Frequently Asked Questions

If your chicken received the Marek's vaccination, she will most likely be protected from the symptoms of Marek's disease, but a small percentage of birds will still get sick with Marek�s, even when vaccinated. Also, there are many other illnesses chickens can get. For instance, if you got a whooping cough vaccination as a kid, you can still get the flu, or liver disease, or bronchitis, or an ear infection, or lyme disease and so on. The same goes for your chicken. Vaccinating for Marek�s disease will not protect your chicken from all sicknesses, only Marek's. As always, if you...

There is no special size that is best across all breeds. Think about it: some breeds lay very large eggs because the chicks are comparatively large; some bantam breeds may have tiny eggs, and the chicks that hatch from those eggs are tiny. Hens of vastly different sizes lay different sizes of eggs. In fact, there are some large fowl breeds that lay small eggs, too... so the size of the egg you want to use for hatching depends on the breed. If that's the case, how do you know which fertile eggs are best to hatch? Choose eggs that...

We know you're dying to start keeping chickens--but you don't want to get a flock of beauties only to find out later that they're illegal and have to give them up! That said, determining if it's legal to keep chickens in your area can sometimes be a little complex. Here's our best advice to determine if you are permitted to keep chickens in your neighborhood: First, we recommend you contact both your local health and zoning boards to see if there are any regulations relating to keeping chickens in your area. In addition to local regulations, if there is a...

If you're losing a lot of egg white when you try to peel hard-boiled eggs, the problem is not related to the breed you have, so choose your favorite! What causes the difficulty peeling is the freshness of your eggs, believe it or not. Fresh eggs are difficult to peel, and the eggs you are getting at home now are very fresh indeed. The problem--if having fresh eggs can be regarded as a problem!--is that what peels easily are old eggs. The eggs you were getting at the grocery store were very old, sometimes a month or more old. As...

Of course we can't know for sure what may be causing the problem in your case, but we can try to mention a few things that might typically cause problems maintaining a steady temperature in the styrofoam incubators. First, if you are reliant on manual turning, opening the incubator to turn your eggs does drop the temperature... but that is pretty temporary and shouldn't cause problems if you are quick. It can help to mark one side of the egg so you can see which have been turned and which haven't. (Use something like soft pencil, that won't soak into...

We can't accept email orders for various reasons, the most important being that email is not a safe way for you to share your payment information. Email is not secure the way online ordering is. In addition, availability changes so quickly that by the time we receive payment to confirm your reservation, availability dates will have changed as other customers place their orders directly online. When that happens, it means we can't make the reservation for you that you wanted. Regular mail takes even longer. We can't accept orders by mail, either. The online ordering system is easy to use....

Some evidence in Australia and New Zealand has indicated that music may help to keep chickens calm and happy, thus helping them to grow larger, faster. The relationship to egg laying rate has not been seen on a large scale (that we are aware of). You might be interested to read this article about music as related to growth in chickens in Taiwan. Belgian Bearded D'Uccle hen This is also an oft-used science project for kids, too. If you decide to try a science project, please let us know your results!

I'm afraid it's not possible to stop incubation, ship the eggs, and then restart incubation afterwards. The chicks would die. It would be akin to a human woman deciding she wanted to take a break from pregnancy for a while to get a nice night's sleep, and asking to have the baby removed for a day or two. Although I think most women would like having the option, especially during the last trimester--I sure would have!--it's just not possible to stop gestation for the fetus--or incubation for the embryo--for a few days without killing it. Make sense? A hen's incubation...