Raising Chickens For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Chapter 10

Keeping Your Flock Happy and Healthy

IN THIS CHAPTER

Providing biosecurity for your flock

Keeping your birds calm and collected

Grooming your chickens

Managing temperature extremes

The art of handling and managing animals is called animal husbandry. Caring for animals goes beyond knowing how to house them and feed them — it also involves knowing how to manage them so that they’re healthy and content.

In this chapter, we discuss how to keep your flock healthy with preventive care and how to humanely handle chickens. In the next chapter, we discuss what to do if your chickens do get sick.

Providing Biosecurity for Your Flock

If you ever have the chance to visit a large poultry operation or a poultry research station, you’ll be amazed by the precautions it takes to prevent disease or parasites from entering the flock. You’ll have to wear special coveralls, plastic booties, and maybe a face mask just to walk inside a facility — and maybe even to get on the grounds. Biosecurity, as defined by the Environmental Protection Agency, is the protection of agricultural animals ...