Life on the Farm
Dual-purpose chickens are the classic backyard breeds. Farmers, like my grandparents, kept them to produce both eggs and meat for sale, until the introduction of commercial hybrids developed solely as layers or solely as broilers. In commercial production both hens...
Marek’s disease is so common you can assume your chickens have it, even if they don’t show any signs. But while some chickens resist Marek’s disease, others succumb. The question is: Why? What is Marek’s Disease? Marek’s disease is the...
A matter of much debate among chicken keepers is whether or not to use electric lights in winter to encourage hens to keep laying. Let’s look at some facts and bust some myths about lighting your chicken coop in winter....
Barbed wire criss-crossed our Tennessee farm when we moved here four decades ago. Some of the wire was wrapped around or stapled to rickety fence posts. But most of it was nailed or stapled to trees — not a safe...
Every time I hear cackling referred to as a hen’s egg song, I get a little confused. The many studies I’ve read about chicken sounds always refer to pre-laying hen sounds as singing. None refer to a hen’s post-lay cackle...
What, exactly, causes a chicken to go broody is a subject that baffles even the best poultry scientists. One thing we know is that whether or not a hen decides to brood depends on three interconnecting factors: genetics, hormones, and...
Umwelt is a concept developed in 1905 by German biologist Jakob von Uexküll. In German Um means around and Welt means the world. Your umwelt is everything you are able to perceive in the world around you. What we humans...
Chickens don’t have a nose to wriggle up, like a human who smells something odd or interesting. Neither to they noticeably sniff at things, like a dog does. Nevertheless, chickens have a keen sense of smell. And it’s likely every...
Controlling incubation humidity for a successful hatch ensures that moisture evaporates from poultry eggs at just the right rate. Humidity is a measure of the amount of moisture in the air. At a given temperature, the drier the air, the...
Eggs laid on the coop floor, appropriately called “floor eggs,” easily get dirty or cracked. They are unsanitary to eat and unsuitable for hatching. Plus a cracked egg is likely to get broken, making a mess. Hens will sample the...
