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How Much Water Does a Chicken Drink?

Chicken Drinking Water

How much water a chicken drinks each day depends on numerous factors including the bird’s size, water palatability, feed intake, feed composition, the environmental temperature, the bird’s condition of health, and whether the bird is laying.   Under normal conditions, the average chicken drinks between one and two cups of water each day. A laying […]

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How Much Feed Does a Chicken Eat?

Chicken Eating

How much feed a chicken eats each week varies with the chicken’s age, breed, and strain, degree of activity, and condition of health. Other factors include the ration’s palatability and texture, and its energy and protein content.   In cold weather, a chicken stays warm by eating more than it does during the heat of […]

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Buying a Ready-Made Chicken Coop — 10 Things to Consider

Prefab Coop

Buying a ready-made chicken coop, instead of building one yourself, has several advantages. It doesn’t require any carpentry tools or skills. It doesn’t take up several weekends of your free time to put together. And you don’t need a PhD in all the features a chicken coop needs. But you should know enough about how […]

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12 Chicken Breeds with the Best Laying Hens

Brown Eggs from Productive Hen

All female chickens lay eggs, and all hens lay best in their first year of production. But some chicken breeds lay better than others. Hens that lay best are of breeds that have been selectively bred for egg production, rather than for fast growth or exhibition qualities.   Layers of Eggs with Brown Shells Chicken […]

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Thanksgiving Turkey Facts [Infographic]

Turkey Facts Infographic

Gobble, gobble! Thanksgiving is tomorrow, which means we’re talking turkey! If you’re one of the many Americans who will be gathering around the table with distant relatives who come around just a few times each year, you know that conversation doesn’t always flow easily.   Looking to avoid topics such as politics, your love life, […]

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Heritage Turkey Spotlight — Royal Palm, Ideal for Small Families

Royal Palm Turkey

The Royal Palm is a lightweight turkey with stunning white plumage trimmed in black. Turkeys with a similar color pattern have been raised in Europe since the 1700s, known there variously as black-laced white, pied, or Crollwitzer.   The first turkeys in the United States with the palm color pattern appeared in the 1920s in […]

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How to Control Ammonia in the Chicken Coop

Cochin Chickens in Coop

Ammonia is a pungent-smelling gas constantly released by bacteria that decompose chicken droppings. Not only does ammonia smell bad, it’s also a health hazard for you and your chickens. High levels of ammonia in the coop’s air can discourage chickens from eating—affecting the growth rate of young birds and the production of laying hens—and can […]

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7 Reasons Why Chickens Stop Going Into Their Coop at Night

Chickens Outside Coop

Chickens that stop roosting in their coop after having been trained to go into the coop at night likely have a good reason for not wanting to return. Your job then becomes determining what the reason is and taking corrective measures. Here are the seven most common reasons chickens become reluctant to go home to […]

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What is Grit and Why Do Chickens Need It?

Chicken Grit

Natural grit consists of a collection of coarse sand, pebbles, and similar small, hard objects chickens eat while pecking on the ground. The grit lodges in the bird’s gizzard, where muscular action grinds the grit together with feedstuffs to break them down for digestion. Over time each piece of grit gets ground up, along with […]

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