The Chicken Health Handbook, 2nd Edition

Book Preface

Alot h as h appened since the release of the first edition of this book. New technolo-gies have changed the way we view the well-being of chickens, making us more certain of some things and less certain of others. The Internet has given us better access to academic research and to rapid communication with specialists.
More people than ever before raise chickens, providing unique insights due to their diverse educational and professional backgrounds. Online poultry forums have given us a clearer consensus on the issues of backyard flocks compared to problems of industrially produced chickens, or ailments induced and studied under laboratory conditions.
More small-animal veterinarians are accept-ing chickens as patients — indeed, many of them have chickens of their own — and today’s chicken keepers are more inclined than in the past to seek veterinary care. And not least of all, I have had two decades of additional experience keeping my own chickens healthy.
So what started out as a simple update to the first edition has turned into a complete revision. As I reviewed where to start, I first decided to expand the chapter on incubation and brood-ing, which ended up becoming an entirely new and separate book, Hatching & Brooding Your Own Chicks, issued by Storey Publishing.
I then added a new chapter on metabolic dis-orders and split the old chapter on infectious dis-eases into three separate chapters, respectively, on bacterial diseases, fungi, and viruses. These changes provided more room to expand on emerging new diseases, our current understand-ing of old diseases, and how any disease gets a foothold in a backyard flock. By understanding how disease-causing organisms work, we have a much better chance to prevent them.

Critics of the first edition of this book took exception whenever I suggested that culling
(euthanizing a hopelessly sick chicken) is sometimes the best option. I understand that urban and suburban flocks are smaller than rural flocks of the past, and that accordingly each chicken becomes a beloved family pet, resulting in the perspective that “culling is not an option.” However, isn’t allowing a chicken to suffer, or to spread an incurable disease to other chickens, a worse option?
To minimize the likelihood that you will ever reach that point, this edition focuses on a preventive approach and on methods of nat-ural immunity enhancement. A chicken with a strong immune system is better able to keep itself healthy and less in need of being treated for one ailment after another.
Make no mistake, however: the longer you keep chickens, and the more chickens you have at one time, the more likely you are sooner or later to encounter problems. But you’ll be less likely to find yourself dealing repeatedly with the same issues, if you learn how to manage or avoid each one the first time around.
This book is called The Chicken Health Handbook because its focus is on keeping your chickens healthy. By applying vigilance, knowl-edge, and common sense, you’ll find it’s not a difficult mission. Indeed, a few years ago the United States Department of Agriculture issued a report on small flock health and management that stated, “Owners of backyard flocks report very few health problems.”
Here’s to “very few health problems” in your own backyard flock!

Contents
Acknowledgments vi
Preface vii
CHAPTER 1 Keeping Chickens Healthy 1
CHAPTER 2 Good Nutrition Means Healthy Chickens 33
CHAPTER 3 The Inner Chicken 61
CHAPTER 4 Mysteries of Metabolism 101
CHAPTER 5 What’s Bugging Your Birds 125
CHAPTER 6 When Chickens Get Wormy 165
CHAPTER 7 Diseases Caused by Protozoa 196
CHAPTER 8 Conditions Caused by Bacteria 217
CHAPTER 9 The Fungus Among Us 246
CHAPTER 10 Diseases Caused by Viruses 257
CHAPTER 11 Management Issues 287
CHAPTER 12 Diagnostic Guides 323
CHAPTER 13 What’s Going on Inside 352
CHAPTER 14 Treatments and Therapies 371
CHAPTER 15 Your Chickens and Your Health 401
Quick Guide to Diseases and Disorders 417
Glossary 467
Index 476