Help your flock thrive with these attentive tips.

BY KRISTINA MERCEDES URQUHART

MARTIN-DM/ISTOCK

To become a chicken keeper is to become a bit of a detective. As animals of prey whose survival is tied to a strong social lifestyle, chickens don’t like anyone to know when they’re sick.

In a flock, if a hen lags behind or looks weak, she makes an easy target for predators. If she displays signs of illness or lameness and the flock takes notice, they may well cannibalize or inflict further damage as a way to eliminate her from the group. While this may sound harsh, this is how chickens have survived when absolutely everything wants to eat them, from the tiniest mite to those with sharp teeth and talons. And since these traits will be apparent in even the tiniest backyard flock, it helps to keep a keen eye and a sharp sense as their keeper.

Chickens are incredibly easy animals to care for if you get them set up with all they need. As you’ll read in a moment, I wholeheartedly believe that awareness and prevention are the two most reliable and inexpensive “medicines” of all, and that with these two tools, nearly every chicken ailment can be avoided.

CHICKEN HEALTH & WELLNESS

The chicken keeper’s first tool — awareness — is largely about observation. What do you see when you watch your chickens? How do they act? How do they interact with each other?

At first glance, your family of birds may appear to be ignoring each other, simply pecking around, eating, drinking, laying eggs and grooming. If you look closely, you may notice subtle (or not so subtle) gestures between two or more birds as they communicate through vocal sounds, body language and pecks, giving you a sense of hierarchy.

If you watch even more closely, you’ll get to know their individual personalities, where they fit on the hierarchical totem pole, and what their “normal” behavior looks like. How do they act when all is well? In order to be aware of any changes in your flock, you’ll first need this frame of reference.

THE HEALTHY CHICKEN

A healthy bird is aware and alert. Her body posture is erect, she has a robust appearance, and she carries herself confidently. She moves easily and freely and goes about her normal chicken behaviors — scratching and digging in the dirt, pecking and picking at what she finds, laying as often as her age and breed dictate, roosting at night, and regularly dust-bathing. 

She makes noises based on her activities, such as clucking and cooing while foraging or singing her “hen song” after laying an egg. She can easily move her body, flap her wings, and fly up to a perch or roost. Her behavior should be typical of her personality, submissive if she is lower in the flock’s hierarchy or more dominant if she is an alpha.