Over the past 100 years there have been many methods developed to tell the sex of baby chicks; some methods proved haphazard, some have proven quite effective.

Pasty butt can kill the chick fairly quickly if not treated immediately, so knowing how to treat this condition is important.

Nails that don’t naturally wear down need to be periodically trimmed. Cocks may need to have their claws trimmed to prevent injury to hens during breeding, and chickens groomed for showing must have their nails neatly trimmed to successfully compete.

There are two definitions of free-range chickens.
In commercial chicken raising, the USDA says “free range” chickens must be allowed access to some outdoor space. If chickens only have access to a gravel yard, or just spend a few minutes with doors open, they can be called free range birds.

Wing feathers may be trimmed to protect chickens from predators or keep them from getting run over on the road, to protect vegetable and flower beds, or to keep the birds from getting into the wrong breeding pen.

I polled a large number of veteran chicken keepers as to what they believed were the best egg-laying chicken breeds. For a breed to even be considered, one stipulation was that the breed had to lay at least three or four eggs per week and had to keep laying fairly consistently for at least three or four years. Most breeds chosen were brown-egg-layers.