How To Buy A Chicken

When buying chickens to keep in the garden at home it is important you know what you're looking for to make sure that you buy a good healthy chicken. There are lots of chickens out there now which are being sold which are really not in the best of health and you get home and you find that they've got perhaps some kind of internal disease or they're not going to lay properly or perhaps their older than you have been led to believe. Because chicken keeping is becoming so popular now a lot of people are being sold chickens as point of lay.

Point of lay chicken is about fourteen to sixteen weeks and it means that they haven't actually started laying yet. They're being sold these chickens as a point of lay chicken when as in effect somebody who knew about chickens would know that this particular chicken was probably over a year old and had probably already layed for a year. So points to just look out for: when you pick up- don't be afraid to pick up the chicken.

Ask where it's come from. Has it been reared at the place that you're actually at buying the chickens? Where has it come from? The points to look around for: you need to know that they've got a good nice clean red comb, no marks on it or anything that might suggest they were aggressive or been in any sort of fights. These wattles under here are nice and bright and red.

If they were point of lay- she's obviously- this chicken here has just begun to lay by the looks of her because her red comb is quite tall now and the wattles are quite red. If they were literally coming into lay this comb wouldn't be nearly so tall. It would be far shorter as would the wattles and they wouldn't be so bright red.

They would be just becoming pink. That would be a sure indication that she was what she's being sold as, as a point of lay young chicken about fourteen perhaps to sixteen weeks. You want bright eyes, a good bright eye, nothing sort of cloudy in there and she's looking at you, and a nice clean beak here, no gunge.

The nostrils, through here, you want to make sure that they're nice and clean as well. Also clean feet, nice clean feet, nothing here. The legs should not be all scaly they should be nice smooth legs because they can get a thing called scaly mite which would mean that they'd all be raised up and horrible.

It's quite difficult to get rid of. So just little pointers to look for. Around the back area here, which is called the vent, you want to know that all these feathers through here are nice and clean and the vent area is nice and clean, another indication that she's a young hen and that she hasn't been around for a year or two already.

Just some pointers to look for when you're going to buy a chicken to make sure that you come home with clean, healthy, young chickens if that's what you're looking for.