens a MINIMUM of about 10 square feet per bird of space overall, split between the coop and the run. The more space the better! Since chickens prefer to spend most of their time outdoors foraging in...

Reportable diseases are chicken illnesses that are serious and communicable enough that in the U.S., you (and your vet) are required to report incidences to the National Animal Health Reporting System. Typically, these are illnesses that are very contagious, not only within your own flock, but may also travel from flock to flock in the air, or by wild birds and so on. They are difficult to control, often fatal, and may leave survivors as carriers. Below is an overview , a list of the reportable diseases in the US that affect chickens. You'll want a veterinarian's diagnosis to be...

The definition of "heritage" in relation to chicken breeds is a bit flexible, but when we use the word, we're referring to breeds that have been around a long time, are non-hybrid, genetically stable, naturally-mating, and outdoor-hardy breeds that have proven valuable for generations. Heritage breeds are ones that have been around long enough to prove their usefulness as either egg layers, meat breeds, or dual-purpose breeds, and to become genetically stable--able to reproduce offspring true to the breed. As such, heritage breeds cannot be hybrids ("mutts" - the offspring of two different breeds), because hybrids do not breed true...