Chickens - Feathers and Coloring
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Picture source:
Chevron hackles
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Chickens' plumage varies in accordance with the breed. They range in color from white and gray to red and iridescent green-tinted black. Feathers are just as varied in their alternative color patterns and structure as the many breeds and varieties of chickens.
Feathers can be different in structure and in color. Frizzled feathers are curved inwards and outwards. This is the best known structural variation. Color variations include spangled, mottled, laced, penciling, splashed and peppering feathers.
Spangled feathers feature a black half-moon shaped or V-like markings near the tip of the chicken feather. These markings are called 'spangles'. They are always black and can be found in chickens of lighter ground colors.
Laced feathers feature a distinctive strip along the entire contour of the feather. They go along with penciled type of feathers, which have strips that are positioned deeper into the web and tend to repeat the contour of the feather. Splashed coloring presupposes the presence of scattered spots of contrasting color.
Chickens - Home Incubation Tips
Now, let us consider some imperatives of home incubation of chickens. If you are going to make your own incubator and set about raising chicks, you are going to have to put up with the role of a broody hen, because it takes an almost 24-hour vigilance, except when there are people around who are just as committed and self-abandoned as you are.
To start with, don't try to use store bought eggs. They will not hatch. Only those eggs that have just been recently laid are good for incubation. You may design an incubator in a fashion that appears more suitable to you, but there are a number of absolutely necessary conditions of proper incubation.
Eggs must be placed in a medium sized receptacle (depending on how many chicks you plan to have). Temperature must be 39 degrees Centigrade and not a single degree higher! A chicken's embryo can withstand a rather long cooling, just as long as it takes a hen to feed in natural conditions. Turn all the eggs over in due time (3 hours). This is done to prevent the development of physical deficiencies within the chicks.
Place a jar of water in the box to keep the air damp, otherwise the eggs may get dried on the inside. To provide equal distribution of temperature, it is better to place the egg box inside a bigger one (to provide isolation) and put the source of the heat in the proximity of the receptacle. If you have followed these tips implicitly, you may expect chickens after 21 days.
Chickens - General Information Links
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Picture source:
Redden Orchard Ranch ©
Rainer
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A Flock of Your Own: Raising Chickens - Novice's guide to raising chickens. Includes documents and photos about bird growth from chick to chicken.
American Dutch Bantam Society - Official site includes membership application, regional and state meets, breed articles, and breeder ads.
Backyard Chickens - Information to raise, keep, and appreciate chickens. Coop design, roll out nest design, coop gallery, breeds pages, chicken photos, chicken humor sound clips, logo clothing items, chat room, forum, newsletter, and links.
Battery Hens Campaign - Educates consumers about the welfare problems of egg production in battery cages and tries to achieve an international ban on battery cage systems. Info is from the Compassion in World Farming organization.
Billy Bear's Animal Photos - You could really see the colors of the pheasant
in this chickens dad! Daddy chickens are called roosters.
Breeds of Poultry - A listing of poultry breeds recognized by the American Poultry Association.
Care of Day Old Chickens - Chick selection and care sheet.
Chicken Characteristics - Descriptive diagram of both the male and female chicken.
Chicken Production - Collection of links to research materials on production chicken husbandry including news, diseases, economics, reproduction, management, genetics, housing, and nutrition.
Chicken Rescue - English rescue centre for battery hens. You can adopt an ex-battery hen, give her a name, and receive an e-mail 4 times a year with pictures of your hen so you can see how she is recovering and adapting to her new environment.
Chickens - Set of articles series on the basics of why, what, how, and where to keep chickens on a small scale, including care information, terminology, breeds, and "City Chickens" tour.
Chickens A Farm Pet? - Interview with a pet chicken owner.
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Picture source:
Redden Orchard Ranch ©
Rainer
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Chickens & Ducks Care Sheet - Care directions for chickens and ducks from newly hatched to adult. Also information and pictures on the Silkie breed of bantam chickens.
Coopcam at ChestnutBay - The secret lives of chickens in Addison, Vermont.
Cyndilou's Chicken Flock: A Place about Chickens - Information about chickens, their care, coops, breeds, chick care and brooder area, chicken pictures, and links.
Eastern Shore Chicken Sanctuary - Sanctuary plus activist organization working to eliminate chicken and livestock farming. Maryland, USA.
Farmlinks Forum - An online community for poultry enthusiasts to learn more about this intriguing hobby. Information on raising poultry.
Guide to Disease or Behavior Diagnosis - Chart with poultry management methods for disease prevention.
Chickens: Handbook on Poultry Diseases - Information to assist veterinarians, students, and avian health professionals to diagnose, treat and prevent diseases in poultry flocks.
Hendrix Poultry Breeders - Suppliers of layer breeding stock in the Netherlands.
Japanese Bantam Club of Great Britain - Includes housing, feeding, rearing and incubation, and exhibition information.
Incubation and Embryology Resources - University of Illinois Extension research project with varied information on subjects related to breeding, incubating, hatching, and raising chicks.
How To Raise Day-Old Chicks in Your Back Yard - Information on raising chicks with minimum equipment, including feeding, setup, problems, sex links, breeds, broody hens, pastured poultry, and free range chickens.
Wyandotte Bantam Club of America - Official site of the WBCA includes club information, breed discussion board, pictures, articles, illustrations of type, and 1903 sketches.
What is a Chicken? - Article about the biology and classification of chickens, which descended from the wild Red Jungle Fowl (Gallus bankiva, also called Gallus gallus) of Southeast Asia.
Zootecnica International - A journal of poultry science; includes editorial and some online articles
Chickens - Other Chickens sites
Chickens Pictures - The ancestor of all now existing domestic chickens is the Red Jungle-fowl. The species were mostly concentrated in Malaysia. Red Jungle-fowls are considered endangered. Many scientists assume that they became extinct in the wild shortly after the turn of the 20th century and the existing species are actually crosses of the Jungle-fowl and domestic species.
People have been keeping chickens from ancient times. First, chicken keeping was introduced in India. Later the practice spread to China and Middle East. In those times chickens were, in most cases, kept for competitive cockfighting.
