Chickens

A hen that goes broody, or one that just lays:

that is the split that matters in a Guatemalan yard. A native hen, whether a plain backyard bird or a naked-neck, lays fewer eggs but goes broody: she sits tight on her clutch until it hatches and raises the chicks with no lamp and no bought starter. Brown hybrid layers and white Leghorns lay far more and almost never sit, so their eggs only become chicks in an incubator, and they need proper layer feed from animal feed to keep laying. Broiler chicks are a batch raised for the table, not a flock. The goats and pigs that often share the yard sit under livestock.

Coops built from bamboo, mesh and clay tile:

still house many flocks in the east, and they work. A bamboo house under clay tiles stays cooler than one under bare sheet metal, and split bamboo makes a feed trough or a drinker. What matters more than the material: a door that shuts at night against dogs and opossums, perches set higher than the nest boxes so the hens sleep on the perch and not in the nest, and a floor that drains. Bought kit earns its place as the flock grows. A hopper feeder wastes less than a tray, a bell drinker hung at back height stays cleaner than a dish on the ground, and a brooder with a bulb or gas canopy stands in for the broody hen when chicks come out of an incubator.

What a small egg incubator is worth:

around Q700 to Q1,000 new for an automatic one that holds a few dozen eggs, turns them on its own and runs on a digital thermostat. Used, it is worth whatever its last hatch says. One that brought off a batch recently, with chicks the owner can show you, deserves most of the new price. One that spent a season in a storeroom with a dead turner motor or a drifting thermostat is a box of spares. Listen for the turner and the fan before you pay.

A hen in the hand before she leaves the yard:

tells you more than the owner will. She should feel solid across the breast, not sharp along the keel, with clear eyes, dry nostrils, no rattle in her breathing and no swelling round the face. Smooth, flat leg scales mean a younger bird; raised, crusty ones mean leg mites or age. To tell whether she is laying, feel the two small pelvic bones just below the vent: wide apart and supple on a hen in lay, close and stiff on one that has stopped. Ask whether the flock was vaccinated against Newcastle, the disease that empties whole village yards, and keep any newcomer away from your own hens for the first weeks.

Pullets and roosters going to a new yard:

settle in better when the listing says their age and type, whether the hens are laying and whether any go broody, what they eat, whether they were vaccinated, and how many roosters are in the lot, because two in a small yard will fight. Photograph them standing in daylight, not bunched in a sack, and show coops and incubators set up, with measurements. Catch the hens off the perch after dark, when they are calm. And have a ventilated crate ready: hens carried tied by the legs, hanging head down in the back of a pickup on the road to Zacapa, arrive stressed and can stop laying for weeks.

FAQ:

• Can chickens share the yard with turkeys?

  Not without risk to the turkeys. Chickens often carry the parasite behind blackhead without showing it, and turkeys scratching the same ground pick it up and many die. Keep them on separate ground.

• Do hens need a rooster to lay?

  No. A rooster only matters if you want fertile eggs to set under a broody hen or in an incubator. Without him the yard is quieter.