A Note About Chick Handling and Salmonella

With the rise in popularity of backyard poultry, the Centers for Disease Control is seeing a rise in reports of salmonella. Salmonella can cause diarrhea, vomiting, fever, or abdominal cramping in humans. The illness can range from mild to life threatening. The biggest tool you have in preventing salmonella...

Painting and/or waterproofing the inside of your chicken coop?

A couple things to keep in mind if you are painting and/or waterproofing the inside of your chicken coop. If the waterproofing produces strong toxic fumes, leave plenty of time in the building process to let it dry/cure/and air out. Chickens are actually fairly sensitive to the same chemicals and inhaled...

Orpington Chickens: A Royal Breed

Consider the Orpington Chicken Breed. It’s a general purpose breed, useful for both meat and eggs. Orpingtons are large birds, roosters weighing around 10 lbs., hens 8 lbs. Orpingtons lay brown eggs. Estimates of laying on exhibition strains vary, from 50 to 120 eggs a year. (Purely Poultry’s Buff...

Icons of the Farm: Rhode Island Red and White Chickens

The Rhode Island Red chicken is the iconic Red Rooster and Little Red Hen of folk tales. In the American Poultry Advocate of May 1912, poultry judge and breeder W. H. Card described the breed as so impressive “that the State of Rhode Island is obscured and almost hidden behind the glow, glint and glamour...

Rhode Island Red chickens: The state bird

Rhode Island Reds remain one of the most popular breeds, for small and for commercial laying flocks. The Rhode Island Red is the official bird of the state of Rhode Island. John Crowther, described in Willis Grant Johnson and George O. Brown’s 1912 edition of Harrison Weir’s The Poultry Book as “a...