Backyard Poultry As Clinical Patients

Learning objectives
- Understand the challenges of chicken ownership
- Understand the challenges of chickens as clinical patients
- Recognize common chicken breeds
- Recognize clinically relevant anatomic and physiologic features of chickens and its importance for examination and for diagnostic and treatment procedures
- Recognize common disorders of backyard chickens

Introduction
Backyard chickens have traditionally been kept by farmers and other people living in rural areas. In recent years, keeping chickens in an urban setting has become popular in the United States and other countries. The United States Department of Agriculture National Animal Health Monitoring System (USDA-NAHMS) defines urban chicken flocks as flocks of chickens in urban settings that are owned by families, individuals, or groups of individuals. These flocks are not part of the commercial poultry industry, and provide chicken meat and eggs ...