Chicken Owners Scramble When Their Pet Feels Foul

Seeking medical help for her beloved pet, Edie, who had fallen ill, Martha Lazar quickly grew frustrated. "I had a terrible time finding a vet here that would see a chicken," says Ms. Lazar, a 45-year-old freelance photographer and casting director in Brooklyn, N.Y. She eventually found an animal doctor across the bridge in Manhattan who knew parrots, but the knowledge didn't transfer. Some $300 later, Edie was still in distress. Finally, after Ms. Lazar repeatedly poked around the bird's nether-feathers, a stuck egg popped out.

As a growing number of suburbanites and weekend farmers raise poultry for fun, not just food, they are learning that top health care is hard to find. In many cases, they are left to wing it. Hens, roosters and other poultry can have unique ailments that set them far apart from Fluffy and Fido. And even specialists well-versed on exotic birds may not know chickens, which are bred to be egg-laying machines. There are chicken experts: The American College of Poultry Veterinarians has about 260 members in good standing. But the vast majority work in the food industry, vets say. "If there's something wrong with a commercial chicken, it's 'Cut its head off and find out what's wrong with the flock."

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Some people are going full farmer, collecting eggs and eating birds, while others are more "helicopter chicken parents," says Ms. Lazar, who recently offered tips for battling chicken mites on her blog, brooklynfeed.com. (Her chicken Edie eventually succumbed to health troubles.) Owners may start with agricultural intentions, but once the birds get whimsical names such as Ellen DeHeneres and Yolko, they become more like family than food. Indeed, diapered chickens are pecking around houses as indoor pets. Or they have their own fancy digs: Gourmet cookware purveyor Williams-Sonoma sells a $1,499.95 coop made of red cedar "custom milled by a local, family-run sawmill" in Washington state. Elsewhere, fans of both Middle-earth and poultry can buy coops that look like Hobbit homes.

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In Tennessee, Dr. Greenacre performed a surgery last month to remove a clutch of stuck eggs from Dolly Poulet, a petite, white chicken. Owner Stephen Brown, a 40-year-old in Knoxville who runs giftware company Glitterville, spent roughly $2,000 but was thrilled with the outcome after getting spurned by other vets, one of whom told him chickens were "disposable" livestock...Dolly sleeps in a basket near her owner, has her own Twitter feed and travels in a Ralph Lauren tote bag. "She laid her first egg in the bed of a Ritz-Carlton in Atlanta," Mr. Brown says. A spokeswoman for the two Ritz-Carlton hotels in Atlanta said they had no knowledge of the chicken laying an egg there.

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But many poultry lovers don't live near specialists or become budget-conscious when their flocks grow. Enter the Internet, where chicken-centric sites are rife with health tips, ranging from basic care to grave diseases. One discussion on backyardchickens.com delved into advice for diagnosing and treating "vent gleet," an unsightly infection. Experienced vets cringe at online treatments, some of which they say are downright flighty. But Kathy Shea Mormino, a 45-year-old chicken owner in northern Connecticut, says necessity feeds the DIY culture. She shares care tips on her website, the-chicken-chick.com, such as how to Super Glue cracked beaks and treat an infectious problem called bumblefoot.


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