Poultry Science Terms - F
Face: skin around and below the eyes.
Factory Farm: large scale industrial site where animals (generally chickens, turkeys, cattle, or pigs) are confined for meat or egg production
Faking: dishonest practice of concealing a defect or disqualification from a potential buyer or a show judge
Family Farm: farm where ownership and management are controlled by at least one family member who lives on the farm, not by a corporation or absentee owner. Day-to-day labor and management are provided by the farm family that owns or leases the production or production equipment
Fart egg: very small egg containing no yolk, also called a wind egg or rooster egg
Fat: organic combination of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen in such relative quantities that the caloric value of the compound is high
Fat soluble vitamin: essential, fat-based vitamins absorbed and stored in the body that occur in nature in association with lipids
Feather legged: description of those breeds of chickens with feathers growing down their shanks
Feather picking: detrimental activity of chickens picking or pulling at each other's feathers that is often started from stress, aggression, or nutritional problems within a flock
Fecal: pertaining to the feces
Feces: droppings, manure, or bodily waste from an animal
Federal Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS): public health regulatory agency for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that works to ensure that the United States' commercial supply of meat, poultry, and egg products is safe, wholesome, appropriately labeled and packaged safely
Feed conversion ratio: relationship between amount of feed needed to produce 1 pound of meat gain or dozen eggs produced
Feed efficiency: measurement of feed intake per pound of weight gained
Feed hopper: semi-automatic feeding system which has the capacity to hold food in addition to that in the feeding trough associated with the feeder
Feeder: container for the poultry feed. Feeders can keep the feed clean and fresh. Use a feeder instead of allowing the chickens to scratch for their feed
Feral: wild, untamed
Fertile: egg that is fertilized and thus capable of having a chick develop (under the right environmental conditions)
Fertile egg: eggs in which fertilization of the blastodisc has occurred to create the blastoderm. Resulted from the joining of the female ovum and the male sperm to create the embryo
Fertility: percentage of eggs that are fertile; quality or state of being fertile
Fertilization: act or process of making or becoming fertile; the union of a male cell with a female cell
Finish: amount of fat under the skin of a meat bird
Flaccid: limp
Fledge: care for young birds while still in the nest
Fleet: group of swans in captivity
Flight feathers: large primary and secondary feathers of the wings
Flighty: excitable flock inclined to fly at the slightest provocation
Flock: number of birds of the same origin (genotype), age and managed in the same way; group of birds living together
Floor eggs: eggs laid on the floor of the shed and not in designated nest sites/ boxes
Fluff: feathers that are soft and downy as opposed to a hard feather such as a wing. The lower thighs and abdomens of chickens have fluff feathers; downy feathers around the vent of fowl
Fluke: trematode flatworm parasite
Foie gras: french for 'fatty liver' and is a food product made from the liver of a duck or goose that has been specifically fattened for this purpose
Follicle: thin highly vascular ovarian tissue containing the growing ovum
Follicle stimulating hormone (FSH): hormone produced by the pituitary gland that promotes growth of ovarian follicles in the female and sperm in the male
Fomite: inanimate objects such as shipping crates, feed sacks, clothing, shoes, and tires that may harbor disease-causing organisms and may be either a vehicle or a reservoir of infection helping to transmit the disease
Foot candle: measurement of light intensity; density of light striking each and every point on a segment of the inside surface of an imaginary one foot radius sphere with a one candlepower source at the center
Forage: search for naturally occurring nourishment by scratching the ground; also refers to the crops in a pasture
Forced air incubator: mechanical device for hatching fertile eggs containing a fan to circulate warm air
Forced air ventilation: using fans to mechanically force air in to then and out of the house
Forced molt: part of a hen's natural reproductive cycle. After laying eggs for about a year, a hen loses her feathers and rests for a few weeks as new feathers grow in. This is called molting, or a molt, and it usually happens at the beginning of winter. On large production farms, hens are subjected to forced molting so that they molt simultaneously and over a very short time period
Fount: water fountain or watering device for animals
Fowl: describes all members of Gallus domesticus (domestic fowl) irrespective of age, sex or breed; also refers to a hen at the end of its productive life (a stewing hen)
Fowl Pox: highly contagious disease of poultry spread by mosquitos
Free-range: method of poultry farming that allows the flock (usually poultry, and the eggs that they produce) to roam free outdoors and engage in natural behaviors, for at least part of the day, instead of living in confinement housing
Free range housing: system of housing where the birds have a shelter house and access to an outside area during the hours of daylight
Fresh product: poultry products that are never stored below 26 degrees F
Frizzle: feather that curls rather than laying flat; term for a chicken with such feathers
Frozen product: poultry products that at some point are stored below 0 degrees Fahrenheit
Fryer: young meat-type chicken bred for meat production
Fungi: group of plants without chlorophyll that reproduce by spores, includes molds which can cause animal health problems; singular - fungus
Further processed product: food item produced by forming meat and adding a covering