Dummies.com: Home & Garden

11 Tips for Keeping Healthy, Stress-Free Chickens

In addition to basic needs like food and rest, chickens need as little stress as possible to be able to perform well. Stress in chickens may lead to fighting and injury, improper nutrition, and a lowered [more…]

Misconceptions about Chickens and Eggs

Here is a compilation of the most common myths and misconceptions about chickens and eggs that you may encounter as a chicken owner — or chicken-keeper wannabe. Maybe some of these bits of misinformation [more…]

Ten Tools for Urban Gardeners

Creating the perfect urban garden is one thing. The right tool makes or breaks a gardening job. Using a hoe to dig a hole for planting a tree is like eating soup with a fork. It’s just not the right tool [more…]

Ten Kid-Friendly Ways to Garden in the City

Children’s gardening has become huge all across the country. Many educators, parents, and public officials see gardening as a way to reconnect kids with nature, get them outside for some healthy exercise [more…]

Ten Tips to Manage a Sustainable Urban Garden

Sustainability involves three practices that ensure the wise use of water, materials, and other resources to make sure they last from one generation to the next and in harmony with nature. [more…]

Weekend Do-It-Yourself Projects: Repurposing 10 Ordinary Items

Springtime brings bugs. D.I.Y. bugs, to be exact. And if done right, D.I.Y. can be an affordable way to refresh your home. There's just one caveat: Doing things yourself takes time—and patience. [more…]

Ten Common Misconceptions about Chicken Health and Treatments

Here are ten of the most famous backyard flock-keeping myths. Busting these myths may burst some bubbles of wishful thinking, but hopefully, it also will ease some unnecessary worries. [more…]

Answers to Ten Common Questions about Chicken Health

Following are the most common questions that flock keepers ask about the health of their chickens. Also provided are quick, concise answers that you can take to heart or share with a fellow flock keeper [more…]

The Outside of the Chicken: Eyes, Ears, Skin, and Feathers

Being able to refer to the common names of the outside parts of the chicken is helpful when describing a problem to someone long distance and to ensuring the health of your flock. [more…]

The Respiratory System of a Chicken

The main job of the respiratory system of birds is to absorb oxygen and rid the body of carbon dioxide. In addition, the respiratory system also gets rid of excess heat, detoxifies some of the waste products [more…]

The Digestive System of a Chicken

Having a firm understanding of a chicken’s digestion system can help you figure out the reason behind a chicken’s digestive upsets. The figure shows the layout of the chicken digestive system, beginning [more…]

The Skeleton of a Chicken

Besides the obvious role of holding up the chicken, the skeletal system has at least two additional important functions: calcium storage, and believe it or not, breathing! [more…]

The Organs of a Chicken’s Immune System

You need to understand the chicken immune system, to familiarize you with that defense network, because flock owners need to know how to help their chickens protect themselves against and deal with infectious [more…]

Starting with the Chicken and Then the Egg: Growth and Development

So what is the answer to the age-old question: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Well, here, you start with the chicken and end up with an egg. Along the way, you discover the reproductive ins [more…]

What Goes on in a Chicken Egg

A chicken egg is a complete package of nutrition and protection for the developing embryo chick. The yolk, egg white, and shell provide all the nutrients the embryo needs for the 21-day incubation period [more…]

Life Outside the Egg: A Chick’s First Few Weeks

For the first few days after hatching, a chick can’t maintain her own body temperature and needs to be kept warm, either by mother hen’s body heat or by a supplemental heat source that you can provide. [more…]

Coccidiosis in Chickens

Coccidiosis is such a common and serious problem for flock keepers everywhere. Microscopic coccidia parasites are the archenemies of poultry farmers, who must spend tremendous amounts of effort and money [more…]

Parasitic Worms in Chickens

A zoo of parasitic worms can be found in chicken flocks. Worms find cozy places to stay in the crop, gizzard, intestine, cecum, windpipe, and even the eyelids. [more…]

Poultry External Parasites — Lice and Mites

Poultry lice and mites are extremely common external parasites of chickens. You can spot these critters before they get out of control if you periodically pick up and examine chickens in your flock. [more…]

Temporary External Parasites of Chickens

Have you seen chiggers, fleas, and bedbugs on your chickens? Take a look at a lineup of a few other suspects. These are part-time pests, jumping on chickens for a meal and then bailing off. They may be [more…]