To continue “Chicken Week” on the blog, I wanted to write about Hatching & Brooding Your Own Chicks by Gail Damerow. I read this book last spring as part of a Pastured Poultry course I took through the UMass Amherst Stockbridge School of Agriculture. For the class, we also read Harvey Ussery's The Small-Scale Poultry Flock and Joel Salatin’s Pastured Poultry Profit$, both … [Read more...]
Want eggs? Get ducks!
by Victoria Redhed Miller Ducks are fun and easy to raise. We have raised mainly Khaki Campbell ducks for eight years now, keeping them strictly for eggs. At one point we had some Indian Runner ducks and Blue Swedish also, but we've pared it down to just the Khaki Campbells now, and just love them. If you're looking for a small farm enterprise, duck eggs are a great niche … [Read more...]
6 reasons homesteaders need a kitchen scale
When I started reading about how to make soap, I noticed that everyone said I needed to have a digital kitchen scale. Why do I need a scale to make soap when people have been making soap for thousands of years? Eventually I learned that when people made soap historically, they used whatever oil was available locally, which usually meant lard or tallow in the U.S., coconut or … [Read more...]
Hens on holiday: 3 strategies for eggless living
A few years ago, a family friend asked one of our daughters, "So, where do you buy eggs when your hens stop laying?" My daughter replied that we never buy eggs. He responded with disbelief, and my daughter told him that we had not bought eggs since our first hens started laying in 2002. The friend had a hard time understanding how we lived without eggs during the winter months, … [Read more...]
