A Family Guide To Keeping Chickens
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Authors: Anne Perdeaux
Anne Perdeaux
started keeping chickens almost by accident when she was presented with a ready-made flock of twelve assorted hens and cockerels. After a lifetime’s experience with dogs and horses, Anne was quickly captivated by her new pets and set out to learn more about them. The chickens proved excellent instructors and became the inspiration for a number of articles published in
Country Smallholding
magazine. Anne’s practical observations and detailed research led to her writing regularly for
Your Chickens
magazine, where she is now part of a panel of experts answering readers’ questions. She lives with her husband in rural Wiltshire, where they keep a motley crew of free-range chickens and guinea-fowl.
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Maureen Little
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WHY CAN’T MY GARDEN LOOK LIKE THAT?
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A FAMILY GUIDE
TO KEEPING
CHICKENS
Anne Perdeaux
To my father, who has always encouraged my enthusiasm for animals, and to Martin, who lives with the consequences
Constable & Robinson Ltd
55–56 Russell Square
London WC1B 4HP
First published in the UK by How To Books,
an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd., 2014
Copyright © Anne Perdeaux 2014
Copyright illustrations © Jess Goodman 2014
The right of Anne Perdeaux to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication
Data is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-90897-415-0 (trade paperback)
ISBN 978-1-84528-554-8 (ebook)
Printed and bound in the UK
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Cover design by Mark Cavanagh
1. Before Your Chickens Come Home to Roost:
Planning for Your First Chickens
2. What Really Goes On at a Hen Party?
Understanding Chicken Behaviour
Establishing the Pecking Order
The Importance of Dust-Bathing
How Do Chickens Get On with Humans?
3. Feathering the Nest:
Where and How Will Your Chickens Live?
Keeping Chickens in a Small Garden
Keeping Chickens in a Medium-Sized Garden
Keeping Chickens in a Large Garden or Smallholding
Considering How Many Chickens You Can Accommodate
Different Types of Chicken Housing
What to Look for When Buying Chicken Housing
Scenarios of Keeping Chickens . . .
4. Birds of a Feather: Choosing the Right Chickens for the Job
Deciding Between Pure-Breeds and Hybrids
5. Buying the Eggstras: What Else Will You Need?
Giving Chickens Some Fun in their Run
Putting Together a First Aid Kit
6. Chicken Feed: Organizing the Daily Rations
Providing Green Food and Grass
7. How Do You Cock-a-Doodle-Doo? Buying Your Chickens and Introducing Them to Their New Home
Choosing to Buy Chickens, Chicks or Eggs
Settling Your Chickens in Their New Home
8. Doing the Hen-Housework: Caring for Your Chickens
9. Outfoxing the Fox: Predators
Stoats, Weasels, Polecats, Ferrets and Pine Martens
Crows, Magpies, Jackdaws and Rooks
10. You Can’t Make an Omelette Without Breaking Eggs:
Eggs and What to Do with Them
Eggs-Travaganza! Dealing With All the Eggs
11. In Fine Feather: Dealing with Parasites and Ailments
Appreciating the Causes of Disease
Recognizing Infectious Diseases
Treating Wounds and External Problems
12. Having Something to Crow About: Cockerels
Deciding Whether You Need a Cockerel
13. Don’t Count Your Chickens Before They’ve Hatched:
Managing Broody Hens and Hatching Eggs
Dealing with Unwanted Broodiness