Preserve an Endangered Species with Heritage Chickens

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Pets

Cats don't bother chickens—not even tiny chicks. Dogs are another matter. Some terriers and hunting breeds will even dig under fencing to get at them. I found the best way to keep our beasts honest is to take them out as 8-week-old puppies to where the adult birds are scratching in the barnyard. A biddy hen with chicks is a great dog trainer. The puppies'll naturally want to go woofing after the chicks, but a hen is a savage defender of her young. A serious henpeck on the nose has always been enough to put our homestead hounds in mortal terror of chickens for life.

More than once, I've seen our huge German shepherd Harley awakened from a deep afternoon nap in the backyard by a chick attack. They'll scrabble up his sides and scratch after whatever they can find in his coat. Except for a few inadvertent twitches when a sensitive whisker or eyelash gets pulled, the great fool holds stone-still with his eyes squeezed shut rather than confront the momma hen as she parades right in front of his nose, scratching dust in his face, her beady eyes alert to the slightest danger to her brood.

Raising Chicks

You'll have healthier birds and fewer disease and parasite problems if you order chicks to arrive in the spring. Hen chicks that arrive at the end of April will go into the henhouse in late June and begin laying in October. (See when the local feed store will be distributing orders to determine the ideal date in your locale.) This is the rush time for hatcheries, so get your order in by late winter.

Regional hatcheries sell by mail, for pickup at the office, or through area feed stores, farm coops, and 4-H or FFA. Birds are guaranteed to arrive alive and in good health and to be free of the common diseases pullorum and typhoid. They can be inoculated against several other diseases and debeaked (to prevent pecking that can lead to cannibalism) for a small fee. Debeaking is mutilation and suitable only for huge flocks kept in close quarters. But inoculation against Marek's disease only costs a thin dime a bird and is good insurance if you live in an established poultry-growing area or plan to keep adult birds to breed your own chicks.

If you plan to take the birds to shows where they can be exposed to disease, order inoculants for Newcastle and bronchitis (administered in the water), pox (carried by mosquitoes; birds get a simple auto-applied shot), and laryngotracheitis (administer with an eyedropper). You'll get about 500 doses for $5, but refrigerated, the medications will last for a long time.

I've never tried it, but growers I respect recommend a water additive, called QuikChik, for new chicks. It isn't a medicine but a vitamin/mineral supplement laced with electrolytes—kind of a veggy-tonic/Gatorade for chickens that gets travel-stressed chicks to eating and racing around with the first sip. A 4-ounce packet that will handle 200 chicks for 2 weeks can be shipped in the carton along with your birds for less than $4.

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