Contents 8 Introduction
Celebrating Our Feathered Friends
Chapter 1 • Choosing Your Chickens • Page 10 12 Anyone Can Raise Chickens
You can start baby chicks off right by following this expert advice.
18 A Primer to Heritage Breeds
The best backyard chickens for your homestead.
23 Heritage Chickens for Urban Backyards
A flock of birds well-suited to a city setting may be just what you’re looking for.
26 Eggcellent-Laying Heritage Hens These rare breeds need engaged stewards to survive.
29 Choosing Chooks for the Climate
Select a chicken breed well-suited to your climate and avoid losing animals to extreme temperatures.
32 Five Exceptional American Breeds
Help save these chickens by adding them to your backyard flock.
36 Easy-to-Keep Homestead Chickens
These birds will provide delicious eggs and meat, plus bug control, fertilizer, and tillage.
40 How to Order Chicks from a Poultry Hatchery
Newly hatched chicks can survive about three days without food or water, so they can be shipped to you through the mail. Before you place your order, here are some things to consider.
Chapter 2 • Before They Arrive • Page 42 44 Bird Words of Wisdom
Tips and lessons to ensure a successful endeavor.
46 Change the Laws
If your town or city won’t allow backyard chickens, take a stand with this step-by-step guide.
47 Build an Affordable Chicken Coop
House a small flock of up to four hens in this mobile, clever contraption.
50 Mother’s Mini Coop
Have the children help with this DIY project, then give them the responsibility of gathering eggs.
54 The Ultimate DIY Chicken Tractor Let your chickens forage on fresh ground every day.
60 Turn Bikes Into (Chicken) Tractors
Pasture poultry on the cheap with repurposed materials and a little rural ingenuity.
63 Build an Inexpensive Chicken Tractor
These adaptable plans for a simple chicken tractor will have your flock freely foraging in no time.
66 Chicken Lovers’ Chicken Coops
Three Vermont families offer their unique views of henhouses and life in the country.
71 DIY Broiler Coop on a Shoestring Budget
At about $50 to build, this movable chicken tractor is durable and about as cheap and simple as they come — and doubles as a cold frame!
Chapter 3 • Raising Chicks • Page 74 76 Breed Better Heritage Flocks
Many commercial hatcheries focus only on hybrid chickens and fail to maintain good quality in the heritage breeds they offer. Here’s why and how dedicated ‘flocksters’ can take breeding back under their wings.
82 Growing Your Chicken Flock
An illuminating tale from a couple of incubating greenhorns.
86 Hatch a Flock
Insider tips on incubating eggs.
89 Nothing to Brood About
Summarizing the basics of raising chicks.
90 Chicken Brooder in a Cardboard Box
An easy-to-make shelter for growing chicks has a few other benefits, too.
94 Make the Ultimate Brooder Box
Prepare for your new chicks long before they arrive.
Chapter 4 • Caring for a Flock • Page 96 98 A Healthy Flock: What You Need to Know Backyard chicken-keeeping tips will keep your birds thriving.
100 The Winter Chicken Chill
A seasoned chicken keeper from New England shares her tips for preparing your flock to thrive this winter.
104 More Tips for Winter
Follow a few easy steps, and your flock won’t be vulnerable to the season.
107 Keep Chickens Cool
Tips from a Texas poultry owner on how to keep the flock comfortable in sweltering heat.
152 The Business of Eating Chicken
Workplace poultry project offers a unique bonding experience.
153 Raising Chickens for Meat
Want to ensure that the chicken on your plate was raised and processed humanely? Do it yourself!
158 From Hatch to Harvest
Don’t just wing it if you’re new to raising meat chickens. Use our guide to fill your freezer with broilers in as little as six weeks from hatch to harvest.
164 The Basics of Harvesting Chicken
Learn how to pick, pluck, and prepare your own poultry.
167 Become an Expert at Deboning Chicken
In preparation for making chicken sausage, Jennifer demonstrates how to debone a home-raised chicken.
170 Hatching a Plan
It’s all in a day’s work for Ryan Kelsey, an entrepreneur who rises with the chickens.
172 The Eggs-traordinary Stanton Brothers
Pair runs a large-scale niche business focused on local eggs and laying hens.
176 How Do Your Eggs Stack Up?
Whether you live in the city or country, here’s how to find healthy, affordable, farm-fresh eggs.
181 Tips on Decoding Egg Carton Labels
Learn all you can about the different terms associated with eggs.
Chapter 6 • Recipes for Every Occasion • Page 182 184 Each Season’s Table Features Chicken
No matter the celebration, poultry is the perfect focus of a delicious and seasonal menu.
206 Eggs, Eggs, and More Eggs
Once your flock has started laying eggs, what do you do with all the extras?
212 The Incredible Versatility of Eggs
Be adventurous when looking for recipes to use those extra eggs.
217 Learn Egg Techniques
Try these recipes to turn your dishes up a notch and hone tried-and-true techniques.
220 Crack an Egg for a Delicious Dinner
Branch out with an easy-to-make casserole, or a classic dessert.
223 Acknowledgements 224 Photo Credits
108 Top Backyard Chicken Problems
Prevention and treatment techniques for common chicken problems.
111 Home on the (Free) Range
“Where the hens and the rooster are happy all day …”
114 Feed the Flock
Whether free range, forage, or a combination of the two, learn more about what makes an effective diet for your chickens.
118 Fermented Food for Your Flock
Improve your poultry’s health while saving money at the feed store.
122 Choosing Organic Chicken Feed
Feed your birds the right blend of protein, fat, and calories, and you’ll have healthy chicks that grow into productive laying hens or tender, flavorful meat chickens.
124 Feed Your Flock to Boost Omega-3s
Three poultry management rules will help you provide healthful, omega-3maximized eggs and meat for your family and your customers.
127 Build a Weatherproof, Pest-Proof Feeder
Feed your flock without encouraging mold or supporting the local mouse and starling populations.
130 Chugalug Chickens
Using these DIY plans for an eight-station hydrator, you’ll never change another chicken waterer again — at least not daily.
133 The Chicken Ladies Garden Club
Laying flock provides magnificent mulch for the best garden ever grown by its Georgia Master Gardener owner.
136 Gardening With Chickens for Fantastic Natural Pest Control
Chickens in the garden devour any insect that moves, including grasshoppers, Colorado potato beetles, slugs, and more. If you don’t trust chickens to roam among your vegetable and flower beds, feed them captured insects by hand.
138 Keeping Chickens in the Garden
You can ‘recoop’ much of the expanse of raising chickens by putting their manure to work in your garden and enlisting your birds for organic pest control.
144 Protect Your Flock from Predators
10 tips to prevent your flock from becoming a buffet for local wildlife and neighborhood dogs.
146 Danger in the Sky
Vigilance and a rooster or two protect against flying predators.
Chapter 5 • Meat or Eggs? • Page 148 150 Pondering Processing Chickens
Thinking about what we need to be doing at the kill cones.
Anyone Can Raise Chickens You can start baby chicks off right by following this expert advice. By Harvey Ussery
The Silkie is a breed known for its strong instinct to hatch eggs.
R
aising baby poultry is easy and a great deal of fun. Many people start with chickens, but you might also consider ducks, guineas, turkeys, or geese. You can order chicks from a hatchery, buy them at a local farm store, or allow a hen to hatch eggs and raise the chicks for you. Raising purchased chicks is easy, but remember they rely on you for their every need. THE CHICKS ARE IN THE MAIL Just before hatching, a chick absorbs and stores the last of the egg yolk it’s been feeding on throughout incubation. This last bit of yolk can sustain the chick for several days before its first drink or meal, providing a window of opportunity for shipping chicks from a hatchery to your front door.
Growing Your Chicken Flock An illuminating tale from a couple of incubating greenhorns. By B.P. Lemmon
B
eing “refugees� from the hustle and bustle of city life, we retired to a rural setting, where we bought raw acreage and began the process of developing it with a house and a couple of outbuildings for storage and shop facilities. It was the beginning of our brave attempt to be as self-reliant as possible. We had little previous experience with rural living and took the learnas-you-go approach. With the advent of spring one season, we were looking to replace a few of our chickens. When first considering livestock, we settled on raising chickens for eggs and meat; we bought 15 chicks at the local feed and grain store, ending up with 13 hens and two roosters. While the chicks were housed in temporary brooder facilities, we quickly constructed a coop and an appropriate outside run for that size of flock. Once mature, the hens laid anywhere from six to a full dozen eggs a day in the first year, depending on their moods, the weather, and the season. The roosters fought and played Casanova to the hens throughout the year, with one becoming
2 You’ll start the deboning process at the breast by cutting along the sternum, around the rib cage, and to the spinal column.
3 Once the meat has been separated from the central bone structure, you’re ready to remove the thighs and wings. For each piece, “pop” the bone out of its socket by pulling down, toward the spine (center); you can then easily cut through the resulting space between the joint.
168 Raise Backyard Chickens
You will then be able to slide your knife past the joint, keeping close to the central bone structure. Repeat for the other wing. The thigh removal is similar to removing the wing, so go ahead and remove the thighs now. You now have the meat removed from the carcass. You could stuff the chicken at this point, or you could remove the wings and legs and pound the meat flat for a rolled chicken dish. 4 To remove the meat from the thigh bone, flip the meat over, skin side down, and find the tip of the bone that we removed from the carcass. Pull the bone away from the meat with your fingers. With a bit of assistance from the knife, the meat should slide off fairly easily. When you get to the leg joint, “pop” it and continue slicing. 5 Remove the leg meat by slicing along one side and down to the bone; then, remove the bone in the same manner as the thigh. Use the knife for any tough spots.
S U M M E R
MOROCCAN CHICKEN WITH EGGPLANT-ZUCCHINI RAGOUT INGREDIENTS 3 tablespoons olive oil, divided 11⁄2 to 2 pounds chicken leg quarters 1 teaspoon salt, divided 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided 1 small eggplant, cut into 1⁄2-inch dice 1 medium zucchini, cut into 1⁄2-inch dice 1 small onion, diced 2 cloves garlic, minced 1 ⁄4 cup white wine or water 1 can (141⁄2 ounces) diced tomatoes with juices 1 ⁄4 cup roughly chopped pimento-stuffed green olives 2 tablespoons capers, rinsed 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar 1 teaspoon sugar 2 tablespoons minced parsley
1 In large skillet over medium-high heat, warm 2 tablespoons olive oil. Season leg quarters with 1⁄2 teaspoon salt and 1⁄2 teaspoon black pepper. Add leg quarters to pan, skin-side down. Brown chicken, turning once, for 8 to 10 minutes per side. Remove chicken to plate and drain off all but 2 tablespoons fat. 2 Add eggplant to hot pan and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes. Add remaining olive oil, along with zucchini, onion, and garlic. Cook for an additional 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. 3 Increase heat to high; add white wine to pan, stirring to scrape up any browned bits. Add remaining ingredients, except parsley. 4 Place chicken legs in mixture. Bring to boil, then reduce heat to medium-low. 5 Cover and simmer for 35 to 40 minutes, or until chicken registers 170 F with an instant-read thermometer. 6 To serve, place a portion of eggplant ragout onto 4 individual plates, top with leg quarter, and sprinkle with parsley. Yields 4 servings.
Recipes for Every Occasion
193
EGG DROP SOUP INGREDIENTS 4 cups chicken broth 1 tablespoon cornstarch 2 tablespoons cold water 2 scallions 1 egg 1 teaspoon vegetable oil Salt and pepper to taste
1 Bring broth to a boil. While broth is heating, dissolve cornstarch in cold water. Slice white and edible green parts of scallions. Beat egg with oil. 2 When broth reaches boiling point, stir cornstarch mixture well and add slowly to broth; mix well. Season broth mixture with salt and pepper. Add the scallions. 3 Turn off heat and immediately add beaten egg mixture in a steady stream, stirring broth constantly so egg breaks up into floating bits. Yields 4 servings.
210 Raise Backyard Chickens