One of the hardest problems in successful poultry keeping is to maintain the vigor and health of the flock. Housing has particular bearing on this problem. If the laying-house is poorly lighted, has insufficient ventilation, or is overcrowded, the health of the fowls will be affected. The purpose of housing is to increase productiveness. In order to accomplish this the fowls must be comfortable.

“Yes, with this approach to farming we make decisions and put our hands to some small manipulations but the very breadth of mixed crop and livestock systems often quickly leave us behind and spread out to do their own work of symbiotic osmosis and complementary relations.”

All the Pretty Chickens

Many poultry nutrition experts now report that feeding excessive amounts of calcium can lead to basically, “loving your birds to death,” giving them too much of a good thing. Excessive calcium can lead to their premature death from kidney failure. If a necropsy was performed, it would indicate that the bird perished from gout, which is an excessive build up in the kidneys, indicating either too much protein or calcium in their diet.

The backyard flock serves an important economic function. It is a means of producing at comparatively low cost one of the most healthful and appetizing groups of food – eggs and poultry meat. The small flock can be utilized to convert much of the table waste such as meat, fresh vegetable waste such as kale and cabbage leaves, boiled potatoes, and bread into a valuable product. In addition, keeping a small flock of chickens has definite recreational advantages, for it is interesting and educational to care for baby chicks, growing chickens and laying hens. The manure and litter produced is a valuable fertilizer for lawns, gardens, and many shrubs.

I absolutely love chickens and ducks and geese! There, I stand exposed. And this book I am reviewing, I love it, too!! It is both a wondrous and wonderful book, especially if you are a poultry fancier who needs to know the what (duck, goose, chicken etc.), why (as in why would you want to raise this breed) and whose-its (as in crazy tidbit info i.e. coloration nomenclature) of individual species – or maybe you just want to be able to see how they are different. As you may note by the copyright date, this is not a new book but it deserves careful attention as a reference volume. It will have a long shelf life. It features well over one hundred excellent color photos and is expertly organized for easy use.

Ten years ago I answered a classified ad and went to a small western Oregon farm to look at some young laying hens that were for sale. That visit to Buck and Mary Rickett’s place made a quiet impression on me that has lasted to this day. On that first visit in ’71 my eager new farmer’s eye and ear absorbed as much as possible of what seemed like an unusual successful, small operation. I asked what must have seemed like an endless stream of questions on that early visit.

Saturday morning at the breakfast table my husband, Keith, announced to our three children eating cereal, “today we are going to butcher the chickens!” Their spoons froze in the air; they stared at him with mouths opened. He quickly added in a much softer tone. “I mean dress out the chickens.”

Whoever thought I’d be singing the praises of chicken poop? I am, and I’m not the only one. Chickens are walking nitrogen-rich manure bins.

Beautiful color plates of heritage chicken breeds.

Duck raising is conducted successfully both as a side issue on general farms and as a special business on a large scale. The Pekin is the best breed for duck farming. Many breeds are very ornamental as well as useful, making the breeding of real interest wherever there are natural facilities for keeping waterfowl. The rearing of ducks for market on a large scale requires extensive capital and experience. A location on a stream of running water is essential for the best results in duck farming.

Turkeys 6 to 10 weeks old are ready to go on the range, which should be clean and separate from range used for chickens. Adequate shelter is very important. A good practice is to place feeders on clean ground, away from the roost, and to move the feeder each week. The roost should be moved 3 or 4 times during the growing season, as sanitation is of the greatest importance.

Most permanent pasture plants are small-seeded and rather slow in becoming established. Use of these pastures during the year of seeding should be delayed until the plants are firmly rooted and growing vigorously. Turning birds into a perennial pasture too soon after seeding may result in poor stands as many plants will be killed by trampling and others will be pulled out by the grazing birds. Late fall grazing of new seedings should be avoided. It usually is necessary to mow new perennial pastures once or twice during the first year to control weeds. This mowing should be done when the weeds are flowering or before seeds develop. The cutter-bar of the mower should be set three or four inches above the ground to cut the weeds with a minimum of injury to the young forage plants.

I confess that I am cold-hearted and cheap. Though I love raising poultry, I hate spending time and money anywhere but on my little farm. So I process at home. If you are only raising a few birds for yourself, say 25 or 30 at a time, I recommend having a party and doing it all by hand. My journey backward from machines to hands started with a chance encounter with a Kenyan chicken grower visiting the United States. He finishes 15,000 broilers each year.

While the heritage breeds overcome the shortfalls of the Cornish-Rock Cross (CRX) and similar modern hybrids, they come with their own drawbacks. They do not approach the rapid growth rate, low feed conversion rates, and low production costs of the CRX, but there is a lack of information as to which breed or breeds might serve as a potential alternative for niche markets. Thus, our proposed solution was to raise a variety of heritage breed chickens on pasture, to gain a sort of foothold regarding expected growth considerations and production costs.

The question of why one ought to consider raising heritage meat chickens can be approached, I think, from two different angles: farm-based reasons for the actual raising of heritage birds, and the marketing advantages that heritage birds offer for the small farmer. Heritage chickens are a distinctly niche product, and niche production is a boon to the small farm. To be sure, pastured poultry generally is a niche product, but one that is becoming more and more common in many local markets. By opting specifically for heritage birds we further differentiate ourselves and our farm.

I first got the idea of the squab business from a gentleman who boarded with us who used to raise pigeons. Then I happened to see Mr. Rice’s advertisement of the Plymouth Rock Squab company in the Philadelphia Inquirer and answered it. I wanted to know just what I had to do to raise squabs for market before I purchased any birds. I hardly knew what a pigeon was and had never seen a squab. After carefully reading Mr. Rice’s Manual I decided to give the business a try. I started April 1, 1921, All Fool’s Day. We thought we were a little foolish too.

Java temperaments, laying abilities, and meat quality have been a tremendous help for us in interesting potential new breeders. These birds are very calm and easily handled while still being a very active breed. They are excellent foragers and do well in the barnyard. Hens lay large rich brown eggs and many are good mothers. Young cockerels make excellent table fare. The size of Javas also makes them a very desirable bird. Roosters average about nine and a half pounds while hens tend to be about six and a half.

I was truly shocked to read that the majority of the domestic ducks and geese that I was familiar with have severe population problems! There are six breeds of ducks and four breeds of geese that have numbers so low that they have been designated to be critically endangered. In addition to this disgusting revolution, there are ten more breeds that fall into the Rare and Watch categories.

When I was a boy in the mountains of East Tennessee, we didn’t know anything about ordering baby chicks or even gave it a thought. With the help of a nesting box, or boxes, a household with fifteen or twenty hens could hatch out 300 to 500 chicks each year. We would let the hens go broody by leaving the eggs in the nest until a hen laid 15 eggs, (plus or minus 1 or 2) and the hen would go to setting on them. Often times we would put boiled eggs in place of the fresh eggs under a sitting hen until we had 4 or 5 hens setting at one time.

“We gather the ostrich eggs which weigh about 3 and ½ pounds each,” says Angelica. “We also help get the ostrich chicks in their pens. I help Grandpa by collecting the money from the fair customers when we take our stand wagon to the local fairs. We sell ostrich burgers, ostrich hot dogs, ostrich jerky, ostrich steak, and ostrich sticks.”

One day my husband walks in from the barn with a baby pigeon. The poor little guy was hungry, scared and so ugly he was cute. Well, cute may be stretching it. Khoke wondered aloud if we should try to save him or feed him to the cat. These questions were merely a formality, since the bird made it all the way into the house. Khoke knew my answer before he left the barn.

The pigeon industry has two branches; the breeding of squabs for market, and the raising of breeding stock for sale. The first brings the surest and quickest returns, squabs being safely turned into cash at 4 weeks of age. The second requires more room for raising the young, also more care, more feed, more cleaning of the houses, more advertising, and often involves more losses; but it offers freedom from the unpleasant weekly task of killing and dressing, and better prices for stock sold, if of good quality.

An important feature of the range shelter described in this circular is that it is portable. Two men by inserting 2x4s through the holes located just below the roost supports and next to the center uprights can easily pick up and move it from one location to another. Frequent moving of the shelter prevents excessive accumulation of droppings in its vicinity which are a menace to the health of the birds. Better use will be made by the birds of the natural green feed produced on the range if the houses are moved often.

One of the things that has been bred out of today’s chicken is the ability to go “broody” and hatch out a clutch of chicks. Chickens nowadays will go broody, but will abandon the eggs after a few days – the brooding instinct has been bred out of them. It takes 21 days of continuously setting on the eggs by a nice warm hen for the chicks to hatch out. None of the common domestic breeds available will sit the eggs long enough to hatch them out.

Poultry Breeds – Partridge Cochins • Light Brahmas • Silver Polish • Silver-Gray Dorkings • Barred Plymouth Rocks • Silver-Laced Wyandottes • Langshans • Buff Cochins • Single-Comb Brown Leghorns

Both houses are the same except for roof construction. Floors are on concrete laid over hollow tile on gravel fill. Windows are provided with draft shields and tip in. Additional ventilating sash are located in rear walls under dropping boards. Nests are made so that they are easily removed from wall for cleaning the roosts or made so that they may be raised over dropping boards for the same purpose.

Success with raising poultry, whether for eggs or meat, feathers or breeding stock, all of it depends on keeping the birds healthy and vigorous – and one important element in that equation is housing. Good breeding and the best feeding are vitally important but even those factors won’t get you maximum return unless the birds enjoy the best possible, disease-free, environment.

The WSDA is asking everyone who is raising birds, including pet birds, to monitor for signs of illness. Any suspicion of disease should be promptly reported to the state veterinarian’s office. WSDA is also urging poultry farmers to limit personal contact with one another and to minimize visitors at their farms to reduce the chance of spreading the disease on shoes or clothing. The department has also asked those planning sales or auctions of farm equipment to consider postponing them to prevent potential spread of the disease.

We kept our eye on this rooster. He was high entertainment for 3 boys and 3 younger sisters on that farm. We didn’t give him a name, just called him “Rooster,” and Rooster ruled. Other roosters moved out of his way. Hens cowered when Rooster appeared. My dog Browser wouldn’t go near Rooster. Rooster was invincible. Or so he thought.

Pastured poultry does not have to be limited to chickens. Ducks and geese do well using the same production models. The chicken tractor or the simple “turn-the-birds-out-on-free-range” method can be used to produce waterfowl. The goal of a range produced waterfowl enterprise should be meat production. On range, certain breeds of waterfowl are better and faster growers than others. Begin this project only after the threat of cold winter weather and frost is over and young, tender grass is growing. Time the start and conclusion of your waterfowl venture accordingly.

“Don’t let them out in the rain, they’ll stare up into it and drown…” Our experience with turkeys has been completely the opposite. While most poultry species aren’t exactly bright, we find that turkeys are lovely, personable, and most important for the self sufficient homesteader — extremely efficient converters of grain and forage into delicious meat. In 5 months, a turkey can grow from a few ounces to 20-30+ lbs.

We raised our first batch of guinea fowl in 2015 as part of a Poultry CSA we initiated that year. Truth be told, the guineas were a large part of the reason we decided to offer the Poultry CSA in the first place. We had read positive things about the guinea as a table bird and wanted to raise some ourselves, but being unsure how they would be received by customers at the farmers market we figured we could essentially ‘hide’ them in a CSA share and thus more easily get them into people’s hands; that is, our hope was that we could get people to try guineas simply by joining our CSA, without requiring them to make a conscious decision to directly buy something they had likely never eaten before. Whether or not that ploy made a difference – I now suspect they would have sold just fine by themselves – that year did convince us of the superlative nature of guineas as table fowl.

The guard is made of soft copper or brass wire of the above design. A silk twist is passed with a needle through the nostrils and the guard is tied in position. The bottom is wound with waxed string to prevent its marking the head. The hook is to keep the point of the guard from pressing into the comb.

When a hen wants to set she orients herself to a location. Bantams often try to find a location outside the coop somewhere. All of a sudden, one day she is missing. She laid herself a nestfull on the sly and now is into full-time sitting and only comes out to eat and drink. It is a good idea to try to find that nest. Usually one has to follow her back to the nest when she is off for lunch break. Some hens won’t go while you are obviously watching them and you have to do it discreetly.

Breeding a small flock can be successful, avoiding inbreeding weaknesses and perpetuating the strengths that meet the small farmer’s goals. Choosing a breed that has historically succeeded in your geographic area may be the key to success. Many historic breeds are also becoming rare. By establishing a small flock of a rare and historic breed, small flock owners can help restore rare breeds. Many find it rewarding to participate in helping rescue these valuable breeds, with their individual contributions in egg and meat production and unique appearance.

When I was a youngster we traveled from California to Wisconsin to visit our grand parents and my grandpa took me out in a little row boat on a large, tree-sheltered Lilly-padded pond. It was my first time fishing. He set me up with a cork bobber and a worm on a hook and we both fished for sunfish. In a short time we caught a bucket full of fish. It was a glorious experience.

So you want to raise some critters that taste just like chicken? There’s no better critter than the chicken itself. Chicken has become the most sought after meat in the marketplace. Raising your own birds can save you a few bucks at the grocery store. Even more satisfying is the great sense of accomplishment that comes with raising your own food from egg to dinner table and providing this healthy meal to your family.

When that hard working hen comes to the end of her egg production once and for all and you are reflecting on what she has given – so many delicious eggs! And the arrival of every one of them announced so enthusiastically – not to mention that valuable manure which has made a world of difference to the rhubarb patch, and her enduring example of perpetual industriousness, she has one more gift to give: chicken pie.

The value of the guinea fowl as a substitute for game birds such as grouse, partridge, and pheasant is becoming more and more recognized by those who are fond of this class of meat and the demand for these fowls is increasing steadily. Many hotels and restaurants in the large cities serve prime young guineas at banquets and club dinners as a special delicacy. When well cooked, guineas are attractive in appearance, although darker than common fowls, and the flesh of young birds is tender and of especially fine flavor, resembling that of wild game.

Little need be said about the first principles in poultry raising, but a few introductory remarks about comfortable quarters for the flock may pave the way for the description of the straw-loft poultry house illustrated in sketches shown. It goes without saying that the laying hen must have comfortable quarters if she is to be expected to produce her maximum yield. Warmth, dryness and protection from preying animals are the prerequisites to comfort. The poultry house sketched here is a practical starting unit embodying all of the protection features so essential in poultry raising.

For several reasons the number of turkeys in the United States is decreasing. According to the census of 1900 there were in the United States at that time 6,594,695 turkeys, while by 1910 the number had decreased to 3,688,708. Poultry dealers throughout the country state that the decrease has continued ever since the last census. The principal cause of the decrease is that as the population of the country increases farming becomes more intensive, and every year the area of range suitable for turkey raising is reduced. Many turkey raisers have given up the business principally because their turkeys range through the grain fields of adjacent farms and thus cause the ill will of the owners thereof.

From Dusty Shelves: A 1924 article on chicken breeds.

The importance of poultry-house ventilation is generally conceded, but just what is meant by ventilation and how it may be accomplished is not so well known. It is becoming increasingly evident that adequate ventilation cannot be accomplished merely by throwing doors and windows wide open to let the wind blow into the house; the air conditions within the pen must be so controlled that weather has only a secondary effect.

The goal of every flock owner is to produce eggs in late fall and winter when prices are highest. This can be done if the chicks are hatched early enough so as to develop into pullets that will begin laying in the fall. No matter how good the pullets are unless they are housed in a building which will provide them with warm quarters and at the same time give them plenty of fresh air, the maximum production cannot be secured.

Warm barns make for cheery farmers but they are not so good for the animals. Furry farm creatures, especially ruminants, are suited by their natures for temperatures far lower than man finds comfortable. As has been observed widely, farm animals, given the choice, will often spend their time out of doors even at very low temperatures in winter. Animal shelters need only prevent the occupants from being exposed to draft and humidity, for it is these and not the cold, that lead to winter diseases in bird and beast.