What's Wrong With My Chicken?

Your favorite hen is puffed up on the roost and won't come down. The nest boxes have been empty for three weeks. You closed the coop tonight and found tiny specks running up your arms. You post a photo asking what's wrong with your chicken, twenty strangers give you twenty different answers, and the vet down the road says it doesn't see poultry. What's Wrong With My Chicken? is a calm, symptom-first troubleshooting guide for backyard flock owners. It teaches you what normal looks like in your own birds, how to examine a hen from head to tail, how to decide whether a problem can wait, needs action today, or is an emergency, and where to find real help when you need it. This is not another guide to raising chicks or building a coop, and it is not a disease encyclopedia written for poultry farms. It starts where you are: a hen in your hands, a problem in front of you, and contradictory advice on your phone. It also takes apart the myths that cost keepers birds, from diatomaceous earth as a mite cure to heat lamps in the winter coop. Inside, you'll learn: The Egg Drop Checklist: nine questions that explain why hens stopped laying before you assume they're sick A ten-point Hen Check you can do at home, and how to catch a hen without a twenty-minute chase Three-tier triage for a sick or lethargic hen, plus how to find a vet or lab that will see chickens What egg binding, sour crop, bumblefoot, and rattly breathing look like, and the safe first steps for each How to tell red mites, fowl mites, lice, and scaly leg mites apart, and a two-front plan that actually clears them How to predator-proof your coop and run with hardware cloth, a buried apron, and the right latches Why most flocks don't need heat in winter, and how to handle frostbite, frozen water, and summer heat How to quarantine and add new hens without bloodshed, and what to do about bullies and roosters You don't need a farm background or a poultry vet on speed dial. You need to know your flock's normal, what to check, and when to call for help. Turn to Chapter 1 and start learning your birds.

Imad Muratspahic is an independent author of practical how-to guides, technical handbooks, history and fiction. The books aim to be clear, honest and useful from the first page.