Chikens Permacultura

Permaculture Chickens

Justin Rhodes

Permaculture Chickens

Permaculture Chickens Raising Chickens with Nature, From hatching to the plate

Justin Rhodes

www.AbundantPermaculture.com

copyright © 2015 by Justin Rhodes

All rights reserved. Please reproduce any of our materials for personal or educational purposes only. Not intended for distribution.

Justin Rhodes Abundant Permaculture PO Box 383 Fletcher, NC 28732 [email protected]

Table of Contents

Before You Get Started With Chickens: The Permaculture BluePrints

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Getting Started With Chickens: The Ultimate Guide

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20 Ways to Avoid Pre-Mix Commercial Feed

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Chicken Housing That Works: 5 Brilliant Ways

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How to be a Great Mama to Your Chickens: The 7 Essentials to Managing Your Flock

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48 Ways to Keep Your Chickens Happy This Winter

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Chicken Power: 8 Strategies for Putting Your Flock to Work

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How to “Herbify” Your Flock Like Lisa Steele

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The 5 Stages to the 100% Self Sustainable Flock

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How to Humanely Butcher Your Chicken Dinner

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How to Prepare Delicious Chicken and Eggs: My Families Story of 25 Recipes in 7 Days

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Appendices

Appendix A: Permaculture Design Elements

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Appendix B: Getting Started with Chickens Checklist

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Appendix C: Creative Feeds Worksheet

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Appendix D: Chicken Housing Worksheet

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Appendix E: Chickshaw Plans

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Appendix F: Chicken Tractor Plans

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Appendix G: Bucket Nest Plans

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Appendix H: Dust Box Plans

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Appendix I: The Good Mama Checklist

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Appendix J: “Herbify” Your Flock Starter Plan

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Appendix K: 5 Stages of Breeding Checklist

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Appendix L: How to Humanely Butcher Your Chicken Dinner

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Appendix M: Resources

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Introduction So you want to raise chicken, huh? Here’s EVERYTHING you need to know. Hey, I don’t blame you. With just 12 chickens you can: • Have 2,500 eggs a year... • Produce 50 lbs of meat.. • Fertilize and till 1/5th of an acre… •Use their manure to create 20 cubic yards of compost (out of leaves)! Not only will I show you how to take advantage of all the chicken has to offer… I’ll show you “How To”: • Easily get started… • Be a good “mama” to your flock and provide for their needs • Use chickens to do your work in the garden • Build houses that work for your flock (and you) • Cut your feed cost by 100% • Butcher and cook your own delicious birds … and more (of course). If you’re one of those folks who want to take control of your own food supply and live a more fulfilled and healthy life, then chickens are an amazing gateway to that destination. So, of course you need to READ these essentials, but more importantly you need to DO them! Otherwise, you might as well print this PDF and let your kids draw on the back of em, or start a fire, or make a really cool paper airplane. Ok, I’ll hush now so you can read (and do).

Hardy Hand Shake, Justin Rhodes P.S. If need be, or just for “kicks and giggles” email me: [email protected]

Before You Get Started With Chickens: The Permaculture Blueprints Foundational Permaculture Principles Whether you already have chickens or you’re just thinking about getting started, it’s crucial that we look at some foundational permaculture design principles before going any further.  No one would build a house without blueprints, but we often lay out our yards and farms without much thought to design. In this article, I explain 9 Permaculture Principles and how you can apply them for a much more efficient operation.

Principle #1: Relative Location One of the founders of Permaculture, Bill Mollison, states in his book Introduction to Permaculture, “The core of permaculture is design, and design is a connection between things … It’s the very opposite of what we’re taught in school.  Education takes everything and pulls it apart and makes no connections at all.  Permaculture makes the connections, because as soon as you’ve got the connection, you can feed the chicken from the tree.” The idea behind relative location is placing elements of your system in proximity based on how they might interact and meet each other’s needs.  In the case of the chicken and the tree, you would place those elements within proximity so they can easily provide for each other’s needs

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4 Steps to Making Connections and Discovering Relative Location! 1. Identify your elements.  Elements are the “things” or systems of your property.  Common examples include:  the house, chicken run, garden, barn, woodpile, compost pile, pond, shed, pasture, etc. 2. Make a list of the needs and outputs of each element.  (Ex: the garden needs compost, fertilizer, bug control, etc. and outputs vegetables, fruits, compost material, etc.)  Understand that each element should perform as many functions as possible.  Look at all the functions a chicken can do: Till, compost, spread, debug, sanitize, produce eggs/meat, etc. 3. Review each element and ask, “What are some needs of this element that can be met by the output of another element?”  You might notice that the garden needs fertilizer and the chicken gives manure.  Congrats, you’ve made a connection! 4. Draw your elements, cut them out, and begin arranging them in various ways to explore how you could best locate them to meet each other’s needs.

***In Appendix A, you will find these drawings.

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For instance,  you’ll want to put the chickens near the garden because of the many possible trade offs! Planning for Relative Location: As you begin to place your elements, be sure to ask yourself, “Are there any places where this element would be incompatible with other systems?”  If you live close to a public road, you probably don’t want to put your chicken system there.

Principle #2: Basic Needs are Supported by Many Elements As my first permaculture instructor, Chuck Marsh, would say, “redundancy is key”.  He was emphasizing the importance of having basic needs such as water, food, energy, and fire protection served in two or more ways.  In the winter, I primarily heat my home with a wood stove, but I have a furnace and electric heat as supplement and for a backup. With chickens, we’re certainly going to want as much redundancy as we can get.To create redundancy in your chicken feeding program, you could plan on rotating your chickens through your yard/pasture, getting food scraps at the grocery store, having your chickens near the garden during and after the growing season, creating worm bins, etc. Planning to Meet Basic Needs From Many Elements: Now take a look at your map of elements and identify where your chickens might find some redundancy.  

Principle #3: Efficient Energy Planning One of my favorite aspects of a good permaculture design is it’s incredible energy efficiency.  We’re all looking to get the most out of our efforts no matter what we’re doing. Permaculture helps us plan for efficient energy by considering 3 different aspects called zoning, sector, and slope.

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1) Zone Planning Zoning is the idea of placing elements according to how much you use them or how often you need to service them.  Zoning scores are based on how often you need to visit a particular element, which is given a rating from 1-5.  High frequency areas like a kitchen garden, greenhouse, or your chicken run are zoned low (1-2) and would be placed close by.  Less frequently visited places like orchards, pastures, and woodlots are zoned higher (3-4) and are placed further away. Here’s How to Zone Your Property: Estimate the number of visits for each element over a certain period of time.  For example, you could ask how many times do I visit the garden in a year?  Or how many times do I visit the chickens each year, etc.  Obviously, the elements with the most frequent visits will need to be as close to the house as possible.

General Breakdown of the Zones:    Zone 0 – House  Zone 1 – Close to the house.  These are the most controlled elements which are quickly used once harvested.  This includes things like the garden, workshop, greenhouse, cold frames, small animal systems, wood piles, compost, clotheslines, etc.  Zone 2 – Chickens, animals with frequent care (rabbits), ponds, hedges, small orchards, pruned orchards, etc.  Zone 3 – Unpruned orchards, large pastures, main crop, water sources, etc.  Zone 4 – Semi managed/semi wild elements.  Unpruned trees, hardy foods, wildlife/forest management, timber, etc.  Zone 5 – Unmanaged “wild” system.  This is our classroom where we observe and learn only!  No alterations! The Chicken Zone “Sweet Spot”! In many cases, out of all your elements, chickens might get THE most visits per year.  If that’s the case, put them in the front yard if you can!  However, most of us don’t want to do that

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and many of us have other elements that are much more frequently visited like our kitchen gardens. I believe the general zoning sweet spot for chickens is a home base somewhere between zones 1 and 2!  Ideally, they should be next to the kitchen garden with access to zone 2’s orchards, crop gardens, and animal runs. 

 Planning for Zones: 1)  Write out the elements of your system and include how many times you visit each one throughout the year. 2)  Create a new map of your property similar to the one you’ve already drawn or laid out for “Relative Location.”  If possible, place your paper elements over a large piece of paper or similar. See if you can draw your zone lines based on how much you visit each element. 3)  Now place your cut out elements in the zones of your property.

2) Sector Planning Sector planning is the consideration of the wild energies like the sun, wind, wildlife and natural waters.  When placing elements into your system, it’s good to consider fire danger areas, cold and damaging winds, hot, salty, dusty winds, winter and summer sun angles, etc. With chickens, in a cold template climate, you want to face their housing towards the sunny side and block off the windy side.  You might want to install some natural tree shrubs on the windy side to keep them protected in the winter.

Planning for Sectors: Take a look at your map and sketch in the relevant wild energies that affect your property and adjust as needed.

3) Slope Planning Analyzing the slope of the land can be critical in placing your chickens.  You may want to 14

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place your chickens below water and material sources to take advantage of gravity.  For example, I’ve taken advantage of slope in our huge stock pile of leaves by having the “Town of Fletcher” dump their leaves off the side of my road onto a bank.  I can then easily move the material downhill where I can build compost for the chickens or to where I need mulch for a garden. Planning for Slope: Take a good look at your land to discover any slope that you could take advantage of.  Adjust your layout accordingly.  

Principle #4: Using Biological Resources (Plants and Animals) In permaculture, we use biological systems, when possible, to do the work on our property!  It’s important to understand that plants and animals can provide fuel, fertilizer, tillage, insect control, weed control, nutrient recycling, habitat enhancement, soil aeration, fire control, etc. Chickens, for example, can replace… •

pesticides by eating bugs and grubs.

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machine tillers by scratching.

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fertilizers by applying their manures.

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herbicides by eating weeds.

With chickens, we’ll want to consider all that they have to offer and plan accordingly.  We may want to place them in a central location so that we can take advantage of their working abilities.  We might also want to keep their system flexible and mobile so that they can be moved around from job to job.  For example, you may want them on your garden plot in the early spring to fertilize and till.  You could then move them out to the orchard for a week of sanitizing, and they could follow the cattle during fly season!

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With biological resources, it’s all about timing.  Tiller chickens, for example, are much slower than a machine tiller.  With tiller chickens you’d need to give them ample time before you needed to plant.

Planning for biological resources: Make sure that your chickens are placed to take the most advantage of the biological work they can do.  Consider having a “home base” for your birds then plan on moving them around as workers of your property.  

Principle #5: Energy Cycling Permaculture strives for a local community that can provide all nutritional requirements while not sacrificing quality or destroying the land that feeds it.  This is true self sustainability! When we can meet all of our own needs locally, we save in costly transports and packaging. Permaculture systems seek to stop the flow of nutrient and energy off the site and turn them into cycles.  For example, kitchen scraps can be fed to chickens instead of being thrown away.  We can collect leaves in the fall and use them for mulch or compost for the garden.  You could even go as far as watering your garden with your grey water.

Planning for energy cycling: When considering chickens, we want to think about how to use them to keep energy on our homestead.  Double check your element placement to take the most advantage of energy cycling.  

Principle #6: Small Scale Intensive Systems Permaculture teaches us that it’s best to start small and intensive and go from there.  Going small means that much of the land can be used efficiently, and the site stays under control. Bill Mollison gives wise advice to those wanting to know where to start in managing their property when he wrote, “If you want to know how to control your site, start at your 16

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doorstep.” Stay close to the house and work towards developing a small, intensive system.  Don’t worry about doing everything at once.  Start small!  As for starting small with chickens, allow me to suggest the following…

Starting Small with Chickens… • Start with just 6-12 layer chickens. • Buy them from a local breeder if possible; you’ll have more support. • Buy a hardy and common breed that lays eggs (Rhode Island Red, Barred Plymouth Rock, Buff Orpington, Black Australorp, etc. • Buy or build a chicken tractor for their housing (access to the ground and its mobile). • Use temporary electric net. • Buy GMO free or organic feed and let them eat “free choice”.

Notes on Permanency: I say to use mobile housing and temporary netting because you want to be flexible.  You’re probably new to this and you might think one place is a great location, but the next year realize it should be different.  A good rule of thumb is to use temporary fencing and housing until they’ve stayed in one place for at least 3 years.  Then, you can build something more permanent!

Planning for Small Scale Intensity: Take into consideration your minimum operation and go from there.

Principle #7: Diversify Permaculture values diversity of species for the benefit of a more secure food system all 17

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year long.  When planning your chicken operation, you’ll want to be as diverse as possible to successfully extend your seasons and enjoy their products year round. Ways to Diversify Your Chickens: • Select early, mid, and late season breeds.  For example, you may want to have a few chickens that lay well in the winter and some that do better in summer’s heat. • You could use the same breed of chicken, but spread out your hatching times, or buy new chicks at different times instead of all at once. • Select breeds that give the most of what you’re looking for naturally. • Select multi-purpose birds that are good for meat, laying eggs, and working. • Use techniques of preserving for year round food:  freezing, canning, and cool storage (eggs). • Consider regional trade at different altitudes or latitudes for different kinds of food.

Planning for Diversity: Take a moment and consider how you might diversify your flock based on the suggestions above.  

Principle #8: Edge Effect Edges are the boundaries between two ecologies:  land/water; forest/grassland; crop/ orchard, etc.  Edges are more productive areas because they can tap the resources of both systems.  Permaculture design seeks to take advantage of this edge effect whenever possible. Look at the historic placement of our settlements.  Often they lie between foothills, forests and plains.  In our overall homestead design, we want to place our homes (and our chickens) in this sweet spot. Consider how you might take advantage of an edge with your chickens.  Could you place part of their run in your woods and the other part in your yard?  If you have a larger homestead, could you run your chickens in paddocks along the wood’s edge?  If you’re in town 18

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and beside the road, could you run the chickens next to the road?

Planning to Take Advantage of the Edge Effect: Take a minute and identify some possible edge effects.  

Principle #9: The Problem Can Be a Solution! Selah, the farm manager at Geoff Lawton’s Zaytuna farm in Australia, taught us that, “the core of the problem is the seed for a solution!”  Those are some deep thoughts, but they can ring absolutely true! Permaculture loves to take a problem and turn it into a solution.  Often, it boils down to how we look at things. Everything works both ways!  Every resource is either an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on how we look at it.  Let’s look at the problem of weeds and slugs in the garden.  These “pests” can be detrimental for our garden harvest, but when you start looking at those weeds and bugs as a food source for your chickens, everything changes!  Suddenly, those weeds and bugs are a blessing, not a curse! 

Planning to turn problems into solutions: Identify the “problems” of your homestead and think about how those problems may be a solution for something else.  Boggy land?  Build a pond!  Shady backyard?  Install shade loving plants! etc.

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Now it’s time to get some chickens! Now that you have some basic design principles, I hope that you can move forward with your chicken operation with confidence. If you’re new to raising chickens, look forward to my next chapter on how to get started!

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Getting Started with Chickens: The Ultimate Guide In this chapter, I’ll answer 18 of the most common questions asked for getting started with Chickens. From sourcing your supplies to picking the right breed, this is the ultimate “go to” guide for getting you off the ground and running!

Question #1: What Do Chickens Need? • Housing: Can be mobile and/or permanent such as a chicken tractor or coop. Inside spacing requires at least 1 square foot per chicken if they have access to the outdoors. If they’re confined 24/7, I’d offer a minimum of 3 square feet per chicken. Housing should include nest boxes for laying eggs and perches for them to sleep on. If your chickens sleep (and poop) in their nest box, you’ll have to create a “nest blocker” to place in front of the nests in the afternoon (after they’ve had time to lay their eggs) to prevent them from going into the nest at night. Do this for a couple of weeks to break the habit, then it shouldn’t be necessary anymore. • Fencing: Can be mobile and/or permanent.  Plan for at least 3 square feet outside area. • Waterer: Large enough to provide about 1 quart of water each day for every four chickens. 22

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• Feed: Plan on ¼ – ⅓ pound of feed a day per chicken. If possible, source an organic mix or at least non-GMO. Since you’re just starting out, I suggest a commercial pre-mix available at your local feed store and table scraps. In the future, you may want to experiment with more creative food sources like the garden, worms, other farm products like milk, veggies, etc. Certainly don’t get medicated feed. Medicated feed (and vaccines for that matter) were developed for industrial chicken farming where there is absolutely no natural approach to chicken raising. Medicated feed is designed to prevent Coccidiosis which only occurs in extremely stressful situations and through bad genetics. This problem should not occur when using the clean and natural methods that I teach. • Grain Feeder: Large enough to hold a day’s ration for your flock. • Feed Pans: Large enough to hold any liquid feeds, like milk.

• Grit: These are small rocks/stones the chickens will eat to help break down their food. • Dust Bath: An open box filled with dust for the chickens to “bathe” in to keep off irritating critters. Something around 2’ x 2 ’x 16” will do. It doesn’t have to be exact; anything around this size is good. 23

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• Calcium: You’ll need to provide calcium, preferably by crushing their eggs shells and feeding them back to the chickens.  You may have to supplement with oyster shells or store bought egg shells from time to time.  Add the crushed egg shells to your kitchen scraps or offer them free choice in a feed pan.  Plan for 1 pound of crushed shells per 100 pounds of feed. • Brooder: For starting (first 3 weeks) chicks.

• Bedding: For their nest boxes.  Wood shavings, straw, and paper shredding material work great for this. • Deep Bedding: For the floor of their coop.  At least 8” of organic carbon material like leaves, wood chips, straw, hay, etc. • Brushes: Hard bristle brushes for cleaning waterers, feeders and pans. 24

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Question #2:  Where Do I Get What Chickens Need? • Housing: ◦ Buy new chicken tractors or coops online. ◦ Buy used chicken tractors or coops on Craigslist. ◦ DIY plans and ideas for tractors and coops.  Here are some online plans: ▪ Harvey Ussery’s A-Frame ▪ Play Haven Farm Tractor ▪ BackYardChickens.com Plans

(Note: These are the tools I actually use and truly suggest. You may like to know that some of the links are affiliate links, which means I’ll get a commission if you purchase)

• Fencing: I suggest using mobile fencing until the tractor/coop has been in the same spot for 3 years. I’ve been using Premiere 1 fencing for years. It’s very high quality and will last for years!

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• Waterers: Find these used on Craigslist, new on Amazon, or at your local feed store. I like Miller Manufacturing. Do not use galvanized material as it tends to rust and can harm your chickens. Sizing recommendations: Small – 1 quart (enough for 4 chickens) Medium – 3 gallon (up to 45 chickens) Large – 5 gallon (up to 75 Chickens) (Note: These are the tools I actually use and truly suggest. You may like to know that some of the links are affiliate links, which means I’ll get a commission if you purchase)

• Feed, Grit and Calcium: Purchase from a local feed store or buy online. You’ll have to call around for organic feed or see if your local store will special order the feed for you. You can source the grit from creeks and you can crush up egg shells for calcium.  Chickens that are allowed to free range may be able to find enough grit on their own. You can certainly start feeding your food scraps right away, and you’ll soon learn more creative food options.

• Brooder: Buy used on Craigslist or new on Amazon.  You can also DIY out of cardboard, plastic bins or wood.  For more info, see the question below, “How do I get started?” 26

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• Feeders: Miller Manufacturing has small and large feeders for grain, feed pans for your supplements (egg shells, grit), and liquid feeds like milk. (Note: These are the tools I actually use and truly suggest. You may like to know that some of the links are affiliate links, which means I’ll get a commission if you purchase)

 

Question #3: How Much Do Chickens Cost? • Housing – DIY from scraps for $0 or purchase housing from $200 to $2,000. • Fencing – DIY from pallets or other scraps for $0 to $164.  A  for a role of Premier 1 electric fencing costs $156 – $204. Electric fence energizers cost between $115 and $800. • Waterers – Miller Manufacturing has waterers between $3.83 and $52. • Feed – $0 – $34. $34 is the price of an organic pre-mix 50 lbs bag. You can certainly feed your chickens for free by free ranging, offering compost, food scraps, growing worms, etc. Learn how I cut my chicken feed bill 100% by reading my article here. • Grit – $0 – $1 a pound. • Calcium – If you don’t do egg shells, oyster shells are about $15 for five pounds.  

Question #4: How Much Work Are Chickens? The time you spend taking care of your chickens will vary based on the size of your operation, your experience level, and other factors.  General set up can take one hour to one week depending on how much you opt to purchase and how much you want to do yourself.  To give you a general idea of daily requirements, below I’ve included my current daily chore routine:

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1st thing in the morning (less than 15 minutes): • Feed chickens kitchen scraps. • Wash and fill up the waterer. • Give chickens the daily ration of sprouted grains. • Give chickens the daily ration of food scraps from the health food store. • Clean the feed pan and fill with cow’s milk (when available). • Let chickens out of their housing. • Remove the nest blocker. Afternoon chores (less than 10 minutes): • Throw out an afternoon serving of food. • Collect eggs. • Put in the nest blocker. • Add nest box shavings when necessary. After dusk chores (less than 5 minutes): • Close up the chickens in the tractor/coop • Make sure the electric fence is working and adjust as needed Once a week chores: • When on pasture, move my chickens once a week (30 minutes). • When tilling, move them every 4-8 weeks (30 minutes). • When on compost feeding system, turn the 4 compost piles each week (2 hours). • If systems aren’t mobile, clean out manure or add carbon material to floors and outside run (1 hour). • When the hens are broody, save eggs and “set hens”. (15 minutes).

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Once a year chores: • Butchering (a day and a half counting setup and cleanup).

Question #5: How Many Eggs Will a Chicken Give Me? Four to six eggs per week, depending on the breed.  A good dual-purpose breed (suitable for both eggs and meat) like the Black Australorp will lay about four eggs per week and a single-purpose egg-laying breed like the White Leghorn can lay up to six eggs per week.

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Question #6: When Do Chickens Start Laying Eggs? Pullets (female chickens younger than one year) will generally start laying eggs when they are around five months old.    

Question #7: How Long Do Chickens Lay Eggs? Hens (female chickens older than one year) will lay eggs for their entire lifespan of about eight years.  However, they will slow egg production dramatically (up to 50%) after the two year mark. I recommend butchering your laying hens in the fall after their third summer.

Question #8: How Many Chickens Do I Need? 3 Things to consider to determine flock size: Consideration #1: Discover your goals: • Do you want eggs? If so, how many eggs do you need per week? • Do you want meat? If so, how many pounds do you need per year? • Do you want your chickens to work? • Do you want your chickens to reproduce by themselves? Make the connection to determine flock size. When Considering Eggs:  The chicken breeds that I suggest in the next answer below lay at least four eggs per week.  They start laying around five months and produce until they are about 2.5 years old. 30

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Once you know how many eggs you need over a certain period of time, you can easily calculate how many hens you need. For example, let’s say you need two dozen (24) eggs per week.  If one hen produces four eggs per week, then you’ll need six hens! When Considering Meat:  The dual-purpose (good for eggs and/or meat) chicken breeds I suggest are going to weigh around 3-4 pounds each after you’ve butchered them, and they’ll take about 16 weeks to mature. If your family wants to eat a whole chicken once a week, or roughly 3.5 pounds of chicken, you’ll need to raise 50 chickens.   Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t have the capacity to raise 50 chickens.  In fact, I wouldn’t suggest it at first. Start small, with maybe 12-15. Different ideas for raising your own chicken meat: • Only order roosters, as they can be much cheaper (most people want hens, so there’s an excess of roosters). • Consider free ranging, or at least offering extensive forage to a meat production run.  The birds I suggest take much longer to mature than an industrial standard Cornish Cross. However, they can make up for that shortcoming in their ability to forage if you take advantage of it.  The Cornish Cross is extremely limited in comparison and will rely on you for at least 85% of its feed. • Take advantage of a dual-purpose breed.  This is my favorite approach as I believe it’s the most advantageous for the self-reliant homesteader. Here’s how to raise your own meat from a sustainable flock: Let’s say you want a flock of 12 laying hens, but you’d also like to grow some for meat. In this case, you would buy a straight run (which means they haven’t separated out the roosters) of 24 chicks.   Chances are that half of them are males and the other half are females.  At about 4-5 months your hens start to lay and you can butcher the roosters. After those first hens have had two summer seasons of laying, you butcher them and they can be replaced with an up and coming batch.

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That up and coming batch will also be approximately half roosters, so not only do you have the roosters for meat, you have what we call a “stewing hen, which is all you “old retired ladies”.   Because she’s older, the meat is tougher and will need to be cooked in a slower manner (stews, soups, etc.). How I produced “organic” chicken for 67 cents a pound! One year a local breeder friend had some extra chicks she couldn’t sell, so she donated them to me.  I thought I’d run an experiment on those little guys. From day one, I let them range in a bottomless cage in my yard.  When they were 4 weeks old, I let them completely free range.  I fed them organic commercial grains for the first eight weeks of their lives, then I allowed them to get all of their feed off of the land. When I butchered them, I was amazed: the chickens weighed more than previous grain fed batches I had done!

Consideration #2: How experienced are you? I recommend starting small and going from there. Here’s why…   * Learning curve: If you’re just starting out, it’s better to get the learning curve out of the way with a small number.  Smaller operations are much easier to manage and you have much less to lose when you make mistakes.  If you have a big need for eggs and meat, don’t worry about meeting those needs 100% right away. * Self sufficiency: It’s much easier to be self sufficient with a smaller flock.   Think about it.   You only have so many kitchen scraps, but kitchen scraps can be a significant part of a chickens diet if they have enough of them.   Same goes for growing your own chicken vegetables or worms. Joel Salatin shared a story in a recent webinar.  When he first started with laying hens he had just one hundred of them.  He recalled with great humor that they pretty much survived off of the land on his pasture rotation system.  Now that he runs 1,000 he’s noticed that the chickens don’t roam any further from the “egg mobile” than they did when the flock was smaller.  In the latter case, the chickens eat MUCH more of the commercial feed because the 1,000 chickens wipe out the 32

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area’s natural food much faster than the flock of 100. Moral of the story: it’s easy to implement self sustaining techniques on a smaller scale: pasture/yard range, growing worms, feeding compost, biota (all life forms that live in the compost like worms, nematodes, and arthropods, etc.)

Consideration #3: How much space do you have? One square foot is the minimum a chicken needs for indoor housing if it has access to adequate space outdoors during the day. Three square feet is the minimum a chicken needs if its outdoor space is limited.   Three square feet is also the minimum if your chicken must stay enclosed all day. A good rule of thumb is to have at least three square feet inside and three square feet outside per chicken. Are your neighbors cool? Don’t forget the golden rule: “treat others as you would want to be treated”. Take your neighbors into consideration when deciding how big your operation will be and what it will look like.   Offering your neighbors some eggs every once in a while can go along way to stop neighborhood complaints AND get you a chicken “sitter” when you want to go out of town!

Question #9: Are Chickens Legal In My Neighborhood? Unfortunately, keeping chickens may actually be illegal where you live. Organized subdivisions and city limits can be especially vulnerable to laws forbidding you to raise your own chickens. You can check with your local government organizations or you could just do it anyway.   33

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In the latter case, be absolutely sure you proceed with respect to your neighbors by keeping your operation clean and quiet.   After all, it’s your neighbors who will call the authorities to complain. For more info on legalizing chickens in your neighborhood visit Pat Foreman’s online resource here.

Question #10: What Kind of Chickens Should I Get?   Now that we have a general idea of your goals for your chickens, you can start looking at who might fit the bill.  In other words, which breed is best for you. Since you’re reading this, you probably have an inclination to permaculture whether you know it or not.   In that case, I’m going to apply two of the fundamental principles of permaculture (diversity and multi-functions) and suggest a few breeds that make the cut.

What to look for in a “permaculture” chicken: • Food production – Able to produce four or more eggs per week and will weigh at least six pounds as an adult. • Hardy – Naturally heat and/or cold tolerant and are in general good health.  Adapt to climate and naturally resist disease. • Productive – Naturally active throughout the entire day hunting their own food, chasing bugs, and scratching through the soil. • Reproductive – Naturally inclined to reproduce easily.  The mother hens haven’t lost their genetic desire to go “broody” for hatching chicks.  No hybrids, as they cannot reproduce themselves. • Economical – Widely available and priced accordingly. They add value bby producing more than they require. 34

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• Other considerations – A certain look, egg shell color, nostalgia (“grandma’s chickens”), temperament, winter production, ability to withstand extreme heat or cold.   I recently sent out a survey listing my 12 favorite chicken breeds based on my permaculture criteria above. Out of 185 responses here at the top 5 Permaculture Chickens, with percentage of respondents indicated, along with approximate number of eggs laid per week and pounds of meat produced.

Top 5 Permaculture Chickens: 1.) Buff Orpington (43%) – 3 eggs/week, 8 Ibs 2.) Rhode Island Red (41%) – 6/week, 6.5 Ibs 3.) Black Australorp (40%) – 4 eggs/week,  6.5 Ibs 4.) Plymouth Rock (32%) – 3 eggs/week, 7.5 Ibs 5.) Wyandotte (24%) – 3 eggs/week, 6.5 Ibs

Egg Birds: If you just want chickens for eggs, consider these lightweight egg producers: 1.) Leghorn (most productive and popular egg layer) – 6 eggs/week, 4.5 Ibs. 2.) Ameraucana (famous for colored eggs) – 4 eggs/week, 5.5 Ibs. 3.) Ancona – 4 eggs/week, 4.5 Ibs. 4.) Hamburg – 4 eggs/week, 4 Ibs. 5.) Minorca – 4 eggs/week, 7 Ibs.

Meat Birds:  

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If you’re interested in raising meat birds that can easily sustain themselves through reproduction consider one of the following: • Brahma – 16 week butchered weight is 4-5 pounds. • Cornish or Indian Game bird – 16 week butchered weight is about 4 pounds. • Naked Neck – 16 week butchered weight is about 3-4 pounds.

If you’re interested in quick and economical meat bird without the benefits of easy reproduction you might consider the extremely popular Cornish Cross.   A Note on the Cornish Cross: Whether you know it or not, the Cornish Cross is the chicken you’ve grown accustomed to eating.  It’s famed for its phenomenal growth rate and economical feed conversion ratio.  Cornish Crosses can easily dress out at more than six pounds in just eight weeks! It’s not only the industrial-meat bird of choice, pasture-based farmers like Joel Salatin, Primal Pastures, and countless others use these birds for the customer familiarity and the price point. There are certainly some drawbacks to consider and some special tactics to incorporate

Consider the drawbacks: • Cardiovascular dysfunction – Selection and husbandry for very fast growth means there is a genetically-induced mismatch between the energy supplying organs of the broiler and its energy-consuming organs. • Skeletal dysfunction – Breeding for increased breast muscle means that the broilers’ centre of gravity has moved forward and their breasts are broader compared with their ancestors.  This affects the way they walk and puts additional stresses on their hips and legs.  The older a bird gets the more you’ll notice it.  They’ll begin to lay around more and when they do walk, it’s more like waddling. • Withheld food – Adult breeders are genetically wired to grow fast so they’re always hungry. This amazing growth rate can also be a detriment because if you give them access to

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food all the time they will eat themselves sick or dead!  As a solution, the adult breeder birds are given rations throughout their entire lives, resulting in chronic hunger stress. • Mortality rate – According to Wiki, mortality rates are seven times greater than that of layer chickens.  Closer to home, in our own natural chicken community, Paul Wheaton of Permies.com has experienced mortality rates from 15-30%!   Tips for Growing Cornish Crosses: • Raise them on rotating pasture using chicken tractors, electric nets, or go free range. Fresh grass helps with digestion and overall health. • Train them them to enjoy bugs and worms by feeding these thing early on and giving them plenty of room to forage. • Consider raising them with other, more vibrant chickens. • Arrange it so they run out of feed for a few hours each day so growth rates slow and they are forced to forage for their food.  “A hungry birds is a foraging bird,” according to permaculturalist Jay Green. • Try different hatcheries.  Jay Green reports good success with Central Hatchery in Nebraska. • Ferment your feed to increase good bowel flora which will increase nutrient absorption. • Avoid growing them in weather extremes like peak summer.

The benefits of dual-purpose breeds: Do you want both eggs and meat?  Then you’ll want dual-purpose breeds.   A straight run gets you half roosters and half hens.  A good plan here is to figure how many layers you want.  Let’s say 12.  Then order a straight run of 24.  That most likely get you around 12 layers and 12 roosters.  You’ll butcher the rooster around 16-18 weeks and keep the hens. For a more exhaustive list of chickens see the Henderson’s “Handy Dandy Chicken Chart”.       37

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Question #11: Do I Need a Rooster to Have Chicken Eggs? It’s not necessary to have a rooster for hens to lay eggs.  Egg production is a natural cycle that occurs in the female regardless of the male’s presence.  In some situations, however, it may be better not to have a rooster.  For example, if you’re keeping chickens in the city, your neighbors might be disturbed by the crowing.  Remember hens only cluck, they never crow. Advantages of a rooster include: • They fertilize the eggs if you want to breed and hatch your own chickens. • They complete the natural social structure of a flock. • They help to protect the “ladies” from predators. • They dig up food for the ladies and notify them of a feed source. • They are attractive to look at. • They crow, which is nice noise for some people. Note: If you are breeding, I suggest at least one rooster per eight hens. That will ensure every egg gets fertilized and keep him busy enough that he’s not abusive in his frequency. However, if you start noticing hens losing their back feathers, it’s a sign that the rooster has favorites and needs more competition. I once had one rooster for 30 hens.  He ended up having a few favorites and they looked terrible.  I introduced more roosters and the added competition kept him more at bay.    

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Question #12: Where Do I Get Chickens?   1st choice: Local Breeder The benefits of using a local breeder include: seeing  the chicks for yourself, learning from the breeder, seeing the setup and the owner’s management practices, and checking the adults for lice or mites.  Even non-experts can tell if a bird is bright eyed and active. Try the Sustainable Poultry Network for a reputable breeder near you.  Craigslist can also be great way to find local sources. You can always go to the feed store and look on the message board or ask a manager if they know anyone who sells chicks. If you must, Tractor Supply Co. and other stores are starting to carry chicks.  Go late in the spring and you might even get a great deal. Be careful buying from a show breeder, as they aren’t selecting birds for their meat and egg-producing capabilities.

2nd choice: Shipping Breeder Perhaps you can’t find a local breeder but with a little luck you might just find one that ships.  I know some of the Sustainable Poultry Network folks ship and I’m fairly certain you can find a reputable breeder that ships.

3rd choice: Hatcheries If need be, look to the hatcheries. Hatcheries are businesses that artificially hatch chickens (and poultry) for commercial purposes. From my own experience, these birds don’t perform as well. You can find them through Google search or get a suggestion from an online group or friend.  Try a few and you’ll soon discover a favorite. What to look for in chicks? Vibrancy, wide open eyes, fast moving, responsive.    

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Question #13: Straight Run or Sexed Chickens? A straight run includes both males and females (rooster and hens).  Sexed means they are separated by gender so you buy either all males or all females.

Question #14: Should I Debeak or Get Vaccinated Chickens? Debeaking is inhumane and absolutely unnecessary if you fol- low my advice for raising chickens naturally. Chicks are debeaked by the industry to prevent pecking dam- age, but pecking only occurs in extremely stressful situations. Vaccinations are unhealthy and completely unnecessarily if you use good management. Healthy chickens develop the necessary immunity and DO NOT NEED vaccinations. This can be done with good management as described in my other articles and film. Marek is the most common disease they are trying to prevent with vaccinations. Please understand that these kinds of diseases are brought on by stress (something your chickens won’t experience).

Question #15:  How Do I Get Ready For Chicks? Get ready for chicks in 3 easy steps:  

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Step #1: Get the Supplies • Small waterer – I like pressure-sealed quart jar waterers • Small feeder – I like the quart jar feeder • Chick starter feed – This is a higher protein feed.  You can get this at your local feed store.  Call ahead if you want organic to ensure they can get it for you on time. • Small grit – Tiny rocks to help the chickens digest their food.  Try your local feed store or source some out of the creek.  You can use a small plastic container such as a sour cream container for containment. • Natural Boost (Day 1) – Add 2 cloves of garlic, 2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar and ½ cup of honey to their water. • Brooder – See Step 2 below. • Heat lamp – With a 250 (non coated or colored) light bulb with an appropriately rated outlet. • Pine shavings – For the bedding (at least 4.5 cubic feet for my brooder below) (Note: These are the tools I actually use and truly suggest. You may like to know that some of the links are affiliate links, which means I’ll get a commission if you purchase)

Step #2: Setting up your Brooder 1.) Source the brooder.  Common brooder options include: • Store bought • Cardboard • Rubbermaid bins • My DIY “porta” brooder • Hover brooder • Large DIY brooder     

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Brooder size: Needs to be three square feet per 12 chicks for the first three weeks. The brooder should allow up to 8” of bedding, especially if you continually raise chicks. 2.) Add up to 8” of bedding. Pine shavings work the best. 3.) Put in your waterer and feeder. I suggest setting them on wood platforms or on a wire mesh platform so the chicks don’t track manure and shavings into the water or feeder. 4.) Provide grit. Sprinkle it on the feed for the first few days and free choice after that.  For free choice, offer it in a small container (I use old sour cream containers). 5.) Hang or attach the light. Keep this at least 18” from a flammable surface.  It is best to put the light at an angle. Watch your chicks…since you’re not raising them with a mama hen, you’re the mama! If they huddle up under the light, it’s too cold and you need to lower the light so it is closer to them.  If they scatter about kind of lethargic, raise your light as it means they’re too hot! They like the temperature to be about 90 degrees at first and less heat as they grow bigger.  You can lower the temperature by 3-4 degrees every day.  By the time they are 3 weeks old they can handle freezing temperatures. 6.) Use corner boards to prevent injury. If chicks are crowding in the corner, and you’re afraid of injury, set up corner boards so you only have 45 degree angles as opposed to 90.  If desired, you can use a round brooder such as a kid’s plastic swimming pool. 7.) Turn off the light at night if it’s warm enough and cover with cardboard or lid and make sure they have good ventilation so they can breathe. The first couple of weeks, when their real small I actually cover them for the night with a cardboard box inside their brooder. 8.) If you use at least 8” of deep bedding you shouldn’t have to add any.  If you’re not using deep bedding, you’ll need clean it out and replace as you go. 9.) Leave the litter in place to become more alive with beneficial microbes, even between batches. 42

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10.) Keep them in the brooder for 3-5 weeks, then graduate them into a chicken tractor. If they’re meat birds, they might stay in the tractor until they’re ready for processing. If they’re layers you may want to keep them in the tractor until they start laying their first eggs.

Step #3: Receiving the chicks • It’s best if you can buy your chickens from a local breeder, but if that’s not possible you might just have to mail order from a hatchery.  See question above “Where do I get chickens?” • Turn on your heat source before they arrive to get the place warmed up. • Chicks will arrive unfed.  They can last up to 3 days without food or water, but once you feed them or give them drink, they will need it from then on. • Create a healthy boost by combining ½ gallon of warm water with ¼ cup of honey, two pressed garlic cloves and two tablespoons of Apple Cider Vinegar.  Just do this for the first day or until they need more water. • Dip each chick’s beak in the water to make sure they drink. • Add a live feed like grass, weeds or table scraps every day or provide a cage area outside (if it’s warm and the grass is extremely short).

Problems and solutions in the brooder: • The bedding gets wet – Add more bedding on top of the wet stuff or remove it. • Smelly bedding – Let your nose be your guide.  If you smell ammonia, add litter! • Cannibalism – This is only caused by severe stress or bad genetics.  Make sure they have plenty of room and aren’t too cold or hot.  If one chick continues to be too aggressive, you may have to cull it in order to protect the rest of the flock and rid yourself of bad genetics. • Chicks aren’t eating the fine powdery feed at the bottom of their pan – Mix it with milk, whey or water to make a mush that they can easily pick up. • Pasty butt – Poop that dries and sticks to the vent preventing future poops.  This is caused by stress and/or poor diet and is common in hatchery chicks.  I’ve never seen this hap43

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pen when mother hen is on the job!

Pull it off immediately, and use warm water if needed.  Raw corn meal or fine oatmeal can help clear it up. Pasty butt is telling you there’s a problem.  Check over your operation for stress sources (too cold, too hot, too crowded, often scared) and eliminate them asap. • Messy waterer/feeder – Chicks will poop and track shavings into their feeders and waterers. You can change their supplies 2-3 times per day and/or use a “catch” to prevent the mess in the first place. Some folks place boards or cardboard under the feeder and waterers to keep the immediate area clean. I like placing a frame ½” wire mesh over a feed pan that’s dug into the shaving. I place the feeder and waterer on the mess “trap” and all the shavings and manure fall through the mesh before they can be tracked into the feeder/waterer.

Question #16: How Much Meat Will I Get Out Of a Chicken? 44

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Chickens “dress out” between 3-6 pounds. A good dual-purpose breed will weigh about 3-4 pounds going into your freezer while a meat specific chicken, like the famous Cornish Crosses, will weigh six pounds or more!  

Question #17: When Do I Butcher My Chickens? • Butcher dual-purpose breeds between 16-18 weeks old for a 3-4 pound bird. • Butcher pure bread meat birds 16-18 weeks old for a 4-5 pound bird. • Butcher hybrid meat bird (Cornish Cross) at 7-8 weeks old for a six pound bird. • Butcher egg-laying hens at the end of their third summer for a five pound bird.

Question #18: What Health Problems Do Chickens Have, and How Do I Treat Them? • Mites and Lice – Chickens fight mites and lice naturally through dust bathing.  Be sure to provide a simple dust bath at all times.  With severe infections you can liberally apply Diatomaceous Earth (DE) yourself (use a dust mask) to take care of the problem. • Scaly Leg Mites – DE won’t work for these mites.  In this case, I suggest a mix of of unpetroleum jelly, mineral oil, tree oil and oil of oregano.  Use an old toothbrush and wear disposable latex glove. • Worms – Worms are caused by overcrowding, stress and poor feeds.  Follow my instructions in this article and you won’t experience any worms. • Pecking – A minimal amount of pecking is totally natural.  Pecking that causes damage is normal when introducing new adult roosters to each other.  Other than that, excessive pecking is caused by stress or bad genetics.  If you’re sure you have a stellar operation, it may be time to cull the culprit. 45

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• Blocked Crop – Food is first collected in the crop to be mixed with saliva.  It then passes through to the gizzard to join with small pebbles to be broken down to a digestible form.  Blocked crops can occur if the chicken doesn’t have enough grit.  You’ll notice continually swollen crops (on the right side of their necks) and the loss of appetite.  You can prevent or heal this by offering continual access to grit. • Broody Hen – This is not a health problem! In fact, you could look to it as a blessing.  A broody hen is one that will begin to lay on the eggs in a desire to hatch them.  It’s a pain in the butt if you don’t want to hatch eggs with mama hen. If you don’t want a broody hen, you can try putting her with another flock or kicking her out of the nest box in the early afternoon after everyone has laid their eggs, then put a nest blocker in and repeat for several days.  If that doesn’t work, isolate her in a cage with food and water (no nest) for 3 days, or until she’s no longer broody. • Egg Eating – If your chickens are eating their eggs, they’re either very hungry or calcium deficient.  Make sure you’re feeding them enough and giving them plenty of calcium through egg shells or oyster shells. To break a chicken of eating egg shells, make sure your nests are set above their eye level from the ground.  This discourages loiterers from getting the eggs.  You can also implement a nest blocker early in the afternoon after everyone has laid their eggs.  Another preventative measure is to collect your eggs more often. One more option…place a fake egg like a golf ball, avocado pit or similar in their nest. They’ll peck at it and soon realize “eggs” aren’t worth pecking! • Molting – This too is not a health problem.  Every fall, chickens begin to lose their feathers to grow more for the winter.  As they grow more feathers they send most of their protein resources to re-growing feathers (not eggs).  • No eggs in the winter – This is totally normal due to the seasonal lack of light.  You can supplement with artificial light (no more than 14 hours a day) if absolutely needed, but it’s best to let the hens rest. For more info on keeping your chickens productive through the winter see my article, “48 Ways to Keep Your Chickens Happy This Winter” • Mating wounds – Sometimes a rooster may be too hard on the “ladies”.  He may play favorites and cause a spur injury or, more commonly, wear out the feathers from her back.  If this is the case, your rooster needs more male competition.  Try to maintain a balance of one rooster per eight hens.  If the problem still persists, you may need to cull the problematic individual. 46

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 • Broken Leg – Several times I have accidently injured a chicken’s leg while moving their chicken tractor.  In all cases, I isolated the bird with another, weaker flock member (as they are flock animals and do better with a mate) and give them time to recover.  If the injury is minimal and they can hold their own with the flock, leave them there. • Open Wounds – If this occurs and the other flock members see blood, they may make the problem worse by pecking at it.  Isolate the injured chicken, if needed.  You may also try a thick salve like un-petroleum jelly scented with balsam of fir to discourage pecking. • Disease – Under good management, disease will be rare.  Since I am establishing a breeding flock for sustainability, I choose to cull diseased individuals.  Apparently, their immunity hasn’t developed like the rest of the healthy flock and they have succumbed to illness.  This is a genetic trait I don’t want to continue on my homestead. In the extreme case where much of the flock has succumbed to illness due to my mismanagement, I might institute a treatment plan.  Our mixing of age groups, and even species, helps young chicks develop their immune systems.  If you do opt to treat a bird for infectious disease, it’s crucial that you isolate it. 

Conclusion … This should be more than enough information to get you starting with chickens. This may seem overwhelming at first, but chickens are generally very forgiving and you’ll soon be on top of the learning curve. Please let me know if you have any questions, I’m here to help!  

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20 Ways to Avoid Pre-Mix Commercial Feed Years ago, as the cost of commercial chicken feed skyrocketed, I found myself in search of a more creative option.  At the time, I experimented with rotating the flock on pasture and successfully cut my feed cost in half.  After that, I experimented with free ranging and cut my costs by 90%!  Finally, I ended up with a compost feeding system that cut my chicken feed bill by 100% and gave me three cubic yards of compost a week! My fascination with more natural (and much less expensive) feeds continues to grow and my list of creative food sources expands. In this chapter, I’ll share with you many alternative food sources for your flock that will dramatically (if not completely) reduce your dependency on commercial grain. Before we explore the list of creative food sources, we should look at some basic principles to reduce our need for food in the first place.  

Ways to Reduce Your Need for Chicken Feed: • Keep only the chickens that are efficiently meeting your needs.  If you just want eggs, then make sure you have a light weight, egg-producing breed like the White Leghorn.  If you have a lot of access for foraging, be sure to get pure breeds that are naturally active and on the hunt for food. F • Cull inefficient and unnecessary flock members.  This means you’ll need to butcher, sell or give away excess roosters, old hens (older than 2.5 years) or those that are genetically undesirable (low production, susceptible to disease, aggressive, etc.) to minimize your input while maximizing yields.  • Think small.  What’s the minimum amount of chickens to meet your needs?  The smaller your flock, the easier it will be to maintain from creative resources.  In a recent webinar, Joel Salatin shared a story about his first pastured layer flock.  He recalled, with great excitement how his flock of 100 sourced nearly all of their own feed off of the pasture on his daily pasture rotation.  He made the point that his flocks of 1,000 don’t venture any further than 48

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the flocks of 100.  Larger flocks, though, do deplete the area’s food system a lot faster and depend more on commercial feed. • Ration.  Believe it or not, you’re chickens can actually eat too much!  This isn’t just a problem for the budget, it can actually decrease egg production.  I encourage experimentation with your chickens.  You can stop serving their food “free choice” (all day access to their feed) and start rationing out ⅓ of a pound a day per chicken.  Begin cutting back slightly every day until you notice a drop in egg production.  At that point, return to the amount of feed that didn’t affect egg production and go from there.  

1. Soil-Building Plants/Herbs Why not feed our chickens and the soil at the same time?  Comfrey and stinging nettle are two classic builders that many consider weeds.  They can certainly be invasive, but if you turn that “problem” into food and medicine for you and your flock, then they become a blessing. Here is some info about these two amazing soil builders and how to source them as food. Comfrey Comfrey is a must have plant for the sustainable homestead.  Like the chicken, comfrey has many beneficial uses.  It’s edible, medicinal, a great nitrogen source for the compost pile and it’s a low fiber, high protein feed for chickens and other livestock.  It’s easy to grow as it can be planted anytime of the year that you can work the soil, and it will stay alive in extreme cold and heat (grows in US hardiness zones 3-9).  In addition, comfrey contains high levels of Vitamin A and B12 that can contribute to those deep yellow eggs we all desire.

How to Grow Comfrey: 1.) Acquire the root or crown cuttings.  I buy my comfrey from a fellow permaculturalist, Coe’s Comfrey. 2.) Coe’s suggests you plant Comfrey in “‘fertile holes” to get established and it will thrive through the hottest summer or coldest winter.  Comfrey needs three foot spacing for proper root development and the highest yields.  Strong, mature plants on a three foot grid will have the larger outside leaves touching the adjacent plants after four to five weeks growth. 49

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3.) Harvest the plant up to eight times a year by cutting down to two inches from the ground.   Stinging Nettle What many might call a noxious weed, I consider an abundant and consistent food source.  This “invasive” plant is medicinal, edible and when it’s dried it’s up to 40% protein and is a most excellent nitrogen source for mulching or compost. Nettle grows well in US hardiness zones 3-9. For more info on this plant click here.

How to grow Stinging Nettles: Chances are you already have it.  In that case, find it and transplant it to where you want it.  Collect the mature seed heads and drop them anywhere you want nettles to grow. If you don’t already have the plant, you can easily buy the seeds.

As you can see, comfrey and nettle are two great resources for the homestead.  Be sure to stay on top of your management to keep them at bay.  Even if you don’t need all of it’s natural bounty during the growing season for feed, you could certainly use it in the compost pile, or even cut it and dry it out for hay!   50

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2. Animal Carcasses Whether it be killed predators, fresh road kill, or even chicken offal from butchering, this can be a creative means of providing high quality protein to your birds in one of two ways:

Feed Direct: • You must cut the carcass open with a hatchet or something similar so the chickens can easily access the insides. • You may consider removing the carcass after a day or so to prevent disease.

Bucket Maggots: • You’ll get more protein for your “buck” if you don’t feed your carcass directly to your chickens, but rather feed your chickens the maggots that develop from the carcass!  The flies will utilize much more of the carcass than the chickens. • Drill dozens of  ⅜ inch holes in a food grade bucket and suspend it in the air where your chickens will have access to it. • The flies will do their thing and pretty soon maggots will be in search of some ground. As a result they will crawl out of the holes and drop right into your chicken run. Just be sure to use fresh carcasses to help prevent Clostridium botulinum that can cause a deadly disease in your chickens called limberneck.

In his book Small Scale Poultry Flock, author Harvey Ussery, emphasizes not to include chicken slaughter waste that might include grain from their crops as this can be a likely source of Clostridium botulinum growth. More info here.  

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3. Cover Crops Cover crops are plants used to prevent soil erosion, add nitrogen to the soil, improve/ maintain soil quality, hold moisture, prevent weeds and repel pests and diseases. Cover crops are a great garden strategy for the soil they can be food for our chickens as well.

Here’s several ways to do it: Cover crops to overwinter your garden: • Plant cereal rye before your first frost date. • This will will “die” back over the winter and come back in the spring. • In the spring, graze your chickens over the patch with a mobile coop and electric net or cut and carry to your flock.

Cover crops in the spring before you plant a garden bed: • Try planting yellow mustard, red clover, grain grasses, crucifers, alfalfa, and/or cold-hardy peas. • A couple of weeks before you need the bed, allow the chickens in to eat, till, spread, and fertilize. • Once they’re done, plant your seeds. • If your chickens didn’t have time to complete the job, just finish it by hand by loosening the soil with a broadfork and pulling up the cover crop and laying it down in place as a mulch.

Cover crops in the garden between crops, during the growing season: • Use a fast growing cover crop like Buckwheat as it can mature within 6 weeks. • Once you need it tilled in, bring on the chickens! 

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Cover crops for the plot after harvesting the main crop: • Instead of the traditional cover crops, try edible cover crops like fall crucifers, mustards, raab, kale, rape, and turnips. • Harvest the crops throughout the fall and early winter for you and the chickens, or allow the chickens some time directly in the garden.

Cover crops while a crop is still going (under-sowing): • This is especially useful if you won’t have time to plant after your garden crop is done. • Wait until your garden crop is ⅓ of the way through it’s growing cycle, then “under-sow” a cover crop. • Try any of the clovers (white, sweet, or red).  White dutch clover is especially hardy as a living mulch that can even be walked on! • Once you’re done with this garden, cut and carry the produce and cover crops to your chickens or give them direct access.

4. Weeds What we’ve come to understand as “weeds” can also be a surprisingly good food, and even a medicinal for both humans and chickens.  Dandelion, lamb’s quarter, stinging nettle, burdock, and yellow dock are some of the many weeds that can creatively feed you and your flock. How to do it: Step #1: Search and identify some common edible weeds: • Dandelion

• Burdock

• Lamb’s quarter

• Yellow dock

• Stinging nettle

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Step #2: Uproot with a potato fork or similar by driving the tool into the ground and loosening the soil around the roots (just enough to pull out the weeds). Step #3: Clean them off and pitch to the chickens, roots and all.  You can also put them through a grinder or cut up if desired.

Yellow Dock

Lamb’s Quarter

Burdock

 

Dandelion

5. Garden  The garden doesn’t just have to be food for you, it can sustain your flock as well.

Consider some of the following ideas: • Toss your garden trimmings to your chickens. • Offer your flock what’s left of your produce.  Cut and carry the goods or allow them access to the finished garden beds. • Grow produce especially for your flock.  Salad bars, squash, and crucifers are great for your flock. • Cooked (not raw) potatoes could served as a staples for your chickens. • Consider growing winter squashes as they store extremely well and can be used as winter feeds. • Since I have my wood stove heating my house during the winter, I cook hard foods like potatoes, broccoli stems, carrots, onion, etc., as I heat my house!   54

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6. Wild Seeds and Fruits Wild seeds and fruits can serve the “grain” needs of your chickens better than store bought grain.  Gather wild seed or fruits (like berries) and plant to share the bounty with your birds.  Every summer we could easily harvest gallons upon gallons of wild autumn berries, blackberries and wineberries.   

7. Forage and Grain Crops It’s relatively easy to plant grain crops yourself if you select varieties like dent corn, sunflowers, sorghum or Amaranth.  Follow the planting guides for any of these grain crops you choose. You could also grow great forage crops like Arrowroot, Chicory, Bok Choy, Buckwheat, Clover, Cocksfoot, Linseed, Lucerne, Millet, Forage Plantain, Silverbeet, Alfalfa, Peas, Lentils, Chickweed, Comfrey, Dandelion, Nettles, Sunchokes, Berries (blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, etc.) and shrubs (siberian pea shrub, etc.). Choose a variety of these and plan a special patch for you and your birds!  

8. Nut Trees Gathering wild nuts, planting your own trees, or giving them access to the forest can provide a significant amount of protein and fat for your chickens. Forage or plant: oaks, beeches, black walnuts, pecans and hickories. Nuts from these trees are obviously not digestible as they are.  I suggest one of two things, depending on the size of your flock or harvest: if it’s a small harvest, just wrap your nuts in some old jeans or durable cloth and smash with a small sledge hammer.  For larger jobs, consider running them through a feed grinder. 

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9. Fruit Trees Gather wild fruit or plant your own.  Consider high-yield and easy-to-maintain trees like the persimmon, mulberry, paw paw and of course all your favorite apples, pears, peaches, bananas, etc.  Harvest the produce for your chickens or give them access to the fallen fruit. 

10. Capturing Garden Pests Garden pests like Japanese beetles and slugs are an amazing feed source for your flock whether you do controlled/timed grazing, or you are catching them yourself.

How to catch and feed garden pests: 1.

Go out in the morning with a bucket of water while the bugs are lethargic.

2.

Locate the bugs and hold your bucket underneath them while you flick or shake the bugs off of the plant and into the bucket of water.

3.

Throw the bug to your chickens, water and all.

How to debug the garden with the chickens: • Allow your chickens supervised time in the garden. • Allow your chickens in the garden for a limited time towards evening.  They will naturally go home at dark, and won’t have time to turn their attention from the bugs to your produce. • Generally, chickens like bugs more than they like produce, so with timed grazing, most of your veggies should be safe. • It’s almost guaranteed that your chickens will get some of your produce with this method.  In my experience the debugging has been well worth the cost of a few veggies.

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• If your garden is small enough, you could protect your produce with chicken wire or similar and allow the chickens constant access for bug control!  Lisa, from Fresh Eggs Daily, does this beautifully.

11. Pond You can use a pond to grow both fish and aquatic plants to sustain your flock.  In return, your chickens provide fertilizer for the pond. Duckweed – Duckweed is an aquatic plant that is easy to grow and can provide as much as 40% protein content for your flock (if dried).  How to use Duckweed: • Acquire duckweed specimen from another pond or order online. • If acquiring specimen from a farm, you might want to ease its transition before setting it out in the “wild”.  Duck Weed Gardening put out a great resource on transitioning duckweed here. • Fertilize the pond with some chicken manure and/or stock the pond with fish. • Harvest as needed, but try to maintain 1.5 to 2 pounds per square yard on the entire surface.  If there’s not enough, algae could grow and suppress it, and if there’s too much it will self mulch. • Dry out the duckweed, as it’s 95% water.  What’s left is up to 40% protein!

How to use fish: • Stock fish for yourself and be sure to give them all your leftovers and butchering “wastes” . • Fertilize the pond by throwing in chicken manure.  If you want to get extremely efficient you could arrange your chicken house (with a slotted floor) and allow your chicken manure and any spilt feed to fall directly into the pond. • Grow fish specifically for your chickens.  Harvest, cut them up for easier access, and serve them to your chickens fresh (raw or cooked). 57

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• Great pond fish include catfish, bluegill, carp, bass, etc.  If you’re going to have duckweed and fish, be sure not to have too many fish or they’ll eat your duckweed faster than the plant can grow.

12. Soldier Flies Soldier flies look more like black wasps that flies, but they have a interesting life cycle that can create a protein rich source of food for our flock. You can grow your own soldier fly grubs (up to 40% protein) out of kitchen wastes and get a high protein feed for your flock and rich compost in just a matter of days.

Here’s how it works: • Soldier flies are naturally found in US hardiness zones seven and higher, but can be introduced in cooler regions as well. • The female sets out in search of a nice place to lay her eggs.  Her ideal location is rotting vegetables or manure. • The eggs hatch as soon as four days, but no more than three weeks. • These fat larvae immediately begin to consume the vegetables and turn it into soil. • Before these grubs turn into flies (about 10 days) they search for higher ground outside of their feeding ground. • As adults, their sole purpose is to breed and then lay eggs.  They don’t have much time, as they’ll only live 2-8 days!  They don’t even have mouths and will not eat during this period. • They die and the cycle starts over again. • You can build or purchase soldier fly bins that hold your vegetable matter, attracting female soldier flies.  Many designs even includes a ramp which the grubs naturally climb, then fall into a collecting container…brilliant!

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How to do it: • Buy a BioPod.  According to their website, “this can easily handle the daily food scraps produced by a large family – up to 5 lbs per day.  It can even digest pet feces and most kinds of manure.  For every 100 lbs of kitchen scraps you will get 5 lbs of friable compost, a few quarts of nutritious compost tea, and approx. 15-20 lbs of self-harvesting grubs – which are the freshest fish, herp, and bird food.”   • Build one yourself from plans on the internet. Here’s a relatively large bin, that looks reasonable.

13. Sprouting By simply sprouting the grains/legumes you’re already feeding your chickens, you can increase protein digestibility up to 30%.  Not only do you increase protein, you up the vitamin, mineral and enzyme levels!  You can sprout seeds within 2-4 days using a bucket or bowl method or let them go a bit longer if you want some green material.

How to do the bucket or bowl method: 1.

Purchase your grains/legumes like peas, corn, oats, wheat, etc., whole instead of ground.

2.

Soak the desired amount of seeds for 24 hours in a food grade bucket or bowl.

3.

Pour out the seeds through a strainer or a bucket filled with holes and rinse thoroughly.

4.

Set your newly rinsed seeds in another bucket and bowl and leave for another 24 hours.  If it’s warm enough (60 degrees Fahrenheit or higher), they will have already begun to sprout.

5.

Try to use a fairly warm room like a spot near the furnace in the basement.  The colder it is, the longer the seeds will take to sprout.

6.

Rinse your seeds every 24 hours until all of your seeds have sprouted.  This shouldn’t take more than four days.

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7.

For a continual supply, use four buckets in rotation – one for soaking and the other three for the rinsed seeds.

How to do the greening method: 1.

Soak the desired amount of seeds for at least 24 hours.

2.

Spread over a tray in a thin layer.

3.

Cover with some organic matter like straw, dry leaves, etc., to prevent the seeds from drying out.

4.

Water everyday and harvest when they’ve reached the desire length.

 

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14. Compost  This has got to be one of my favorite creative feed sources!  Just last summer, I cut my commercial feed cost 100% through an amazing compost system.  I detailed the entire process and outlined how to do it here.  

15. Vermicomposting Vermicomposting is the process of using worms to create compost. Worms can be grown all year and they’re a great source of protein and compost. Depending on the size of your flock and your ambition you can practically grow as much as you like. General instructions on how to vermicompost: 1.

Get a bin.  DIY from plans online or purchase one.  You can use wood, plastic bins or similar.

2.

Make sure the bin is ventilated.  If you’re using plastic or rubber, drill ⅛” holes throughout.

3.

Estimate one pound of worms per square foot (surface area). 61

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4.

Use a cover for the bin as the worms don’t like light and it keeps your moisture level regulated.

5.

Place the worm bin in a cool, shaded area.

6.

Temperatures should be maintained from 30 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit for optimization

7.

Keep at least four inches of moist material in the bin at all times.

8.

Establish bedding for the worms of shredded cardboard, paper, straw and/or something similar, then sprinkle with dirt and moisten.

9.

Make sure you don’t add much (if any) carbon to the mix, as you don’t want your material to heat up.

10. You’re pile should remain as moist as a wet sponge.  If you were to grab it, you should be able to squeeze out a few drops of water. 11. Get your worms!  Red Wrigglers work best and can be purchased online. 12. Add food scraps all at once, or at least once a week. Mix it in with your bedding if possible.  The worms will continually break this down.  Don’t use too much citrus, meat, dairy, or pet poop as it will be difficult to break down or toxic (in the case of the poo). 13. If your bin starts to smell, ease off the material for a bit and let the worms catch up. 14. After 3-6 months it’s time to harvest both the compost and the worms.  Scrape the newer, unfinished material out of the way and dig out the compost. You can sift out your worms from the compost and send them on their way (to the chickens) or you could throw it all to the chickens (especially if your chickens are in an area like a garden bed or pasture that could benefit from the compost).   How I do it: 1.

I dig a large pit my basement that is 4 x 8 feet and 16 inches deep.

2.

I lay cinder blocks around the edges as an edge.

3.

I use a non pressure treated 4/8 piece of plywood for the cover.

4.

On one side of the pit I lay manure and/or food scraps and water as I go.

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5.

Given our one pound per square foot surface area I could put in as much as 16 pounds!

6.

I put cardboard over this and dampen, then close the lid and check regularly to add moisture as needed.

7.

When the worms are finished (3 – 6 months), I fill up the other side of the bin and the worms naturally migrate.

8.

Once the population of worms has grown enough for a worm harvest, I’ll actually harvest the unfinished material (about half way).

9.

Since my chickens are always on future garden beds, pasture, or compost I can throw them all of the material (worms and compost).

16. Solar Cooker Take advantage of the sun to cook harder-to-consume feeds like squash, pumpkins, potatoes, etc. How to do it: • Build your own or purchase your cooker. Wiki how has 3 promising design options here and a quick search on Amazon revealed several cookers starting at about $100. • Get a recipe for what you want to cook. Solar Cooker has several that include corn on the cob, eggs, potatoes, and even bacon! • Cooking times will vary depending on your setup, sun exposure, temperature, and the amount you’re trying to cook.  I suggest starting small and learning as you go.  

17. Food Scraps This has got to be my second most favorite feeding method as it’s one of the easiest.  We eat a lot of whole foods, so we have tons of food wastes.  We keep a five gallon, food grade bucket in the kitchen at all times for our food wastes.

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How to do it: • Source a food grade container appropriate in size for your food wastes.  This could be as simple as a jar, food grade bucket, or as elaborate as a store bought option. • Feed the scraps to your chickens everyday! • What not to feed?  I believe chickens have a sense of what they shouldn’t eat.  I encourage experimentation here.  Offer it to them and see what happens.  Obviously too much of any one thing is a bad idea, if it’s their only source of feed.  If they have other options, they’ll just leave the excess of what they don’t need.  

18. Grass Just having access to fresh grass can be 15-20% of a chicken’s entire diet.  Throw in access to wild seeds, bugs, and worms and you could sustain your flock entirely on pasture/yard if your flock is small enough and you have enough pasture/yard to rotate them on.

How to do it: • One option is to totally free range, but you’ll have to consider your predator threats, neighbors, and having chicken poop everywhere.  I once grew Black Australorps for 16 weeks to consume as meat grown on free range (I only fed the 25 birds two 50 Ibs. bags of feed over the first eight weeks of their lives).  The free ranging birds thrived and weighed out more than others I had grain fed free choice the entire time. • It’s best if you can rotate your chickens over pasture or yard to new ground every day, or at least every week.  You can use a chicken tractor for this or mobile pasture system with an electric net.  I pastured 15 birds one summer enclosed in a 1,700 square foot electric net that I moved daily.  I was able to get their feed consumption down to less than a 1/10 of a pound of commercial feed before the lack of feed affected their egg production. • It’s even better if you can rotate your birds three days behind livestock.  Flies will lay their eggs in the manure and at about the three day mark, you’ll have larvae for your chickens to consume.  Not only have you provided chicken food at this point, the chickens naturally spread the manure by scratching through it and they help control the fly population for the livestock. 64

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• If your chickens can’t have access to grass, bring it to them in the form of lawn clippings (if it hasn’t been treated). • You can also cut and store hay for winter feeding.  Mother Earth News published a nice article about how to cut hay by “hand”. You can see it here.

19. Other Farm Products You can certainly feed other farm products like cow’s milk and excess eggs.  I personally make an effort to feed our chickens milk from our family cow during the winter when “live” protein foods are harder to come buy.  During the early spring, when egg production kicks back in but the greens and bugs haven’t returned yet, I feed those eggs to the birds.

Farm product ideas: • Milk from anything (cows, goats, etc.). • Offal from farm slaughter (things you might not want to consume like beef tongue, heart, liver, etc.).  Check with your butcher and see if they’ll provide “pet food” packaging of the less desirable products that are edible. • Bones from farm slaughter.  They won’t eat the bones themselves, but they’ll pick them clean of their meat. Make sure you ask the butcher for the bones (they might not give them to you automatically).  You could also make bone broth over your wood stove or with a slow cooker.  You could then feed this to your flock in a feed pan or pour it over some bread to soak in. • Eggs from your chickens or other poultry.  I scramble mine and throw it directly on the ground, but you could certainly feed it raw in a feed pan. • Offer feathers from your slaughters as the chickens may consume them to improve gut function.

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20. Fermenting Feed Just soaking feed for a day can break down the anti-nutrients (natural compounds that interfere with the absorption of nutrients) and will make your food more digestible, therefore making it a more efficient feed.  Alex Lewin, in his book, Real Food Fermentation says, “the process of fermentation can actually create new vitamins, specifically B vitamins and Vitamin K2, as well as some types of enzymes.”

How to do it: • Put 2 – 3 days worth of feed in an adequately sized, food grade container. • Add water until you have at least two inches above the feed.  You should check back in an hour to make sure your grain hasn’t soaked it up.  You’ll ultimately need at least an inch above the grain.  It’s important to have the water layer as fermenting is an anaerobic process, which means it doesn’t need oxygen.  Oxygen could cause mold growth. • If you want, throw in a starter or add some pickle juice or similar to speed up the process. • Cover your container loosely with a towel or lid. • Just 24 hours of soaking will break down anti-nutrient properties, making them more digestible, but you’ll start to get the full effect of fermentation within three days. • You can start harvesting your grain with a strainer daily.  As long as you add dry grain and water to replace it you’ll have a continual flow. • The fermented feed should smell sour, but never moldy.  If it gets moldy you’ll need to throw it out and start a new.

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Conclusion … That concludes my list of creative ways to feed your chickens on something other than commercial feeds, but I’m sure there’s more! Some of these food sources mentioned can single handedly eliminate your food bill forever.  I suggest starting small, then implementing as many of these as possible to create lots of redundancy in your operation.

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Chicken Housing That Works: 5 Brilliant Ways In this chapter, I’ll explain the basic characteristics needed for chicken housing and describe five brilliant housing options that put your flock to work. First, let’s look at the four basic functions of a chicken house.

Four Basic Functions of a Chicken House:   1) Shelter (from wind, rain, snow, and sun): • Offers enough shelter for all the chickens to find protection from rain and snow. • Should be closed off on the windy and cold side. • Provides shade from the sun. • Supplemental heat or insulation isn’t necessary for US Hardiness Zones three and above (if you have a winter hardy breed). • Remember, heat brings moisture and moisture hosts disease and mold.

2) Adequate Sunlight: • Housing openings should face the sunny side. • You can opt for 25% of the roof to be open as long as the sheltered area is large enough for all the birds to find refuge from the rain/snow if needed. • Open up the front of your housing as much as possible to capture all the light and fresh air.  Many great housing set-ups are 100% open in the front.

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3) Proper Ventilation: • Install ventilation above where the chickens roost at night. • Protect your chickens from driving wind and rain.  You can’t have too much ventilation. • Cold moving air (not rushing winds) is a good thing during the winter as it draws the moisture out, preventing frostbite.

4) Predator Protection: • No more than one inch gaps anywhere. • Housing door should be opened in the morning and closed at night to prevent predators unless you have a reliable predator-proof fencing system. • Chicken wire or wire mesh should be used over open areas.

Now that we’ve covered the functions for the housing, I will lay out some basic design principles that should be considered.  

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Basic Design: • One square foot per chicken if they have at least three square feet of outdoor space. • Build large enough to handle future growth. • Three square foot per chicken minimum if their house is permanent and they won’t have access to the outdoors (not recommended). • Housing should have a door (or a way to get out) at least nine inches wide and nine inches tall. • If housing is permanent, it’s best to use at least eight inches of deep bedding (carbon material like leaves, wood chips, wood shavings, straw, etc.). • If the coop is small, set it up to allow access to eggs from the outside and make it easy to harvest the deep bedding.  If possible, allow the manure to fall through the floor to the ground.  Move the housing often or harvest the droppings from underneath. • Consider placing the housing in the shade when possible, if you’re in a warm climate. • Keep your food in metal bins out of reach of mice.

In addition to basic function and design, you’ll need to provide certain features like perches, nest boxes, and dust boxes.  Here, I explain each of these additions in more detail.   Perches: Perches need to be provided as a place for your chickens to roost at night.  Roosting is the act of resting/sleeping off of the ground.  In nature, chickens roost on a tree limb.  In our case, a similar structure will be more like a 2” by 2” board.  Chickens roost to maintain warmth (by roosting near each other) and to get off of their manure. Perches are not necessary for survival as the chickens will settle on the ground if no perches are provided.  However, I believe the more you allow the chicken “to be a chicken,” the happier (and more productive) she will be. If perches are higher than three feet, ladders should be provided to reach the perches.  Don’t use metal perches because the metal gets cold during the winter, or plastic be70

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cause it’s too slippery. One Chicken takes up about nine inches of perch space; so if you have ten hens, then estimate at least 90” of perches.

Nest Boxes: • Nest boxes are the areas you provide for your hens to lay their eggs. Here’s some tips for creating your nest boxes: • Nest boxes should be roughly one cubic foot each, and you’ll need one nest box for every ten hens. • Hens naturally seek out a small dark area to hide their eggs, so we must keep that in mind as we build. • Make sure the nest boxes have roofs (preferably angled) so the chickens don’t perch on top and leave their manure. • Have at least a four inch wall in the front opening to keep them from scratching out their nest bedding. • For nest bedding, use shredded paper, wood shaving, or straw (my favorite). • Make sure you provide a landing bar about four inches out from the nest box so that your chickens don’t jump straight into the nest box.  It is a good idea to have this landing bar swivel up to serve as a nest blocker as well.  Sometimes you might need to implement the nest blocker if chickens are sleeping/pooping in the nest box.  If needed, you could put up the nest blocker in the early afternoon after the chickens have laid all their eggs. • Place the nests above the chickens eye level on the floor.  If they loiter around the nests and see the eggs, they will be tempted to peck them. • Consider mesh bottoms for the nests to allow for self-cleaning (smaller debris will fall through).  I’m currently customizing milk crates to serve as nests, and I won’t add a bottom so that the smaller material can fall through.

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Dust Boxes: Dust Boxes are boxes filled with dust so that chickens can take dust baths, which help keep mites at bay.  It’s a good idea to provide a dust box of about two square feet and 18” tall inside the chicken house because you don’t want it to get wet.  Your chickens will still want to take their dust bath even if it’s rainy or snowy outside.  I use an old plastic storage container and I put the lid on at night, so the birds don’t roost on it and poop in it. If desired, provide an outdoor shelter over some bare earth for a continual outdoor dust bath. I’ve seen people using large plastic culvert cut in half for this purpose.

Making a Dust Box: 1.

Assemble a box out of plywood that is about 2′ x 2’ x 18″.

2.

Add sifted clay soil.

3.

You can add wood ashes – one part ashes to four parts soil.

4.

Add a handful of garden lime or diatomaceous earth.

 

Five Brilliant Chicken Houses That Work  

#1 Chicken Tractor A chicken tractor is a small, movable chicken house without a floor.  It’s called a tractor because of its ability to put the chickens to work.  The tractor can be sized according to its duty.  Sometimes they are sized to house a certain amount of chickens, while other times they are sized to fit over a certain garden bed.  I make my chicken tractors 40” x 10’ as that is the size of my garden beds where I’ll be using my tractors. Capacity: Capacity should be at least one and a half square feet per chicken if used for meat birds and three square feet if used for egg layers. 72

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Advantages: • Easy to use. • Small and lightweight. • Inexpensive to build or acquire. • A great way to fertilize a yard or garden bed. • Till your garden beds to prepare for planting or clean up spent produce. • Great for small yards and gardens. • Can be moved daily to offer fresh forage. • May be used as a day shelter for day jobs or as permanent housing. Disadvantages: • Lightweight and could be picked up by wind or predators. My Experience: I’ve yet to implement this, but am building one this spring for summer garden use.  I will create one the exact size of my kitchen garden beds (40” x 10’).  I will plant about one garden plot each week, so as plots begin to age, I can put the chickens over the spent bed for tilling in the old produce, fertilizing, and prepping the soil for the next planting.  Once I remove the chickens, I’ll plant in the prepared bed and add some fresh mulch.

#2 Pastured Poultry Pen  Larger, moveable chicken tractor around 10’ x 10′ x 2’ Capacity:   These pens are designed to be moved at least once a day, giving the chickens fresh grass.  Because of this frequent moving, you can give them less square footage than a static coop.  Joel Salatin puts 75 Cornish Cross broilers in his 10’ x 12’ x  2’ pens for the eight weeks of their life.  That’s a little more than one and a half feet per chicken.  At first that might sound extremely tight, but if you move them every day for eight weeks that is 120 new square feet

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a day for 56 days (6,720 square feet or almost 90 square feet per chicken).  That’s significantly more than the industry standard of about one square feet for the bird’s entire life. Advantages: • Easy and affordable way to get started with a large number of chickens. • Usually heavy enough to withstand winds and predators. • Can be moved by just one person. • Scale up by simply creating more. • It can serve many different purposes such as raising broilers (meat chickens), pullets (young laying chickens before they’re old enough to lay eggs), mama hens with chicks, or permanent housing for a small flock. Disadvantages: • Larger numbers of chickens per pen can nearly decimate the ground in one day. • Can be heavy to move without a special welded dolly.  I’ve had to move mine by dragging.  I even lined the bottom with PVC, but it is still quite a pull to move it. My Experience: The pastured pen has been a well-rounded set up on my farm.  I’ve used this for broilers, housing layer birds, isolated chickens, and I will soon house pullets.  My personal favorite use for this pen is for allowing a mama hen (or three) to raise their chicks.  Hawks are a major problem on our farm and will easily prey on the young chickens (even with the watchful mama hen).  

#3 Mobile Chicken Coops The name says it all for this type of design.  Mobile coops can vary in size.  I’ve used Harvey Ussery’s A-frame design for years (it houses about 30 chickens).   Some folks, like Geoff Lawton, convert small trailer frames into coops while Joel Salatin is famous for his large eggmobiles. I’ve recently designed and built on a relatively new concept, the Chickshaw.  What sets the Chickshaw apart from other designs is that it can hold up to three dozen chickens and still 74

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be light enough for one man to move the housing long distances and through relatively treacherous territory. Capacity: Typically chickens will have plenty of access to the outdoors during the day with this kind of operation, so one square foot per chicken should suffice.  Having a mobile chicken coop enables you to offer your chickens a new “salad bar” whenever the coop is moved while maintaining familiarity for the chickens.

Advantages: • Offers chickens fresh food when the coop is moved. • The coop is “home” so the chickens naturally center their lives around it, no matter where it ends up. • Moving to new ground can create a significant amount of food for the chickens in the coop. • No poop cleanup as it falls on the ground. Disadvantages: • If you’re completely free-ranging (no electric net fencing), then you’ll need a significant amount of acreage (about 40 acres).  Otherwise, your chickens will become familiar with certain areas (like the shade by the creek), and they’ll loiter there. • Large coops must be moved with a vehicle or tractor. My Experience: I’m operating at a smaller homestead level, which means I have between two to three dozen chickens at any given time.  I also require that my mobile chicken houses can be moved by “man power”. I’ve used Ussery’s A-frame design for years and find it quite useful when I don’t need to move the coop long distances.  It’s also great for year around “permanent” housing and because it doesn’t have a floor, it can be used as a chicken tractor.  However, it’s so heavy and has such a low center of gravity that it’s not great for moving around in the pasture.

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I’ve recently created my Chickshaw, which is lighter than the A-frame, and the floor serves as the perches and allows night manure to drop through.  Large, pneumatic wheels (20”) allow easier movement over further and more tortuous distances.  The Chickshaw can hold up to 36 chickens and can still be moved by one person.  In addition, the manure falls through the housing floor directly to the pasture floor or a bed of carbon.  

#4 Greenhouses A greenhouse is a winter season option for cold climates.  You can easily convert a greenhouse into a chicken coop by boarding up the sides (at least two feet) to hold in deep bedding and by adding a four foot fence to protect the plastic.  Add about one foot of carbon material (wood chips or leaves work great for this) to absorb the manure. This amount of carbon should be good for about 100 days at three square foot per chicken. Feed by dribbling the food directly onto your carbon material.  This encourages your chickens to scratch and stir the material, keeping the manure well circulated.  Some of the lost seeds will warm up and sprout (adding value when finally found). Joel Salatin adds young pigs and rabbits to the greenhouse mix. He hangs the rabbit cages off to the side where their manure drops down to the carbon.  Then, he creates a level in the middle that only the chickens can get to (so the pigs don’t get the chicken food), and he feeds the pigs directly.  The pigs do a great job tilling the hard wet spots that the chickens can’t work in.  To keep the chickens and pigs off of the plastic, use hog panels and electric netting.  As a bonus, grow veggies in the bedding when the animals go out!

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Capacity: Three square feet per chicken Advantages: • Keeps chickens warmer during the cold months. • Creates a good growing medium for spring greenhouse crops. • If your greenhouse is next to your garden, you can give the chickens an outdoor run on deep bedding over your garden. Disadvantages: • Takes up greenhouse space that could have been used for plants. • If you don’t plant in the greenhouse in the spring, you’ll need to muck out the compost material. • It may be hard for you to acquire that much carbon material. • If you don’t use pigs, you’ll have to physically loosen some of the wet and harder spots for the chickens. My Experience: Several years ago I opted to house my small flock of 15 or so chickens in my little greenhouse (about 10’ x 15’).  I lined the sides with a two foot wooden wall to hold in about a foot of wood shavings for deep bedding.  I grabbed an old book-shelf and added some boards to the front of the shelves to hold in nesting material.  I mounted a four foot fence made out of chicken wire to keep the chickens from jumping over the wooden wall or pecking the greenhouse plastic. The result?  My chickens loved it! On top of that, they were more productive in their egg laying than in previous winters.  I can distinctly remember how bright, lively and warm it felt in the house all winter.  At the time I was picking up organic produce “waste” from the local co-op grocery store, so I’d throw those food scraps directly on top of the deep bedding to get consumed or mixed into the composting material.

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The greenhouse was unheated, so it still got cold at night; however, the chickens had each other for warmth, and the greenhouse protected them from wind and rain.  There were many single-digit nights and everyone did just fine.  Looking back, I would have added more ventilation on the top sides of the greenhouse and an outdoor run topped with lots of carbon material that could serve as an outdoor garden once the chickens were removed.  

#5 Coop and Run The majority of chicken keepers seem to use the static coop and run method, but it’s probably the most unproductive housing system I’ve mentioned.  In a coop and run situation, neither the coop nor the run are mobile.  In many of these situations, the housing has a floor and the owner has to muck out the manure regularly.  If the run is left bare (which seems to be the case most of the time), then all vegetation is soon depleted, the soil becomes contaminated (too much manure) and precious run-off of valuable manure and topsoil can occur.  In addition, a bare chicken yard can be quite unattractive, smelly, and tricky to walk through. If moving your chickens’ housing isn’t an option, you might consider rotating a mobile chicken fence around the housing.  For example, you could have four doors near each corner and rotate your chicken through four temporary yards, giving each paddock time to rest.  You might also consider two fences next to the housing in which one is for a garden and the other is for the chickens.  In this case, let one area be your garden for one year and let the second area be for your chickens, and then switch it the next year. If you can’t have more than one house and one run, you can still get some significant work done by simply adding organic matter!  Add high carbon material like leaves, wood chips, straw, etc. (at least eight inches).  As the chickens scratch and fertilize, the bottom layers will start turning into compost.  After several months, you can begin harvesting the compost from the bottom of the run, and just add more material as you go. My Experience Due to some health issues, I kept my chickens in a static coop and run last year.  I live in a horse ranch barn, so I converted one of the downstairs horse stalls into a coop for my chickens.  I used an electric net for their “permanent” fencing.  During this time I implemented a compost system that provided 100% of all my flock’s food needs and gave me one cubic yard of compost a week!  Refer to my article, “How I Cut My Chicken Feed Costs by 100%” here. 78

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Other Ideas ... I’ve summed up most of the general chicken housing categories.  Other ideas like putting chicken housing over ponds (to fertilize) or Joel Salatin’s Millennium Feathernet are amazing concepts and might be applicable in your situation.

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How to be a Great Mama to Your Chickens: The 7 Essentials to Managing Your Flock Once you remove an animal from it’s natural environment and domesticate it, you take on the responsibility of its well being. Like a parent with a child, you’re responsible for providing everything your chicken needs: Food, water, shelter, relationship management, health, protection and self care. In this chapter, I’ll explain how you can be a great “mama” to your chickens by meeting the seven essential for managing your flock.

Essential #1: Water Out of all of your chicken’s needs, water stands out as the most important nutrient. Just a few hours without access to water can critically affect egg production and 24 hours without water can cause a loss of eggs for 24 days. It’s no wonder, as eggs are 75% water.

Tips for Keeping Your Chickens Watered: Keep the waterers clean. Chickens will drink more if it’s clean, so keep your waterers clean. Scrub daily or as needed. Platforms or hanging waterers are a great idea to keep the water clear of debris that the chickens scratch around. Platforms are especially important when the chickens are on deep mulch. Four adult chickens will drink about one quart of water a day. Vacuum sealed waterers are my favorite but there are a number of options available in80

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cluding automatic watering systems, hangers, and even pans or troughs. In order for vacuum sealed waterers to function properly they need to be on level ground. If level ground isn’t possible make sure the hole at the base points downhill. You’ll need to make sure the lid is on tight, and the o-ring seal is working well. If there’s any air getting in above the water level, it defeats the purpose of the “vacuum” effect, and the water will completely drain out. When it’s hot, chickens may drink up to twice the amount of water in the heat. Winter adds a danger of freezing water and needs some special attention. You can see my winter water recommendations here.  

Essential #2: Food To understand how we can meet our chickens food needs, let’s look at how they would meet their need for feed if they were free. In a completely free-ranging model, a chicken will naturally eat whatever she needs. I once grew a batch of 25 Black Australorps for meat consumption by free ranging them. I provided a ration of starter feed until they were eight weeks old, and then they were completely on their own. I was shocked when I went to the butchering table. They weighed more and had a higher fat content than an identical grain fed batch! My experiment confirmed my notion that a chicken knows what she wants, and is very capable of getting it herself, if given the choice. However, we can’t always give them a choice, so we’re responsible for bringing the food to them. So, what did she choose? Her food consumption could be broken down into three kinds of food: plants, seeds, and animal proteins (bugs, worms, small rodents). Notice in all cases, all three food categories are live unprocessed feeds. I believe that, if given a choice, a chicken would eat as much as 70% protein, 20% plants and 10% seeds. Others believe it’s a more even split. Commercial feed provides as little as 15% protein for layer feed.

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Given the success of the free range model, it’s safe to say that we can start replacing commercial feed for more live feeds. It’s arguable that manufactured feeds are scientifically balanced, but I imagine those balances have been set up for the vast majority of chickens that are in confined situations. Keep in mind that pre-mixes lack significant (if any) live feeds. Often, the feed has been heated and the grains are crushed. Once a grain is crushed, it begins to spoil and can have very little nutritional value by the time it’s three months old.  It can even start to mold. In addition, you’ll get more of what I call, “feed dust.” This is the fine grinds that the chickens don’t eat. The only way I’ve gotten them to eat this is to mix it with some milk or other liquid.  Whole grains, on the other hand, are both alive and highly storable.

How to Transition to More Live Feeds: Use your current feed program as a base, and make sure you’re using the right feed for the individual bird. Starter feed – 20% protein mix for chicks up to 6 weeks old Grower feed – 16% protein mix for chickens six weeks old to 1st egg (about five months) Layer feed – 15% protein mix for adult chickens. Provide calcium (egg shells or oyster shells) for their mineral needs. Regardless of your feeding program, you should always offer grit to help them break down their food. Begin introducing more live feeds. For an exhaustive list of creative feed, sources see my article here. Ration your feed to one-third pound of dry chicken feed. Simple rationing can prevent overeating and loss of material. It’s best to feed first thing in the morning and if you’re available, just before they go in at night. Avoid free choice for several reasons: 1. It raises costs as the chickens eat more than they need. 2. Overweight chickens will have less egg production. 3. Chickens will waste more grain in spills and rodents will begin eating the feed.

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Start offering less commercial feed, so your chickens will work harder to source their feeds. In any given situation, I’ll slowly cut my commercial feed ration by about 10% a day until egg production is affected, and then I’ll come back up to the previous level and maintain that amount. Years ago, when we transitioned from GMO feed to organic, my feed costs quadrupled. In response, I started moving my chickens every day on pasture in a chickshaw and mobile electric netting. I had been offering the GMO feed, free choice (it only cost 28 cents a pound versus 64 cents a pound for organic). I started rationing the organic feed from a base of  onethird pound of feed per chicken. Then I cut back every day until I got down to about  onetenth of a pound of feed per chicken before it affected egg production! I ended up cutting my feed costs by 33% after the switch to organic (nine cents a day per chicken to only six cents). Make sure your chickens are getting enough to eat by tracking egg production and feel their crops after they’re in the coop at night. If their crops are full at the end of the day, they are getting enough to eat.

Avoid medicated feeds, as they are are designed to prevent Coccidiosis. Coccidiosis occurs in high-stress situations caused by poor living conditions. If you practice many of the management techniques I describe, you won’t have to worry about this. Prevent chicks from getting into adult premixes. If you’re raising adult chickens and 83

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chicks together, don’t allow chicks to eat adult mixes. These have extra calcium and phosphorous that could be harmful and unnecessary for young birds. However, it will be near impossible to keep chicks away from the adult feed. I’d go with a grower mix for the entire flock while making sure to offer free choice egg shells and oyster shells for the calcium needs of the adults. Then I’d offer fish meal, raw meats, sunflower seeds etc.. to help the adults get the phosphorous boost they need. I don’t think the chicks will overindulge on these foods and the adults naturally know how much they need. The problem with premixed feeds is that they would have to eat all of it to get any of it.  

Essential #3: Shelter Left in the wild, chickens would seek shelter in brushy “hideaways” or by roosting in aerial tree limbs. Providing housing is our ultimate tool for domestication and will confine and increase production making the chickens easily accessible. It’s your job to provide adequate and properly equipped shelter that keeps your flock comfortable and protected from the harsh elements like wind, sun, snow and rain. There are numerous styles of housing available, but some of my favorites include the garden sized chicken tractor, the pastured poultry pen, chickshaw, coop and run with deep bedding, and the winter greenhouse.

Tips for Providing Great Shelter: Shelter from the major elements of wind, rain, sun and snow. Allow enough sunlight to sanitize and light your house, but not so much that there’s no shade. I shoot for about 25% open areas for the sun and air. Build in proper ventilation, even in cold areas. Vents above the perches and open areas towards the sunny side should suffice.

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For much more detail on housing requirements and styles, see my article, “Chicken Houses that work: 5 Brilliant Ways”.  

Essential #4: Family Relations As the caretaker of your chickens, it’s your responsibility to ensure a happy family. No doubt, you’ve heard the phrase, “pecking order”. This phrase came from the observation of the chickens pecking activity to establish a social dominance order. For the most part, pecking orders are established quickly and easily without injury. I can think of two categories where tensions are more of a potential: Working with Roosters and Mixing the Flock.

Tips for Working With Roosters: Roosters aren’t necessary for eggs, but they better complete the social structure, offer protection, help the hens find food, and they’re certainly necessary for reproduction. For more on the benefits of roosters click here. Rooster can have favorites among the “ladies” and be too hard on them. In many cases, they wear off the feathers on their back or in worse cases injure them with their spurs. In this case, it’s a good idea to provide adequate competition (up to one rooster per eight hens). If balancing the flock with roosters doesn’t work, you can separate the roosters from the flock, or as a final resort cull the culprit. Remove the spur’s sharp point with pruning shears as a last resort. Rooster attacks on humans are totally possible if they see you as a threat. Don’t take it personally, just show him that you can be trusted. My first reaction is to kick the rooster off when he flares up ready to fight. However, I’ve been able to control myself. I quickly find some food and offer it to him. As a result, the flare-ups have come fewer and farther between. Prevent children from taunting the rooster, even from outside the fence. I caught a visiting child poking the rooster through the fence with a stick and since then the rooster hasn’t liked children (and for good reason). One of my neighbor’s roosters flogged their daughter, lodging the shell of his spur in her scalp. There was no severe injury, but they did have to do a minor surgery. I believe a rooster with that much aggression should be culled. 85

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Use quiet and gentle movements around your roosters and give them plenty of space. Be careful if you have to catch a hen in the present of a rooster. If needed, catch the rooster first and confine him, so you can safely work with the rest of the flock. Roosters will fight each other when introduced if they are equally matched. One way to prevent that is to keep roosters of varying ages. Introducing same sized roosters can be a challenge. Try introducing them for a few days in cages or barriers. Then mix them. If it’s clear they’re going to hurt each other, separate them again. Know that rooster have to establish an order of dominance and if there very similarly matched the fighting may continue until death. If it’s clear that your roosters are going to fight to the end, it’s better to cull the one you don’t want to keep. Roosters will continue fighting until dominance is established. Even if you separate them, they will finish their quarrel when back with each other. Provide plenty of room for roosters and hideouts to make it easy for the subordinate rooster to retreat. Hideouts could be something as simple as pallet A-frame or compost bin.

Tips for Mixing Age Groups: Exposing young chicks to adults could help build their immune systems. Give plenty of space for newly introduced chickens. Hens will establish a pecking order but will be much less violent than roosters. Have extra waterers and feeders, so they aren’t forced to fight over access. When getting new chickens in a free-range setting, you’ll need to confine them inside their coop for about a week to teach them where home is. I can remember the first chickens I ever got. It was a small flock of four. I put them in a horse stall and began working on the inside. In my naivety, I left the top stall door open. Before I knew it, two of the birds were perched on the bottom door and flew out. I was never able to recover them.

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Clip the wings of newcomers so they don’t fly the fence (or stall door). They have no sense of home and won’t find their way back.  

Essential #5: Health If you follow the guidelines above you’ve taken major steps for preventing any health related issues from occurring in the first place. Prevention is the best “medicine”. Here are some basic preventative measures.

Basic Preventative Measures: • Provide a wide variety of live feeds • Provide calcium and grit supplements at all times • Provide a dry dust box at all times • Have clean water available at all times • Give your chickens plenty of space inside and outside (at least three square feet) • Make sure your coop is well ventilated and offers protection from the elements, yet is opened as much as possible towards the sun • Make sure you have at least 9” of roosting space per chicken so they can get off of the wet, manured ground at night • Use deep bedding in non mobile coops of at least 8” and add more carbon material regularly 87

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• Implement the “Holistic Trinity” of Garlic, Apple Cider Vinegar, and Diatomaceous Earth. Lisa Steel of Fresh Eggs posted an excellent article about the use of the supplements. You can find that here. • Use a natural water boost for day old chicks. Click here for a recipe. • Fermented feed for the first few weeks of their lives, if not throughout their entire lives. To learn how to ferment their feed click here. It’s still probable that eventually someone will get sick, infected with mites or injured. I addressed some of the more common health problems and how to treat them here.

Essential #6: Protection If you’ve ever seen another chicken mess with a mama hen’s chicks, then you’ve seen how she can go from a peaceful yard “ornament” to a puffed up ball of madness. You just don’t mess with a mother’s precious babies. Now that you’re the mama you’ve got to adopt that same passion! Just about everything will eat a chicken and/or its eggs: Hawks, Eagles, Owls, Possums, Skunks, Domestic and Wild Cats, Dogs, Raccoons, Bears, Pigs, Rats, Coyotes, Foxes, Weasels, Bobcats, Wolves, Snakes and in some cases, thieving people. In all cases, predators can be broken down into three categories: Aerial, land or egg eaters. I’ve had run-ins with all three.

Tips for Protecting the Flock: Close their door at night. The vast majority of predator problem will be eliminated by simply closing them securely at night and not letting them out until daylight. Keep small chicks in chicken tractors or under similar protection as they are the primary target of aerial predators. I’ve had young free-ranging chicks picked off rapidly despite the mama hen’s presence. Keep housing secure and keep your openings no large than one inch. In the event of aerial predator attacks on adult chickens, consider housing them for a few days to encourage the birds of prey to move on. 88

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You might even encourage crows. We had an epic hawk problem a couple of years ago and finally found our relief with crows. Believe it or not, the smaller birds don’t like hawks in their territory and will drive them out of the area! Crow problems have been so minimal I welcome their presence for keeping the hawks at bay. Use electric net fencing, as this will keep out all land-based predators besides humans. Guard dogs can protect the flock from all predators, including some human thieves. Thieves might not be a consideration for many, but for my friend in Africa a guard dog or a human guard is an absolute must. Guns or traps can be used. If you’re shooting a domestic dog, I suggest shooting it with a BB gun as laws vary from county to county and these days I’m afraid of getting sued. Kill wild predators very sparingly as you’re messing with the natural ecosystem. A sure-fire rule of nature is that if you eliminate one predator from the area, something else is likely to move in. Without foxes, raccoons and similar predators, wild rabbit and other rodent populations could drastically increase. Check eggs regularly or move your coop often, if you have a snake getting them. Implement a guard goose. I just purchased one for my flock. It’s critical to raise a gosling with chicks so it will learn to bond with chicks. Just get one goose. Otherwise, they’ll be distracted with other geese and won’t bond with the chicks or pay attention to guarding them. Your goose can be kept in a fence with the chickens or allowed to free range. They can free range for all of their feed needs. Prevent snakes by eliminating rodents, keeping the area clean and reducing hideouts. Remember roosters can be great natural guardians of the rest of the flock. Avoid working cats and keep a close watch on your domestic cat as they will eat young chickens. We once got some working cats from the pound and then started noticing missing pullets. At the time, we had no idea a cat would be doing this, but I caught them in the act one day and had to take them back to the pound. One day we hope to get a Russell Terrier dog for small rodent control. Provide retreats for cover from aerial predators Hang shiny objects in the wind like tinfoil and cd’s to scare away aerial predators.

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If you have a permanent fence for your chickens bury 6” or so in the ground to prevent digging predators. Clip wings to keep your chickens in the fence and away from predators. Guard animals like dogs or even geese. Use only one goose per flock and raise them as goslings with chicks so they’ll develop a strong bond.

Essential #7: Take Care of Yourself You’ve heard the saying, “If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy” and you know it’s true. Whether you’re a man or a woman, you’re a mama to your chickens. You’ve got to take care of yourself before you can take care of others. See to it that you eat well, get plenty of rest, exercise, enjoy your job and have fun with friends and family. This self-care will go a long way for keeping you on top of a good management program.  

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48 Ways to Keep Your Chickens Happy This Winter! In this chapter, I’ll explain everything you need to know to keep your chickens happy and productive this winter. I’ll include 48 ways to easily overcome the problems posed by the colder weather.

Let’s Ask How She Wants To Be Treated? Let’s consider how the “Little Red Hen” herself might want to be kept this winter by looking at what she might do if she were a free bird. Karl Hammer, founder of Vermont Composting, found out what she would do if she were set free. She spends her nights in the provided shelter and days roaming the compost piles indulging on the biota and food scraps. His birds are free to leave but they don’t. Why? Because he’s introduced a system he calls, “Welcome to stay where she’d like to be”. He makes them happy by providing all that they need to thrive. Not only is his flock satisfied, they’re producing abundant eggs and meat without any purchased grain!  

The Secret to Winter Success! To understand Karl’s success and to formulate a great winter happiness plan we must 1st  understand what the chicken needs and doesn’t need. What makes her happy? In this article, I’ll lay out all you need to know to succeed this winter.

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Chickens are much hardier and easier to please than you might imagine. She’ll be extremely comfortable down to 40 degrees and just fine well below freezing.  

It’s Not the Cold, It’s the Moisture! It’s not actually the cold weather you should be worried about, it’s the moisture! This hidden danger, is all around them. They generate moisture by just breathing, and 85% of their manure is liquid! In nature, the ground is almost always cold and wet in the winter. Naturally, chickens want to stay off of it during the coldest and wettest times! Great ventilation goes a long way in reducing the moisture content.  It’s key to have as many vents as possible above their roosts. Yes, warm air rises and will escape through those vents, but it will also take moisture with it; and that’s exactly what we want! There are only 4 areas of special interest that include water, food, housing and exercise. We’ll break those down in a moment, but let’s go ahead and dismiss what she won’t be needing:  

7 Things Your Chicken Doesn’t Need: 1. A sweater – Your beloved family member has several natural ways of staying warm that includes: heat from other birds, wings as blankets, a digestive system that warms her and she’s got enough sense to stay dry and out of the wind. 2. Petroleum jelly – It’s said to prevent frost bite and it may or may not work for that, but your classically treating the symptom, not the cause. Focus instead on keep her dry and well ventilated. Besides… it’s PETROLEUM! It’s toxic. If you or your birds shouldn’t eat it, then you shouldn’t put it on their skin. If you absolutely must have something gooey then use the natural counter part: un-petroleum jelly. 3. Straw bales – A lot of folks recommend straw bales for extra insulation but it’s overkill unless your further north than Pennsylvania. If your not careful, they can collect moisture and grow mold, therefore causing respiratory problems. If your going to use them, keep them on the outside of the coop.

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4. Overload your light sockets  – All the light socket sizes are standard, but light bulb ratings can be drastically different. You can easily overload a socket with a heavy duty bulb and cause blow out, and even a fire. 5. Teflon Coated light bulbs – They put off toxic fumes! Watch out for the following labels: protective coating, rough service, safety coated, teflon-coated, tuff-kore, tefCoat. Look to the fine print on the back of any light you choose. I noticed a fine print notice on a bulb the other day that said, “not fit for inside use”! Probably toxic. Look for clear light bulbs instead. 6. Heat or heat lamps – They aren’t necessary. They’re dangerous and can cause perspiration that could lead to chills and frost bite. 7. Use continual light – I bought some hay recently from an organic chicken farmer. I asked him if he was getting any eggs now that the days were shorter. Confidently he said, “yep” and he pointed to a light over head. Oh yes… lights. Many folks do this, but it’s not natural and can messes with their hormones and might even contribute to cancer.  

2 Things to Consider Before You Start:  If you don’t have chickens yet, there’s a couple things to consider for winter management before you even start. 1. Think about what breed might work best for your area. If you’re in a cold temperate climate consider well equipped breeds like the Australorp, Brahma, Java, Buckeye, Chantecler, or Orpington. For purchasing birds, I recommend the Sustainable Poultry Network to find out which breed is right for you check out Sage Hen Farm’s amazing comparison chart. Basically what your looking for is a “fat” build with lots of “puffy” feathers. You can also take a look at the comb. Combs are used to expel heat from the body, so smaller combs are typically more efficient in the cold weather. 2. Consider placement of their house: It should face the sun. All your openings, including any windows and doors should be placed on the sunny side and the back walls should be equipped to block winter wind completely. If you do have a flock, one of the 1st things you’ll want to do is Cull. Culling is basically a selective slaughter. The Prairie Homestead suggests culling extra males and older hens. 94

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It doesn’t make sense to go into the winter feeding non-productive members of your flock. If you’re not interested in slaughtering you could try selling or giving away the extras.  Now to our 1st area of concern for winter management …  

3 Ways to Keep Your Birds Well Hydrated: 1.

Always have it available. The #1 health factor to a chicken is water. If they go just a few hours without water, then it can be weeks without eggs.

2.

Keep it clean. Generally, if you wouldn’t want to drink it, neither will she. You’ll need to make a habit of cleaning their waterer once a day and more when needed. I suggest keeping their water off the ground by resting it on a block or something similar to keep the chickens from fouling it up.

3.

Keep it warm. One of the biggest struggles with water in the winter is keeping it UNfrozen. Standing water at night will be your biggest cause of freeze. Remember that, once a chicken settles on her perch at night, she won’t get down until the morning, therefore you don’t have to keep water out all night.

I remove the waterer when I tuck my girls in and put it in my basement near the furnace. I live in zone 7 in the mountains of NC and the water rarely freezes during the day. With this method, however when it get’s extremely cold (low twenties), I’ll have to change out the water once or twice during the day. If your not up for this kind of labor, consider a water warmer. You can make your own water warmer or buy one if you don’t mind using the electricity. I built this quick and easy sunroom to encourage my chickens to get out on cold days and to keep my water a bit warmer:  For more info on how others keep their water warm check out this thread on Permies.com.  

12 Amazing Winter Food Options Obviously, food can be a challenge because it’s cold and the days are shorter. There’s much less live material like bugs and grasses for their dinning pleasure. However, you might be sur95

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prised at just how much live material you can scrounge up for them. Here’s some creative and healthy winter food ideas:  1. Vermicomposting – Grow your own worms! Worms can be grown all year and they’re a great source of live protein. Depending on the size of your flock and your ambition you can practically grow as much as you like. There’s multiple DIY or purchased options. Size can also range from small bins to old bath tubs to large pits dug in the ground. 2. Sprouting – Sprouting seeds can ad tremendous value to something you’re probably already feeding like grains and legumes. Not only does sprouting increase the digestible protein levels up to 37%, it increases enzymes and vitamins of any seed. 3. Weeds- Green weeds like Dandelion and Yellow dock can be uprooted with a spade and consumed entirely by you or your chickens. 4. Green house – Folks can have cold hardy vegetable all year round under a greenhouse, cold frame or low tunnel. 5. Cover crops – If you plant your garden or field in a hardy cover crop you can certainly cut and carry this to your birds throughout the cold months. 6. Mulch your winter run – Bare ground is nature’s scar. If you keep your run covered you’ll be working with nature and you’ll be blessed. If you make it deep enough the ground will stay warm enough to encourage worm and other chicken appetizers for automatic and continual feed. 7. Sow ground – You can plant some special areas just for winter grazing. This fall, plant things like barley, wheat, rye, mustards, turnips, and alfalfa and in the early winter you’ll have premium feeding grounds. 8. Animal products- I’ve got a family cow, so I’ll share surplus milk with my birds. You can also feed back eggs, egg shells and other animal meats and offal. 9. Tree crops – Seeds like acorns are bountiful in the fall. If you have a feed grinder, you can grind them to mix with your other feeds. Without a grinder, you can put them in some jean or other tough material and easily smash them with a sledge hammer. 10. Compost – Certainly one of my favorite methods for feeding chickens all year round. It’s actually my primary feed source. Simply allow your chickens access to compost piles and keep re-stacking and turning the piles to keep them active. The chickens will enjoy scratch-

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ing the piles and eating the abundance of biota the piles produce. Read my article, “How I cut my feed cost by 100%!” for more info. 11. Food from the winter garden – Cabbage, Comfrey, Kale/collards, winter crops, squash, fermented foods anything you can grow and just about anything you can eat. If your throwing the food scraps to the chickens and they don’t eat it, don’t worry, it will compost if your throwing it on a compost pile or a mulched run. 12. Predators or road kill – If you’ve had to kill a “bad guy” or you find some fresh road kill. You can chop it up, if you dare, and feed that to your carnivorous birds. Don’t forget these guys are close relative to the Tyrannosaurus rex! They are omnivorous! That’s why it’s so funny to see eggs touted as vegetarian fed. Poor birds.

15 Tips for Winterizing Your Housing: 1. Trust your chicken. Give her the option to stay in or out. 2. Do deep litter on the floor of the houses. Apply at least 4” of any carbon absorbent “brown” material. I use wood chips because my town happily delivers all that I want for FREE! You can also use stuff like wood shaving, straw, dried leaves, corn cobs etc… 3. Install vents in high places, above the perches. 4. Make sure all your openings on the dark and windy side are covered to protect from the wind. 5. Cover any windy side slits at roost level. 6. Make sure there’s enough room. A good rule of thumb would be 3 square feet inside and 3 square feet outsider per chicken. 7. Ensure enough roosting space. A general rule is the width of your “surfs up” hand signal or about 8-9”. 8. Block any rodent doors. 9. Make sure they have light in their coop during the day. Preferably natural sunlight, but if needed, electric lights.

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10. Have your Windows and doors facing south, towards the sun, if possible. If needed, move the coop or make new openings. 11. If your chickens have to get up or down make sure you have ramps with cleats. It’s the going down that they need help to prevent hitting and bruising their butt. 12. Bedding should be dry. Add “brown” material as needed to keep moisture balanced. 13. Water should be kept outside because any spilt water will create moisture.

9 Ways to Keep Your Birds Active: You must provide your chickens with adequate space for maximum health. Typically there’s a fence in area outside the house that most folks call the run. We’ll go with that. Here’s some ideas to fully equip your area.  1. Add logs or stumps for the chickens to stand on to get up off the cold, snowy ground. 2. To encourage your chickens to get out of the coop you could ad a wind block feature. Lisa, of Fresh Eggs Daily suggested the addition of a Juniper or Butterfly Bush. I added a juniper myself. You could see how a whole row could create an entire wall of windbreaks.  Not only do these guys provide winter wind protection they offer shade in the summer and hideouts from arial predators! If bushes won’t work for you, you could build some kind of wind blocker. 3. Add a “sun room” to your run if possible. This could be a small “greenhouse” type structure utilizing plastic. I actually have my eye on a very large rock that could not only be a sun collector for warmth, it will protect from wind and offer them something to get them off the ground. Until I can borrow a tractor to move that rock, I’ll settle for an old glass door I found in our re-useable pile. I made a lean-to out of it with some scrap lumber. They absolutely love it! 4. Chickens hate walking in the snow. If snow happens then you could lay out some straw or similar material to encourage venturing out. 5. Set out boards and even outdoor roosts to encourage outdoor activity. 6. Don’t feed them through a feeder. Throw it out instead. They love to scratch and it’s great exercise. 98

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7. Hang a head of cabbage for them to pick at. I drive a tent stake into the bottom and hang it up by the hook. You could also get a hay net and hang out hay or alfalfa to keep them busy. 8. Deep mulch is essential in your run. Put down 4” to 8” of any organic material you can find (grass clippings, wood chips, garden weeds/plants, leaves etc…) They will thank you for it with finished compost come spring time. They’ll scratch it all winter looking for food, ad their fertilizer and it will soon be black gold. If you can have your run where you’ll plant your garden, it will be ideal. Move the chicken out in the spring and plant your patch! They weeded, composted and mulched! 9. Last, but should be first, put them to work. Put them in an area you need tilled to prepare for the coming year’s garden. Throw in organic matter as they till to establish a nice mulch bed. If possible have their run where the garden will be and move them out in the spring and plant your veggies! That completes my exhaustive winter tip list.

A Quick Word on Production: Finally, we’ve met all of the “Little Red Hen’s” needs. Now it’s time to eat her pie, right? Maybe not just yet. It’s still baking! You’ve probably noticed that egg production has dropped. Here’s why ...

3 Reasons Your Hens Aren’t Laying Eggs This Winter: 1. Late fall and/or early winter she went through a molt. This is where she looses her old feathers and grows new ones for the winter. Although they look terrible during this, it’s perfectly natural. Bad news for us is that this effort takes a ton of protein, so we’ll hardly see an egg. 2. The day’s are getting shorter and she needs at least 14 hours of day light to produce. Remember her chief goal in life is to produce offspring. Winter is no sensible time for her to raise some chicks. Wait a couple of weeks after the winter solstice and she’ll likely pic up again.

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3. She may be too old. They only consistently lay eggs till about 2 and half years old. After that egg production can drop dramatically by 50% or more. If you MUST keep up production you could put on an automatic timer. DO NOT keep more than 14 hours of light on her a day. Be sure to set the timer to come on early in the morning, not at night. If there still walking around at night and the light suddenly goes out, their already poor night site will be even worse and they’ll have a hard time getting on their perch. They must absolutely have at least 8 hours of darkness to keep their reproduction and immune systems healthy. If you do get any winter eggs, they might freeze. It certainly needs to be 28 degrees or lower for it to happen. If this is your case, you should check your eggs at least twice during the day and never let the eggs sit overnight. If it does freeze you can eat it right away or give it to pet or throw it in the compost pile. Think in terms of a different kind of production… work…. If she’s given a choice to leave, she would roam further in the winter than in the summer. Food would be more difficult to find, therefore she’d have a further range. Trust “the Little Red Hen”, she knows how to cook. She’s baking her “pies” and because you’ve helped her “cook” she’ll give you plenty of eggs this coming spring, summer and fall. Let her rest.

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Chicken Power: 8 Strategies for Putting Your Flock to Work I am continually blown away by the working power of chickens on the homestead! They’re such great workers, I would keep them even if I couldn’t eat their eggs or meat. Plus, they reproduce themselves, unlike any man-made tool! In this chapter, I’ll explain eight different ways you can put chickens to work. I’ll explain how you can use chickens to provide nitrogen for your compost pile, replace machine tillers, fertilize your garden, turn compost, spread mulch, dispose of your garbage, control pests, and improve the health of your orchard. Along the way, I’ll walk you through a hypothetical case study on how one family employs their 24 chickens to help grow all of their fruits and vegetables.

Strategy #1: Nitrogen Source for a Compost Pile One chicken can produce 8 pounds of manure a month, according to Ohio State University. That’s about enough to compost one cubic yard of leaves! To make great compost, you need a carbon to nitrogen (C: N) ratio of about 30:1. Chicken manure is very rich in nitrogen and has a C:N ratio of 10:1. The high nitrogen content means you won’t need much of it to balance it with its readily available counterparts: carbon materials like leaves, hay or straw. Leaves, for example, are rated at 47:1, so for every pound of chicken manure, you’ll use 45 pounds of leaves! A little goes a long way with chickens manure! For more info on composting and handy calculator, check out Organic Science. 

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How to do it: Harvest your flock’s manure regularly and store it in a leach-proof container until you’re ready to build your pile. If you don’t want to store poop, then you can mix the manure with your carbon material as you go. For more information about compost, building, check out my article on composting with chickens: “I Cut My Chicken Feed Bill 100%.”   Meet the Hardin Family The Hardin family is a hypothetical young homesteading family of four. It’s their second year of trying to grow their food in the heart of the blue ridge mountains. This year, they want to employ their 24 chickens as much as possible. First line of business is to collect some manure for future compost piles. The Hardins want enough compost for a 2” layer for their future 1200-square-foot garden.  Last year, they harvested tons of leaves during the fall and kept them piled over the winter. They’ve done the calculations at Organic Science and figured out that they need 1 pound of chicken manure for every 12 pounds of leaves. The pallet bins they plan on using are 64 cubic feet each (so they’ll need to fill 3 bins to cover 1200 square feet at 2”). According to MASS.org, one cubic foot of leaves weighs about 14 pounds. At that rate, one of the Hardins compost bins filled with leaves will need 75 pounds of manure, (or 225 pounds for all three compost piles). Given that one chicken poops eight pounds a month, their flock of 24 will excrete 228 pounds a month, which is a little more than they need for all three piles! However, they are only collecting the nighttime poops, which account for half of their daily “deposits.” Every day for two months, they gather the evening messes and save them in metal bins to prevent the nitrogen from leaching out. They have a tilling job coming up on April Fools Day, so they decide they’ll collect manure in their winter set-up during the months of February and March!

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Strategy #2: Tilling One Chicken can till 50 square feet of established sod in just 4-6 weeks! By scratching and eating practically all vegetation, chickens make great tillers! Although they take much longer than a machine tiller, they require no fossil fuel, they’re much quieter, and you don’t have to do any of the work! I sold my machine tiller years ago and have been using my chickens ever since. Based on my experience, one chicken can till about 50 square feet of reasonably short sod within six weeks.

How to do it: Leave your flock in one place long enough! For small jobs, like individual garden beds, I suggest a chicken tractor suited for your particular garden design. For larger projects, I recommend mobile housing and temporary electric netting. Feel free to estimate your timing based on the size of your flock and garden plot on the 50 square feet-per-chicken statistic.   The Hardin Family Mr. Hardins’ fancy machine tiller got stolen over the winter, and they can’t afford another one. Our frugal and increasingly environmental family opts to use their 24 chickens to till new ground for their 1200-square-foot garden. Since one chicken can cultivate 50 square feet in 4-6 weeks, 24 could do their garden job in six weeks. If they start once their composting manure is ready (on April 1), this leaves a two-week buffer (in case it takes a bit longer), for their mid-May planting goal.

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Strategy #3: Garbage Disposal One Chicken Can Convert Food “Waste” into Fresh Eggs and Meat! 17% of what American’s throw out as “trash” is food, according to the Gossamer foundation. Chickens are omnivores, like us, and will eat practically everything we can and more! Why not give our food scraps to our chickens, save money on trash disposal, and lessen the burden of our landfills? Based on my experience, chickens will easily eat 1/4 to 1/3 pound of food waste in a single day. That means a small flock of 6 could eat up to 60 pounds of food “trash” a month! How to do it: Collect your food scraps in a food grade container or bucket. Chickens will eat practically any type of food you’re throwing out, including meat. If you’re not sure it’s safe for you chicken, try it and see what they do. I believe they have the sense to know whether it’s good for them or bad. You can clean up what they won’t eat or let it decompose where it’s at.   The Hardin Family The Hardins have been collecting and feeding their chickens scraps for a while now, but they have recently noticed that when chickens are hunting food naturally, they scratch. Since the flock is tilling, they decide to leave their food scraps directly on the ground, instead of in a tray. It seems like the chickens are happier this way and as they scratch through the food, they also break up the sod!  

Strategy #4: Fertilize One Chicken Can Provide Enough Nitrogen Fertilizer for a 50-square-foot garden in a Little More than a Month. The chicken manure nitrogen level isn’t just great for compost, it’s the essential ingredient to fertilizing our gardens. The average chicken will create about a quarter pound of fresh manure every day! The manure is 1.5% nitrogen, so that’s .004 pounds of nitrogen per day. If we’re shooting for a solid .30 pounds of nitrogen for 100 square feet of garden space, it will

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take one chicken 75 days to complete the job. It doesn’t sound like much, but it adds up quickly when you have multiple chickens.

How to do it: Confine your chickens to the area you want fertilized and figure their length of stay based on the size of the area and how many chickens you have. Be careful not to leave your chickens in one place too long (without mulching) as you can have too much of a good thing!

The Hardin Family At the fertilization rate above, the Hardins’ 24 chickens can fertilize their 1200-square-foot garden in just six weeks (at a rate of .30 pounds nitrogen/100 square feet)! The Hardins are elated when they realize it’s going to take the same amount of time to till and fertilize, and they’ll get it all done at once!

Strategy #5: Turn Compost One Chicken Can Do a Quarter of the Work Turning a Compost Pile! In order for your compost to break down, it must get oxygen. The more air you give it, the quicker it will break down. Many gardeners make a habit of “turning” their entire compost pile regularly when they need some of the precious material quickly. Turning is a laborious

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job, but your chickens can do at least a quarter of the work for you! (I estimate they’ll do a quarter of the work because they won’t take down the entire pile, and they certainly won’t re-stack it for you. However, they will take down a good chunk of it, and all you’ll have to do is turn what they left, and then reassemble!)

How to do it: Assemble your compost pile and allow it time to heat up. If it’s fresh ingredients, your chickens won’t show much interest. Once it’s warmed up and had time to start to decompose, it will be swarming with life! If you need to protect your pile while it heats up, you can put it in protective bin, temporarily fence it off, or keep it covered. Once the pile warms, your chickens will show great interest in the live biota in the pile. Later, you’ll come back and reassemble the pile. I re-assemble and turn the piles once a week, and within four weeks, I have finished compost!   The Hardin Family The Hardins want to add a liberal 2” of compost to their garden this year. They like to build compost bins with pallets that they get for free at the local furniture manufacturer. They assemble four pallets to make a cube of 4’X4’X4’. These bins will hold 64 cubic feet of compost each. They figure they will need three full compost bins as three bins are nearly 200 cubic feet and that’s what they’ll need to spread a 2″ layer of compost over 1200 square feet. The Hardins decide they’ll assemble one compost pile each week using their stash of leaves and the chicken manure they collected through the winter. They’ll assemble one compost pile per week. The bin protects the compost from getting spread around by the chickens and gives it time to heat up. The next week they turn that pile and notice the chickens get really excited. They are feeding on all the live biota in the pile! The new-found feed is an unexpected bonus! Free chicken food! Now they put the pallets together in another spot and fill it a second time. The chickens help by scratching and turning the pile, which helps it to break down faster. Each evening, the Hardins tidy up the piles and each week, they turn the piles and re-stack them. After doing the math, they realize it’s going to take exactly six weeks to generate enough compost for this job! Here’s how it works: 107

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Pile #1 is assembled week number one and is turned every week. Pile #1 is done week four. Finally, it’s left for the chickens to spread. Pile #2 is built in the same way, and is done by week 5. Finally, Pile #3 is assembled on week #3 and done by week #6. By now, the Hardins are ecstatic because their chickens can till, fertilize and compost all at the same time! Plus, they have the bonus of free chicken feed from all the rich biota in the compost.  

Strategy #6: Spreaders One Chicken Can Level a Large Pile of Leaf Mulch within Two Days. Chickens can level a pile in no time. If I want to spread mulch or compost, I just pile the material where I need it spread and fence in my chickens around it. My flock of 30 can quickly spread a large pile of leaves in half a day, and one cubic yard of compost within two weeks!

How to do it: Confine your chickens around a pile of mulch or compost where you want it spread. Leave them until the work is done! The time it takes to spread the pile will depend on the size, type, and age of material. Older material will have more biota, and the chickens will show more interest. If your chickens aren’t showing interest in a pile you need spread (like fresh wood chip), try spreading their feed on the pile, so they have to scratch for it!   The Hardin Family Now that the chickens have tilled, fertilized and created their compost, our homestead family will have to finish spreading the compost. They’ve taken a lesson from the natural forest and understand that the earth abhors bare ground, so they want to cover it with some leaf mulch. They estimate that their 24 chickens will level a large pile of light mulch like leaves or straw in just one day.

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Mimicking the natural forest’s planting and mulching principles, the Hardins will add about 4” of light leaves–about 400 cubic feet for them. They still have a lot of leaves stored from last year’s delivery from the town. (400 cubic feet is twice the bulk they used for compost, so imagine six pallet bins full of mulch. A pyramid pile equivalent to a bin full would be about a 5’ tall pile.) They take a few hours to assemble six piles, and to their delight the chickens have nearly leveled the mulch by the next day! The Hardins go through and make it look nice and even. Finally, the Hardins move the chickens out for a different job. They proceed to plant their garden by broadcasting some of their desired seeds directly on the mulch. (As in nature, the seeds will find their way to the rich soil below). For other parts of the garden, they want a cleaner look, so they’ve been growing their vegetable starts. For each start, they use a small gardener’s shovel to dig right where they want it. Once planted, they surround it with mulch.

Strategy #7: Insect Control One Chicken Can Debug Up to 120 Square Feet Per Week! Chickens will thrive on all kinds of insects, beetles, and grubs. They’ll snap up pretty much anything that moves above the surface, and they’ll scratch down more than 6 inches in garden mulch for grubs! A couple of years ago, I ran a flock of 15 around the pasture of 1700 square feet. Those birds easily eliminated the bug population in that area within one a weeks time.

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How to do it: There are several options here. Before you plant the garden, you could confine your chickens in a tractor or with an electric net over the area, and then move them out before you plant. You could also free range your birds while protecting your garden and other areas you don’t want them. Keeping chickens just outside of the garden would work to protect the garden from any crawling insects and the chicken manure might attract harmful slugs out of the garden, to the chickens. You could also move the chickens around the garden or property with a tractor or mobile netting depending the size of your operation. Finally, you can allow them supervised time in the garden or give them 30 minutes to an hour before dusk. That way, they’ll have just enough time to get at the bugs, and they won’t have any time left for your goodies!   The Hardin Family The Hardins realize that their chickens have decimated the bug and slug population where they’re going to plant their garden. To prevent any future attack, the Hardins decide they’ll move their flock to an area just outside the garden, using their mobile poultry netting. They plan to move them once a week, so they complete on a loop around the garden in four weeks. Keeping the chickens in one area for just a week keeps them from tearing it up beyond quick recovery. Periodically, the Hardins let the chickens free range the entire property for more extensive pest control.

Strategy #8: Orchard Sanitation One Chicken Can Debug an Entire Fruit Tree Within an Hour, Breaking the Life Cycle of Pests and Disease. Disease and insects plague the typical orchard, but it should come by no surprise that chickens can help in this area too. With some strategic timing, chickens can significantly boost orchard production.

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Two years ago, some of my friends ran their flock through my granny’s abandoned and lowproducing orchard. That next summer, we harvested so many apples, we’re still enjoying the applesauce!

How to do it: Typical fruit trees don’t need a lot of nitrogen so you’ll wanted to limit the birds’ time around them and use some strategically-timed planning. I suggest running the chickens through the orchard during the spring when the adult worms are coming out to lay their eggs. I would move the flock through again in the autumn to eat the fallen fruit that that insects might use as housing throughout the winter.

The Hardin Family After a summer of debugging and fertilizing the entire property, the Hardins move their chickens into their small orchard for a couple of weeks to break up the pest cycle. Chickens eat the fallen fruit that might serve as a winter home for bugs and worms. They let the chicken stay in the orchard for a week the following spring to make sure they get any left over bugs/ worms from the fall. After all their garden crops have been harvested, they run the chickens back to the garden to eat the remaining vegetation and till it in. This time, they throw much of the fall leaves directly on the garden and let the chickens spread them. They set aside the remaining leaves for possible expansion next year. One afternoon Mr. Hardin gets a phone call from the sheriff’s office. The gruff voice on the other end of the phone reports that the Hardins’ tiller has been recovered and that they could come to the station and get it at any time. Without much thought, Mr. Hardin rushed to the station, took pictures and listed it on Craigslist. As soon as he sold it, he put the money into another mobile chicken house and electric net. They are going to double their flock!  

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How to “Herbify” Your Chickens Like Lisa Steele I’ve got some confessions to make.  First of all, I don’t know EVERYTHING there is to know about permaculture or raising chickens naturally (and I will quickly admit, I’m always learning). Secondly, I admit I have favorite topics like creative feeds and working chickens. Lastly, I knew almost nothing about herbal health management in chickens.  This is surprising, since my wife is an herbalist, and our go-to health care is God’s green herbs. Now that the idea of using herbs with chickens has caught my attention, I’m wondering how I missed it.  Probably because in the ten years I’ve been keeping chickens, I’ve had less than a handful of illnesses or deaths.  I’ve always made it a point to select strong breeding lines and practice natural management. After I met Lisa Steele of Fresh Eggs Daily, I couldn’t help but wonder if I could take the health of my flock to another level.  I imagined I could easily improve production and apply natural remedies, if something went wrong.

Lisa Steele of Fresh Eggs Daily Lisa is an accomplished backyard chicken keeper, having years of success managing her natural flock in the beautiful state of Virginia.  She is the author of the highly successful book Fresh Eggs Daily and maintains an extremely popular blog under the same title. Lisa’s “gospel” is exceptionally useful as she specializes in the use of herbs for natural health maintenance and remedies. I’ve made a decision to “herbify” my flock, so in this article I’ll be interviewing her and then applying her tactics to my chickens.

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You’ll learn why herbs are so important and you’ll find out which ones you can use. In addition, I’ll show you how to use them in your chicken house, nest box, run, feed, water, during molting, in the dust bath, and with chicks.

An Interview with Lisa Steele of Fresh Eggs Daily I’ve notice that you’ve been using a lot of herbs in your chicken management and am wondering what I might be missing. The nice thing about raising chickens naturally using herbs is that you can pick and choose what works for you.  You can choose what parts you want to incorporate – you don’t have to do it all; every little bit helps.  There isn’t much scientific study into the use of herbs with poultry, but the health benefits of herbs for humans and various types of animals has been proven, so it stands to reason those benefits translate to chickens as well.

In other words, why use herbs with chickens? Herbs are easy and inexpensive to grow and each provides a different set of health benefits – they range from being antitoxins to natural wormers or antibiotics, some repel insects, others calm or help with respiratory or immune system health. I believe in lots of preventives instead of waiting until something is wrong.  Since chickens are notorious for hiding symptoms of illness, it’s often hard to spot a sick chicken, hard to find a vet even if you do notice something wrong, and then difficult to diagnose or pinpoint the exact problem.  So for me, building strong immune systems in my flock using the herbs is the key, plus the chickens love to eat them.

Why do you think more people aren’t using herbs? When I started reading and researching, I realized there really wasn’t much information out there about using herbs with chickens – at least not all in one place.  It was there if you really dug and did some research, but one reason I wrote my book was to collect all these oldtimers’ methods and advice into one source for chicken keepers. I think people are just starting to realize just how easy (and beneficial) it is. 113

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What has the use of herbs done for the health and production of your flock? I do believe in the power of herbs.  In more than six years, I have not had a single instance of any illness in my flock nor unexplained death.  I have not had any issues with internal worms, external parasites, no pecking issues even (which I believe are often due to a protein deficiency or boredom), no egg-bound hens, not even any ‘weird’ eggs.  My chickens are beautiful with glossy feathers.  Their eggs have nice thick shells.  I attribute all of this to my regular addition of fresh and dried herbs to my chickens’ diet and environment.

How much does it cost in time, money and energy to implement herbs? Oh my goodness, hardly anything.  Many herbs can be started from seeds for just pennies. Many are even perennials (meaning you plant them once, and they come back each year) and others will reseed themselves year after year, or even several times a season.  Herbs aren’t picky about the soil they are planted in; many don’t even need much water.  They are very hardy and can do just fine on their own with lots of sun and occasional rain.  Weeds also have wonderful health benefits, and they’re free.  There are also lots of edible flowers I grow and use in my chicken keeping as well.  I head to my herb/edible flower garden on the way to the coop and just snip off some blooms and leaves into a basket to bring to the coop with me. The chickens eat some, others I toss in the nesting boxes or on the coop floor.  It’s easy and economical.

In what areas of chicken management could I use herbs? I use herbs in nearly every area: feed, water, brooder, nesting boxes, dust bath, coop floor.  The specific herbs I use vary depending on my application, i.e., calming  herbs in the nesting boxes, super healthy disease-busting herbs in the brooder, insect-repelling herbs in the dust bath, nutritious herbs dried in the feed, immune-boosting garlic in the water, cooling mint frozen into ice cubes to beat the summer heat.

What herbs should I start out with? I find all the herbs pretty easy to grow, with mint probably being the easiest!  I would start with those you might also use in cooking, so they do double duty.  Things like dill, basil, parsley, oregano are all good choices to start out with. 114

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What if I only wanted to acquire or grow ten herbs? I think my top ten herbs for chicken keeping would be: 1.

Basil – antibacterial, mucous membrane health

2.

Garlic – laying stimulant, anti-fungal, benefits circulation system

3.

Lavender – stress reliever, increases blood circulation, highly aromatic, insecticide

4.

Marigolds – stress reliever, increases blood circulation, highly aromatic, insecticide

5.

Marjoram –  laying stimulant, anti-inflammatory, decongestant, improves blood circulation, detoxifier

6.

Mint –  insecticide and rodent repellent, antioxidant, aids in respiratory health, digestive aid, lowers body temperature naturally.

7.

Nasturtium –  laying stimulant, antiseptic, antibiotic, insecticide, wormer

8.

Oregano – combats coccidia, salmonella, infectious bronchitis, avian flu, blackhead and e-Coli, strengthens immune system

9.

Parsley – high in vitamins, aids in blood vessel development, laying stimulant

10. Sage – antioxidant, anti-parasitic, general health promoter, thought to combat monella

Sal-

What, if any, beneficial plants/herbs can I grow in the same area as the chickens? Anything you grow inside the run, they will eat, but you can plant lots of things on the outside of the run to keep the roots safe from their scratching.  Rose bushes provide nice shade, and the chickens love to eat the petals that have anti-oxidant properties.  Mint planted around the perimeter can help repel mice.  Any climbing vine will also provide shade and allow them to nibble on the lower leaves and anything that falls, such as peas, squash, cucumbers, grapes.

Thanks, Lisa, for sharing your expertise with us.   115

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Now I’ll take you through the different areas of chicken management and show you where and how you can use certain herbs.  

“Herbify” the Chicken Coop

Herbs of Choice and Their Benefit: Mint is a rodent and insect repellant, it helps with disease prevention and parasite control, and encourages feather growth. Lavender has a calming effect on the chickens, increases blood circulation, and is a highly aromatic insecticide. Oregano is anti-parasitic, anti-fungal, and has antibiotic properties Yarrow serves as an anti-bacterial, an anti-inflammatory, clears sinuses and respiratory systems, is a stress reliever, heals wounds, and is an insecticide.

3 Ways to Use Herbs in the Chicken House: 1) Spread fresh herbs on the floor of their coop. 2) Hang fresh herbs in the coop. 3) Make a coop refresh spray out of Lavender and Mint.

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How to Make A Coop Refresh Spray: 1.

Divide the herbs (Lavender and Mint) into two jars and crush them a bit with your fingers.

2.

Add white vinegar to each jar, completely covering the herbs and leaving 1/4” headroom in each jar.

3.

Set the jars to the side to age for a week or two.  Shake every few days.

4.

When the mixture turns greenish brown, it’s ready to be strained into a spray bottle.

5.

Spray in the Coop as needed

Coop Spray found in Lisa’s book, “Fresh Eggs Daily” by St. Lynn Press 2013.

Other Herbs you can use in the Chickens Housing: •

Bay Leaves

•

Thyme

 

•

Lemon Balm

•

Basil

 

•

Lemon Grass

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Bee Balm

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Pineapple Sage

•

Catnip

•

Rosemary

“Herbify” the Nesting Box

Herbs of Choice and Their Benefits: Lavender is calming, increases blood circulation, is highly aromatic, and serves as an insecticide. Mint is a rodent and insect repellant, prevents disease, works as parasite control, and encourages feather growth. Lemongrass repels flies, mosquitoes, and other flying insects. 117

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How to use Herbs in the Nest Box: Spread the beneficial herbs in the nest boxes and refresh as needed.

“Herbify” the Run

Herbs of Choice and Their Benefits: Lemongrass repels insect pests. Basil repels insect pests, creates orange yolks and is high in protein, serves as an antibacterial, improves mucous membrane health, and is rejuvenating. Dill is an anti-oxidant, is calming, prevents disease, controls parasites, improves respiratory health, is high in protein, repels harmful insects and is an anti-diarrheal. Rosemary repels insects, is a pain reliever, improves respiratory health, and is calming. Mint is a rodent and insect repellant, offers disease prevention, controls parasites, and encourages feather growth.

How to Use Herbs in the Run: Surround the run with beneficial herbs Take advantage of lemongrass, basil, dill, rosemary, and mint by planting them close to the run.

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“Herbify” the Dust Bath

Herbs of Choice and Their Benefits: • Lavender, mint, and rosemary are natural insecticides. • Anise, dill, fennel, ginger, and mint are good disease and parasite preventions. • Dried wormwood keeps lice and mites away. • Dried yarrow is anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory, clears sinuses and respiratory systems, is a stress reliever, heals wounds, and serves as an insecticide. 


How to Use Herbs in the Dust Bath Mix any or all of the dry herbs mentioned above into your dust box.

Not sure how to dry herbs?  Check out this DIY project from Lisa Steele.

How to Dry your herbs like Lisa Steele … Gather Supplies for an Herb Drying Rack: • three wooden picture frames

• small drill bit

• paint (if desired)

• pliers

• window screen

• staple gun

• 8’ of small chain

• scissors

• 20 small eye hooks • drill

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What to do: 1.

Collect three old picture frames.

2.

Paint the frames (if desired) and let dry.

3.

Cut screens to fit the backs of the picture frames (make sure to allow for 1/2” overlap).

4.

Staple screens to the back of the picture frames.

5.

Pre-drill holes and screw-in eye hooks on the top of the four corners of the frames.

6.

Pre-drill and screw-in eye hooks on the bottom of the two bottom frames.

7.

Cut the chain in 8” (13 pieces).

8.

Attach chains to eye hook by bending open chain link around the eye hook.

9.

Attach as single chain at the top to hang the unit.

10. Hang in a dry location. Herbs take two days to two weeks to dry depending on environment and herb. 11. Store in jars or use immediately. Dry rack plans are from Lisa’s book, Fresh Eggs Daily St. Lynnes Press 2013

“Herbify” the Feed

Herbs of Choice and Their Benefits: Garlic repels fleas, ticks and other parasites, controls odor, and is a natural wormer, has overall health benefits, increases feed conversion, supports respiratory health and immune system. Basil and Lemon Balm are insecticides, create orange egg yolks, and are high in protein. Parsley is a laying stimulant, helps blood vessel development and circulation, encourages feather growth, and is high in protein. Oregano is anti-parasitic, anti-fungal, and an antibiotic. 120

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Bee Balm, Dill, Oregano and Thyme help respiratory health. Fennel, Marjoram, Nasturtium, and Parsley are egg laying stimulants. Cilantro, Sage, Spearmint, and Tarragon are great for general health. Alfalfa, Basil and Dandelion Greens create orange egg yolks. Comfrey aids digestion, is an anti-inflammatory, supports bone and artery growth, has vitamin B12, and is high in protein.

3 Ways to Feed Herbs 1.

Cut up herbs and make available free choice as a supplement. Garlic would be especially good here.

2.

Add herbs or any of the other herbs dry or fresh to the daily feed ration.

3.

During their molt use anise, dill, fennel, garlic, mint, and/or parsley to encourage feather regrowth.

 

“Herbify” the Water

Herbs of Choice and Their Benefits: Garlic repels fleas, ticks, and other parasites; controls odor and is a natural wormer; has overall health benefits; increases feed conversion; supports respiratory health and immune system. Basil and Lemon Balm are insecticides, create orange egg yolks and are high in protein Parsley is a laying stimulant, helps blood vessel development and circulation, encourages feather growth, and is high in protein. Oregano prevents disease, is a natural wormer, serves as an antibiotic, and helps with respiratory health.

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Dandelion is an antioxidant and an excellent source of calcium.

2 Ways to use Herbs in Your Water 1.

Brew an herbal tea with basil, lemon balm, parsley, oregano, and/or dandelion (either fresh or dried).

2.

Add smashed garlic cloves to their water and change out every few days.

“Herbify” the Chicks

Herbs of Choice and Their Benefits: Parsley is high in vitamins and helps with blood vessel development and circulation. Bay Leaves are an antiseptic, antioxidant, boost the immune system, and act as an insect repellant. Cilantro is an anti-oxidant, anti-fungal, it builds strong bones, is high in Vitamin A and K. Comfrey aids digestion, is an anti-inflammatory, supports bone and artery growth, contains vitamin B12, and is high in protein. Pineapple Sage aid in nervous system development and is highly aromatic. Nettles, Parsley, Sage, and Spearmint improve overall health. Rosemary, Dill, Parsley and Mint assist feather growth. Basil, Bee Balm, Cinnamon, Clover, Dill, Echinacea, Rosemary, Thyme, and Yarrow are great for respiratory health. Basil, Chervil, Coriander, Dill, Fennel, Marjoram, Parsley, Spearmint and Tarragon are herbs with high protein.

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2 Ways to Use Herbs With Your Chicks 1.

Make an “egg custard” by whisking eggs, minced garlic, dandelion greens, a bit of honey, and some water. Fry and let cool then serve to the chicks.

2.

Add any of the dry or fresh herbs listed above to the chick feed on a regular basis. Chop the herbs to make it a bit easier for them to eat.

“Herbify” Health Remedies I asked Lisa what some of the common chicken ailments are and how they can they be treated with herbs. She gave me the following tips: Chickens are most susceptible to respiratory problems.  You can head those off, or treat an ailing chicken, with basil, bee balm, cinnamon, clover, dill, echinacea, rosemary, thyme or yarrow added to their diet.  Sage is thought to fend off salmonella and oregano has been studied as a natural antibiotic along with thyme. Internal worms can be fought with nasturtium, garlic, pumpkin seeds, wormwood, chamomile and catnip.  As with our health, building a strong immune system is always best.  It’s far easier to prevent illness than to treat it.  Making herbs a regular part of your flock’s diet helps immensely with their health.  

Conclusion ... I’m excited to have discovered the use of herbs with chickens, as they make complete sense from a sustainable and permaculture angle.  Herbs are easy to grow and are extremely powerful for maintaining and improving health and productivity of the flock. Thanks to Lisa Steele of “Fresh Eggs Daily” for this enlightenment.  For a lot more info on this subject and natural backyard chicken keeping, check out her website here.

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The 5 Stages to the 100% Self Sustainable Flock If you’re interested in saving money on chicks, improving the production of your flock, and becoming 100% self-sustainable then I’d love to show you how it’s done in five stages. Several years ago I set my first hen. For those of you that might not know what that means, I put some fertilized eggs under a broody hen in hopes that they would hatch. As day 21 approached, I became doubtful. Surely, I wouldn’t succeed on my first try. With doubts of success abounding, I went and checked for rotten eggs. I reached under the faithful hen and felt a small vibration, then I heard slight chirping. Despite my inexperience, nature found a way. I realized that all we have to do is provide a little management to serve our purposes, and the chickens will do the rest. As I get more serious about reproducing my flock, I’ve tapped the mind of a master in poultry breeding, Jim Adkins of the Sustainable Poultry Network.

Let’s dive into my interview with Jim and the 5 stages to a 100% sustainable flock ...  

Why Breed your own? • You become truly sustainable and you’re not dependent on any outside sources for reproduction. • Shipping chicks in the mail is incredibly stressful for the birds.

Why not hatcheries? •Hatcheries produce for quantity, not quality. 124

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• They do not selectively breed. • Hatcheries don’t rule out aggressive traits.

If I can’t breed my own what should I do? Locate a reputable breeder near you. A Note From Justin: I had great success with the Sustainable Poultry Network as I found an outstanding breeder only 30 minutes away. Another option might be the Livestock Conservancy. If you don’t have any luck finding anything with those organizations, there’s always Craigslist, but be sure to check out breeder’s operation.

How hard is it? Breeding is easy, it’s the selection process that’s hard. We can watch videos, and we can read about it in print, but nothing beats hands-on instructions from someone with experience.  

Thanks Jim, for sharing your expertise with us!  

Stage #1: Selecting Stock for Breeding

What Not to Do When Breeding Your Own (Common Mistakes) Poor record keeping is the number one mistake newbies make. It’s critical to know which birds mated with which birds otherwise you’re just flop breeding. The much better option would be to use selective breeding. There’re two ways to do this: Pen breeding is when you put your best male with three to five females in a separate pen. (No more than 12 per rooster.) Pedigree is another selective breeding option where you use one male and one female to improve on a single trait found in both birds. Flop breeding will decline the quality of your flock.

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How many should I choose for breeding? 10%. If you have a flock of 30, you’ll select your top 3 hens and your top rooster.

What about small flocks (like six birds)? Then use one male to breed all of them, then be more selective the progeny.

What qualities should I look for? Quality #1: Vigor and Vitality are your absolute most important quality. If your birds aren’t well adapted, then they won’t be good producers. To measure vigor and vitality look for birds that are active, eat well, have mating interest, forage well, are protective, but (not too aggressive), healthy, get up early and roost late at night. All of these attributes must be observed and recorded. Quality #2: Production Quality – This is the chickens ability to produce meat and eggs. To measure egg production, you can use frequent observation (with record keeping), incorporate trap nests and do an exam of each bird. Signs of a Good Layer: A good overall appearance – Bright eyes and a wide, deep body. Comb and wattles will be red and full, not sagging. The distance between the protrusion bones – These are located on either side of the abdomen. You can measure them with your hand. Know that the wider the bones, the more likely it is she’ll be a good layer. Expect a width of about three fingers in average-sized breeds.

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The distance between the breastbone and the vent – This can also be measured with your hand and is usually about four fingers wide. The wider, the better.

Skin, beak and legs should lose some of their color (pigment) as these resources go into egg production. Although all birds loose color, it’s much more noticeable in yellow-skinned breeds. The vent should be moist in appearance.

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Measuring for Meat Production: Weigh each bird at eight and sixteen weeks old, consistently through the generations. Look for your quickest and heaviest growers. Hanging scoop scales work great for this purpose.

Quality #3: Standard Quality, which is meeting the standard of your particular breed found in the “American Standard of Perfection”. Abiding by the standard will take you a long way in restoring and maintaining what our chickens were originally bred for. How should I mark flocks and individuals? You can use plastic bands to mark for individuals and toe punches for marking entire flocks.

Stage #2: Managing Breeder Chickens How old should a chicken be before I set her eggs? Wait until she’s laid for a couple of months then you can start setting her eggs. What breeding program do you recommend? There are many breeding programs like the Out and Out Breeding, Flock Sourcing, Flock Mating, Rolling Mating, but if I had to choose just one, it would be Spiral Mating (also called Clan Mating). I should note that this involves line breeding, but a closed flock can have amazing results. Breeding father and daughter chickens is ok, it’s breeding siblings that you want to avoid. For more info on these breeding programs check out this “Back Yard Poultry Mag” article here. A note from Justin: I’m personally going with Spiral Mating. As I only have a flock of 30, I don’t really have enough for three breeding flocks, so I’ll pick my two best roosters and six best hens and set apart two different breeding families.

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Spiral Mating (Clan Mating) Step by Step 1. Select your breeding stock from the top 10% of your entire flock 2. Divide your breeding stock into two, or three (ideal) families. A family can be as small as one rooster and one hen. If you don’t have enough for two families then you can breed everyone and be more selective the next round. I’ve only got enough for two families, so I’m starting there. 3. Mark your families. I like to zip ties that are colored and numbered. Name each family to identify them with your mark. I’ll be calling my two families, the Blue and Green families and I will place the appropriately colored band on each family. 4. Separate your breeding families from the flock and the other breeding families. 5. Mark your chicks according to the family they were born in. You can’t place leg bands on chicks, but you could do a toe punch to identify them as a group. Once their older you can do leg bands. The leg bands come in handy for quick reference and if the leg bands are numbered their great for identifying individuals. 6. Once breeding is over you can return everyone to the main flock or wherever desired. 7. The following season you’ll breed roosters of one family to the hens of the “next” family over. In may case, I’ll breed my blue rooster with my green hens and vice versa. 8. Use your roosters once or twice and then cull.

How do you separate breeders? Simply separate them into another complete system with a house, run, feed, water, etc. How long should I keep breeders together? Keep the breeders together until you’ve gotten the desired amount of fertilized eggs.

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Stage #3: Handling Fertilized Eggs Once your breeding stock is separated from the main flock, you’ll want to give them about ten days together before you start saving eggs for setting, as the roosters fertilization stays viable up to two weeks. As the days pass, any undesired breeding fertilization wears off, and you’ll soon be sure that your selected stock genetics is what will pass on to the eggs. Start collecting fertilized eggs. Keep in mind how many chicks you want to hatch, how many a broody hen can sit on, and how many broody hens you’ll think you’’ll have. If you’re incubating, you don’t have to consider mother hen, but in this article, I’ll be addressing the issue using a mother hen. Save eight eggs per broody hen. For my flock of 30 Australorps, I can expect two to three to go broody. You want to be careful not to place too many under a broody hen as she can only adequately heat what she can cover. You might be tempted to set extra eggs just in case of failure, but that will increase your chances of failure. Since the mama hens constantly move the eggs around underneath her (rotating them from center to the edges), the large number of eggs would all end up being too cool. Only save the cleanest eggs while avoided the large and small extremes. Store your eggs in an egg carton clearly marked for the breeding family. Once you get more than twelve, you can begin rotating out the older eggs and replacing with the newer ones. Store the fertilized eggs at room temperature and don’t wash.

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Stage #4: Managing the Broody Hen Now that you have a consistent flow of desirable fertile eggs, you’ll have to wait for a broody hen. What I mean by a broody hen is a hen that is naturally ready to sit on some eggs. The broody hen will be the one that sits on the eggs until they hatch. Note that it’s not necessary that the breeder hen (biological mother) sit on the eggs. Our broody hen will happily accept anything that hatches underneath her (including other similar species like duck or geese). Unfortunately broodiness has been bred out of many lines as it’s seen as a less-desirable trait for egg production. (She won’t lay eggs while she’s broody.) This is yet another reason to go with old standard breeds like Australorps or Orpingtons who are still naturally broody. Let’s go ahead and set up a broody area for our future mother. Here’s what you’ll need:

Setting up a Broody Station: 1.

Set up an area that offers separation from the rest of the flock (this could be as simple as wire mesh partition).

2.

This can be an area built among your existing operation or in a separate location. I use and old homemade brooder box located in my garage.

3.

Offer at least enough room for the nesting box, a waterer and a feeder (2’X3’X18”)

4.

Add a nesting box with fresh material like straw, shredded paper, or pine shavings

5.

Add fake eggs to the nesting box for when you transfer the broody hen.

6.

Add a small waterer and feeder.

7.

Make sure she has an area to relieve herself. Deep bedding or wire mesh floors will work. If you’re using a wire mesh floor suspended over the ground, make sure it’s off the ground and push the manures through on a regular basis.

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Now that we’re set up, let’s get a broody hen. 
 4 Ways to Encourage Hens to go Broody: 1.

Hopefully, you have a breed that will go broody. Avoiding hatchery birds and strive for traditional breeds like the Black Australorps, New Hampshire or Orpingtons, to name a few. One of my readers reports, “I have had the best luck with Banty hens as far as being broody”.

2.

Leave a fake egg (or several) in the nest at all times. Having something to sit on that resembles an egg could encourage her to go broody.

3.

Make sure your nesting area is “secluded” and dark. The chickens need to feel their nesting area is a “safe” place from predators.

4.

Keep the nesting boxes clean and free of mites or other annoying insects.

Three Ways to Tell if You’ve Got a Broody Hen: 1.

The hen is continually on a nest

2.

The hen puffs up, pecks you or is overly aggravated when you reach towards here or collect eggs from underneath her.

3.

The sure fire way to know is if she stays on the nest through the night and doesn’t perch.

Now that you’re set up for the broody mama, you’ve got your fertilized eggs, and you’ve got a broody hen, it’s time to set her on the eggs.

Setting the Broody Hen 1.

Remove the broody hen at night when she’s tranquil and will be most disoriented from the move.

2.

Place the broody hen in her broody station inside of her nesting box directly on the fake eggs. If she acts like she’s ready to jump, gently hold her down a few seconds. If she 132

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continues to want to jump after you release your hand turn her nesting box around again the wall so that she can’t get out, then turn her around in the morning.

3.

Leave her in the broody station on the fake eggs for a day. If she stops being broody, then it’s not meant to be. If she’s continually broody, then place your fertilized eggs underneath her. I set eight, and wouldn’t suggest any more than that for a beginner. You can set as much as she can adequately cover, so it does vary by breed and size of the individual. (Be careful not to push this thinking; it’s ok if a few don’t hatch.) The mama will equally rotate every egg from the center to the edges. If she’s got too many, chances are they will all be too cool. You can keep her brooder without fertilized eggs for at least a couple of weeks. Believe it or not, she’ll happily sit there until she gets her eggs, plus the three weeks it takes to hatch the eggs.

4.

Mark your calendar 20 days out. Most of the time, they’ll hatch within 21 days, but it can take longer.

5.

Make sure you check her feed and water daily. She won’t eat or drink much and will lose as much as ⅓ of her body weight.

6.

Clean out any poop throughout the process. Don’t be alarmed if her poops are rare, massive, smelly, or diarrhea.

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7.

About ten days in, check the eggs for viability (if desired). Working at night, you can “candle” the eggs to see if there’s life. You’ll pull out the infertile eggs as they are rotting and could crush or even explode, creating a smell and attracting harmful bacteria that could penetrate the other eggs. To “candle,” get a strong flashlight and hold the egg directly on the lamp. If you see veins in the eggs, it’s doing well. If you see a solid lump, it’s no good. If they all seem to be bad, you should leave them be as you might not be candling right.

8.

On day 20 you can do another check for viability. This time holding each egg to your ear and gently flicking it. You’re likely to hear a chirp inside.

9.

Once the 1st chick begins to hatch, it can take up to 3 days for all them to hatch, but I’ve never seen it go longer than 12 hours. The mama will instinctively lay there until they’ve all hatched. If she get up and there are still whole eggs, they’re bad.

10. Resist the temptation to assist a struggling chick trying to get out of its shell. As harsh as this sounds, it’s a very strong indication of weakness and will more than likely remain weak and sickly. 11. Enjoy watching the mama shelter and feed her chicks.   Notes about setting a broody hen ... If you don’t have fertile eggs, but you’ve got broody hens, you can acquire fertile eggs from a local breeder or online. If you don’t have broody hens, but you have fertile eggs, consider buying a few hens known for their broodiness. Silkies would be interesting, and there are always classic homestead breeds like Buff Orpingtons or Black Australorps. If your hen is truly broody and she’s sat for several days, you could place some live chicks directly underneath her. Chances are she will assume she hatched them, and she’ll gladly adopt them. I once set a mama on eight eggs. Seven of them hatched, and one failed. I got a call from my local breeder who had four extra chicks she needed to get rid off. I happily took them and set them under this new mama, and she happily adopted them. I even set them under her a day after the other ones hatched.

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Stage #5: Managing Mama and Chicks I like to move the new mama and chicks out as soon as they’ve all hatched. It’s amazing to watch Mama hunt for food, break it down for the chicks, and periodically shelter them. You can keep them in their broody station if necessary, but you’ll need to make an effort to bring live foods to them since they can’t source it themselves.  You can prep the food by chopping them or enjoy watching Mama hen do it for them. Be sure not to feed adult pre mixes as they contain calcium that will harm the chicks. Take note that the Mama hen won’t need calcium either as she’s not producing any eggs. You can put mama and chicks out to free range (depending on your predator problem). I can’t let the little ones run free as hawks will get them despite Mom’s best efforts. I run my new family in a pastured poultry pen, but you could certainly use any chicken tractor or system with a cover. One year, I ran a new mama and chicks with the main flock and didn’t have any problems with the other flock members. However, the little ones were able to escape the electric net and the mama hen wasn’t. This made them especially vulnerable to predators.  

Conclusion ... Breeding your flock can be tricky at first, but is ultimately very rewarding. In the end, nature does all the work, we’re just facilitating the process to our advantage.  

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How to Humanely Butcher Your Chicken Dinner As my mentor, Steve Meeks placed the old rooster into the killing cone and took out his knife he said something, I’ll never forget.

“Every day something must die so that you can live.” Wow. Is that really true? Mr. Meeks elaborated, “Death isn’t pretty is it? It’s ugly and awful, but every day something dies so that you can live. It may be a chicken, and it may be a head of lettuce or an oak somewhere in the forest, but things die so you can live.” In this chapter, I’ll explain why you’ll want to butcher your own chickens and how to do it.

Why Butcher Your Own Chickens? For those of us wanting to grow our food and show more respect to the animals that provide that for us, we’re going to want to take the butchering process into our hands. Processing our chickens means a much better death for our meat than the factory alternative. Here’s a quick micro documentary about a Purdue factory farmer.  

How to Butcher Your Chickens In this chapter, I’ll show you the tools you need and give you step by step instructions on how to humanely butcher your chickens.

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What You’ll Need You could get the job done with just a knife, a cooking pot, fire and a bit of running water. However, adding some strategic tools and equipment can go a long way to processing your chickens more efficiently. (Note: These are the tools I actually use and truly suggest. You may like to know that some of the links are affiliate links, which means I’ll get a commission if you purchase)

Poultry Transport Cage is used to store the live chickens while you’re processing the others. Catching the chickens and having them available for easy access is essential for a smooth operation. This cage doesn’t have to be anything fancy. I’ve used a mobile pastured poultry pen next to where we’re processing. For smaller numbers, I’ve used an old cage I had laying around the farm. For more convenience, you could opt for a poultry transport cage.

Restraining cones (also known as killing cones) work great for holding the bird in place while killing and they keep them in place if any nerves kick in after the kill and the bird begins to jump. This way you don’t have a “chicken running around with its head cut off”. Furthermore, I believe the action of putting them upside down causes the blood to run to their head, creating a sedating effect. I also believe the “hugged” position of the chickens in the cones serves to calm their nerves. It’s very important to keep the chicken calm before the kill. A stressed out chicken can mean  a loss of glycogen levels which will negatively affect the taste, tenderness, color and keeping quality of the meat. We don’t want all our good husbandry over the life of our chicken to be in vain from some undue stress at the end of her life. For more info behind this theory check out this article. 137

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I’ve made my own restraining cones from used traffic cones mounted to a board. Another time I shaped some sheet metal for the job. I’m uncertain about the sanitation and health properties of the traffic cones and my sheet metal cones were flimsy and I was continually getting cut on them. I’ve finally opted for a stainless steel restraining cone. If you have to forgo the killing cone option you could simply hang the chicken upside down with a string. Another option would be to use an apron to lay the chicken between your legs, head pointed down to do the kill. You can see a video of a very peaceful apron kill here. (Note: These are the tools I actually use and truly suggest. You may like to know that some of the links are affiliate links, which means I’ll get a commission if you purchase)

  Sharp knives are essential. If you only have one, I suggest an all-purpose boning knife about five to six inches. You could add a smaller knife (about a 3” blade) if desired for the smaller cuts. I use a single 5” knife that’s isn’t for sale anymore and my 3” blade was custom made from a friend. If I were to replace them I’d buy something like this: 6” multipurpose, deboning knife by Victorinox. Here’s a nice 3” knife by Victorinox. Here’s an 8” knife I use when cutting the chicken into pieces. To learn how to sharpen your knives I like this instructional video by master bladesmith Bob Kramer. For sharpening, I use Smith’s 6” Tri-Hone sharpening system that a friend gave me. For just under $30 it will do. One of the sharpening stones came unglued after just two uses, so when I have to replace it I might go with something like this.   138

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A honing steel is a rod of steel used to re-align your knives edges. The steel should be used regularly to maintain the knife’s edge. I use the round steel by Victorinox For a video on how to use a honing steel checkout master bladesmith Bob Kramers video here.   Pruning shears are used for cutting the head off (if you don’t want to pull it off) and cutting the neck off if you don’t want to keep the neck attached. I like the high-quality Felco F-2 Class hand pruners.   A Waterproof Apron for keeping your body dry. I got tired of getting soaked with chicken gut infested water so I bought the bullet and got a water proof apron.   Waterproof Boots for keeping your feet dry. I’ve been using an inexpensive set from Servas for years, but go through about two a year. I’d be interested to see if I spend more money I might get a longer lasting boot. I’ve heard some good things about Muck Boots from fellow permaculturists so maybe I’ll try a pair of those next. Muck even has a one year warranty! (Note: These are the tools I actually use and truly suggest. You may like to know that some of the links are affiliate links, which means I’ll get a commission if you purchase.)

  Buckets are a classic essential on the farm, and they’re a critical element in this operation. Here are all the ways you can use buckets for the slaughter: •

Catch drainage from the sink

•

Catch blood underneath the restraining cones

•

Hold internal guts and other parts you aren’t keeping

•

Catch or store feathers

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You might be able to acquire used buckets from a Grocery Store or Craigslist. You can certainly buy them at a farm, garden or food supply store, or online.   A Scalder is another necessity that could be as simple as a large cooking pot over an outdoor fire. While working at an orphanage in Honduras, I processed 600 chickens a day using one large pot over a fire. To make life easier, you could use an outdoor gas cooking stove for a bit more control. I used this one for years. An outdoor turkey fryer has one burner and would work great for scalding. To make life the easiest, use an electric scalder. I use this one from Dux Industries and love it. The main advantage to this scalder is that you can set your desired temperature, and it will automatically maintain that temperature. With pots over fires and gas stoves, you have to maintain manually the temperature throughout the process. Temperature controlled scalders can remove all that stress and labor. You can make it more efficient by adding a styrofoam layer on the outside of the box for insulation and certainly use some kind of lid while it’s getting warm. Give the water a boost by adding warm water initially so it doesn’t have as much cold water to heat. If the scalding water has to start from cold water, it could take hours to heat up so plan accordingly. If you’re a bigger operation (processing 50 or more chickens at a time) you might consider a commercial grade scalder from Featherman or something similar. Featherman even has an automatic dunker and can do multiple chickens at a time. (Note: These are the tools I actually use and truly suggest. You may like to know that some of the links are affiliate links, which means I’ll get a commission if you purchase)

  Liquid soap is useful in your scalding water and will go a long way to easing the tension between skin and feathers, making the feathers come out easier. I just pour a bit of Shaklee Basic H, but any eco-friendly soap will do. 140

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A thermometer is useful for monitoring your scalding water temperature. Even if you’re using an electric scalder with an automatic setting, you’ll want to monitor the progress of the warm up and double check your temperatures throughout the process. Here’s the one I use.   A scalding poker is some sort of poking tool to move your chicken around while in the scalder. If you’re saving the feet (for chicken broth), you don’t want to scald the chicken by holding the feet because the feet will need a fair share of time in the scalding water. I use a hand held 3 pronged cultivator like this one. Here’s one similar to the one I have.   Extension Cords to connect to your power source (if needed). Here is an assortment of heavy duty cords.   Power Strip to connect electric scalder and plucker. Pick one up almost anywhere or browse Amazon for one.   A Machine Plucker for plucking can make plucking a breeze. A plucker is optional, and not necessary if you’re only doing small amounts of birds or if you’re willing to pluck by hand. It takes me about ten minutes to pluck one bird by hand, but I can pluck a chicken in my machine plucker in about 30 seconds. Our intern, Desire’ can remember when her family of four would pluck their years supply of chicken in a single day (50 chickens total). For those who need a plucker, here are some ideas:  

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Plucker option #1 – Drill Plucker This will pluck one chicken at a time and would be somewhat of an upgrade if you’re doing it by hand. A friend brought one of these to one of our slaughters, but we had difficulty rigging the drill to stay in place and to run without holding down the trigger. In addition, I don’t think we had a strong enough drill and it was just easier to pluck by hand. However, after searching the web, I believe there’re some better options out there. I almost bought this one just to showcase this, but I already have a heavy duty picker so I saved the money. Video of this plucker here.   Plucker option #2 – Drum Style Plucker This will pluck one chicken at a time in about 30 seconds. I’ve pulled mine out for as little as just one bird and as many as 50. I personally use this plucker and believe it’s a great choice for the homestead level. I got mine from Strombergs Chickens here.   Plucker option #3 – Commercial Plucker (50 or more chickens) These will pluck 3 or more chickens at a time which can save you considerable amounts of time if you’re plucking great quantities of birds. These are the kind of pluckers Joel Salatin uses to process 100’s of chickens a day. Featherman seems to make some good ones. You can find those here. I rented one early on and found it quickly and easily plucked several chickens at a time, however I found it to be too large for my operation since I was never doing any more than 50 at a time.

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Speaking of rentals. It may be worth it for you to rent this equipment (if it’s available in your area). Look on Craigslist or call local farmers to see if they’ll let you rent their stuff. If needed, go in on the rental with some friends who need some chickens butchered as well. I rarely butcher alone, as it’s much more fun and efficient for someone to bring their birds and we all pitch in to get everyone’s chickens processed.

(Note: These are the tools I actually use and truly suggest. You may like to know that some of the links are affiliate links, which means I’ll get a commission if you purchase)

  A Large cooking pot filled with cold water is useful for dipping the chicken in cold water to quickly cool the bird after the scald, therefore preventing it from scalding any further. A cooling pot isn’t totally necessary, but will give you more control and doesn’t take that much effort. You probably already have one of these, but if not, something like this would work great.   A Sink and a Processing Table of some sort are a must. For small operations you could use your kitchen sink, but most prefer a designated sink for processing in any case. I picked up a double sink with a counter area at my local metal scrap yard for about $20. I bought a spray head kitchen faucet and added it to the sink, but you could use hoses with a garden sprayer. I use drinking water safe hoses since I’ll be spraying my own food. If your not interested in building your own sink and table, you could opt for a pre-made mobile butchering table like this. Or something a bit more elaborate and designed for two people like this.  

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Hand soap and towels are great at the sink to wash up if you need to take a break.   Stainless steel bowl(s) filled with some cold ice water are great for separating and storing things like necks, organs and feet. Choose one that fits your needs.   Cooler(s) filled with ice water quickly chill the finished chickens after they’re butchered. This isn’t necessary if you’re only processing a few birds, but if you’re going to be out for a while, store your chickens in cool water. Any home cooler will do, but if you need something larger and dedicated for butchering, consider a heavy duty one like these.   Transport Tray(s) are good for transporting the chickens from the cooler if need be. I use stainless steel trays to transport birds inside to my wife Rebekah, who’s dries them off and preps them for the fridge. We process more chickens than would fit in the cooler, so I make a few trips inside. Someone gave us ours, but this one is just like ours.   Dry Rack or Towels for drying the chicken before bagging for storage.

(Note: These are the tools I actually use and truly suggest. You may like to know that some of the links are affiliate links, which means I’ll get a commission if you purchase)

  Vacuum sealer for getting excess air out of the storage bags to prevent frosting while in the freezer. We picked up your everyday vacuum sealer at Target. Here’s our vacuum sealer on Amazon.  

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Bags for storing the birds. I use the specific vacuum sealer bags (1 gallon or rolls) that go with my vacuum sealer.   Food Scale for weighing the finished birds if you like. I just use a small packaging scale, but any food scale should do. We alway mark them by weight with a sharpie so we can plan our cooking.   Now that we’ve got all our supplies, let’s prepare to butcher.  

Preparing for Butchering One week before: Go over your checklist and order or pickup any supplies you might need before butchering day.   One day before or early the day of butchering: • Designate an area for processing that’s shady, has access to electricity and running ter.

wa-

• Set up your processing area the day before or early morning the day of slaughter. • Sharpen knives.   12 Hours Before: Withhold feed to make sure their crop is empty. This is not a necessity but makes it easier and cleaner when processing. I just separate the chickens I’m going to butcher into a cage or a pastured poultry pen (depending on how many I’m processing) before I feed the morning of the butchering (since the chickens don’t have feed at night). 145

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2-4 Hours Before: Get your scalder going in plenty of time to get to your desired temperature. It can take several hours for an electric model or a fire to heat water up to 145 degrees, so plan accordingly.  

**********WARNING!!!!********** The following section includes graphic descriptions of a real chicken butchering intended for human consumption.  

Butchering, Step by Step:   Step #1 – Place the chicken in the restraining cone and gently pull her head through the bottom.

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Step #2 – Hold the head with your subordinate hand and quickly, slice into the side of the neck as close as you can get towards the cheek bone (this optimizes the amount of neck you can save). Be sure to slice hard enough to get through the skin and into the blood veins but not too hard as to begin cutting into the neck and/or windpipe. Once you’ve cut the major artery they will lose consciousness and will feel no more pain. The chickens nerves might kick in and they will begin to jump, but rest assured they are unconscious or even dead and don’t feel a thing.

Step #3 – Quickly slice the other side of the neck to encourage a quick bleed. Have you noticed purple, red and black spots inside of chicken meat from the grocery store? This is because they were most likely electronically stunned before they were allowed to bleed. Stunning will cause the heart to stop, therefore not allowing all the blood to get out of the meat.

Step #4 – Bend the Chicken’s head to encourage bleeding and hold her head steady, if her nerves cause her to shake. If there’s lots of blood coming out, you’ve made a successful kill, if not, you’ll need to quickly slice again until sufficient blood flows. She’ll bleed a lot initially but will slow significantly after the first few seconds and will trickle to 3 minutes.

Step #5 – Place your chicken in scalding water. Notice I didn’t say boiling water. I like a temperature of about 145 degrees. 147

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Step #6 – Thoroughly and evenly scaled by moving the chicken around with some sort of poking device. At 145 degrees it takes 30 seconds to a minute. You can test the bird during the scald by pealing at her feet and/or her wings. If her feet easily peel and the wing feathers easily come out, the scald is good. If you don’t scald long enough, it will be more difficult to pluck. If you scald for too long your chickens skin will begin to cook and might begin to peel and be discolored (yellowish).

Step #7 – Dip the scalding chicken into a pot of cool water to stop the “cooking” process.

Step #8 – Pluck the chicken by hand or speed up the work significantly with a machine (up to 10X faster).

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Step #9 – Pick off any excess hair or feathers.

Step #10 – Pull the skin off of the feet.

Step #11 – Remove the toe nails by bending and pulling against the curve.

Step #12 – Cut off the leg by cutting between the joints. Lifting the chicken can help reveal the joint.

Step #13 – Pull or cut off the head with your shears.

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Step #14 – If you’re going to save the head for cooking, rub the coating off the comb and wattles and pinch the beak to pull off the cuticle.

Step #15 – Singe if desired. You’ll notice small hairs are likely to remain on the carcass. You can remove them if you like by hand or with a singe torch. However, there’s no harm in keeping them. I manually pull out any major patches, but other than that I don’t really worry about it. Step #16 – Cut the skin around the base of the neck to reveal the crop.

Step #17 – Peel the crop downward off of the breast bone.

Step #18 – Put your thumb through the neck between the neck, crop, esophagus and windpipe.

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Step #19 – Pull the the crop and skin off.

Step #20 – Cut the tubes close to the body.

Step #21 – Cut the neck with your shears angled down from the body so there’s no bones to pierce future storage bags.

Step #22 – Cut the oil gland off by slicing down and out.

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Step #23 – Make a small slit through the abdomen skin as close as possible to the vent so not to cut any entrails. Accidentally cutting the entrails could mean cutting into the intestines and spilling out the bacterial ridden material.

Step #24 – Open the carcass using both hands.

Step #25 – Reach in, scraping against the rib cages with your finger nails, loosening the entrails from the body. Some folks may prefer to use latex gloves for this.

Step #26 – Hook the esophagus in your finger or just grab behind the entrails and pull them out altogether. Step #27 – Rest the chicken on the sink counter while hanging the entrails into the sink. With the help of gravity cut off the heart and liver. I sacrifice some of the liver so not to cut the bile duct. If you cut the bile duct, it’s no disaster, just quickly rinse the bird.

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Step #28 – Put your heart and liver  in your stainless steel bowl of cold ice water if you’re saving them. Step #29 – Cut away the gizzard.

If you’re saving the gizzard cut it open long ways from one end and remove the insides along with the yellow lining, rinse and set aside.

Step #30 – Save the testicles from males, for consumption, if desired.

Step #31 – Cut away the entrails, cutting as close as you can to the vent in order to save as much fat as possible.

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Step #32 – Pull the lungs out. This can be a bit tricky and is hard to explain. Reach in and dig into the rib cage scraping the lung with your fingernails to pry them out.

Step #33 – Rinse your bird and place it in the cooler.  You can leave your bird whole or go ahead and cut it into pieces. If you want to cut it up, here’s one way to do it.  

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Cutting the Bird Into Pieces 1.

If you want to go ahead and part your bird, here’s how to do it quick and easy:

2.

Cut the wings by turning the bird on its side pulling the wing away from the body. Pull on the wing while you cut a half circle around the wing. The wing should start to separate as you pull and cut and you’ll easily see where you can cut below the bone to remove the wing. I try and cut as close as I can to the wing as I’d rather have the extra meat on the breast, not the wing.

3.

Cut the skin between the legs and the body by laying the chicken on it’s back and cutting as close as possible along the leg. Cutting close to the leg assures maximum skin coverage for the breast. I prefer to sacrifice a little skin on the leg as opposed to the breast.

4.

Take both legs, with the chicken  to reveal the area between the joints for your next cut.

5.

Separate leg from thigh by cutting through the fat line.

6.

Remove the back by cutting down the fat line then bending and pulling to break and remove.

7.

Turn the breast over, revealing the bone. Score the bone at the center.

8.

Pop out the keel bone by bending the breast upward and prying it out.

9.

Cut the breast in half

 

Storing Your Chicken 1.

Dry off your chicken with towels.

2.

Place in storage bag and vacuum seal.

3.

Weigh and label.

4.

Place in fridge for three days to tenderize the meat then stick it in the freezer for long term storage.

 

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Cleaning Up Now that you’re finished butchering, I should mention how to get rid of all the un-wanted goods. Feed the feathers to the chickens or compost them; feathers are full of protein and what they don’t eat will decompose adding to your deep litter coop or run. Compost the entrails, blood (if you’re not consuming it) and any other unused parts by burying them deep inside of a compost pile. You must put them in deep (at least 3 feet) or unwanted animals will dig out your pile. Another option would be to dump the excess at the edge of your property to feed your predator population, helping to keep their hunger satisfied on something other than your live chickens.    

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Making Chicken Dinner Ah.. the moment we’ve all been waiting for. It’s time to make our dinner. I’m telling you from experience that there’s few joys greater than sitting down at a table with friends or family to enjoy a meal from your own land. There are all kinds of ways to cook this chicken, but my families weekly “go to” is a simple bake.

Simple Baked Chicken 1.

Rinse the chicken.

2.

Spread two to four tablespoons of butter on the bird to keep moist during the bake.

3.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

4.

Bake at 350 degrees for one and half hours.

5.

We cook a couple of seasonal veggies and voila we’ve got a quick, easy and healthy dinner.

This is what it’s all about folks!

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How to Prepare Delicious Chicken and Eggs: My Families Story of 25 meals in 7 days My family ate chicken (or eggs) at every single meal for seven days! Why? Not everyone knows how to cook delicious meals from their own chicken and eggs. We wanted to showcase a wide array of delicious dishes in a short amount of time. In this chapter I share some of our personal recipes and fantastic finds from our favorite “foodies” like Food Renegade, Nourished Kitchen, the Prairie Homestead and Deliciously Organic. Cooking is the end to a very happy story. Some of the best moments of my life occurred when I sat down with my family to a plate of delicious food that I grew. That food has a happy story. Now, I get to take part in the triumphal ending. Let’s Eat!

 Prep Day: Tuesday  (Before Getting Started) Chicken Broth by “The Prairie Homestead” – Rebekah made 2 gallons of chicken broth to use in this week’s recipes. There are a lot of broth recipes out there, but I’d like to point you to my friend Jill at The Prairie Homestead. Not only does she feature a delicious broth, she includes some amazing info on how to preserve it through canning! 158

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“Creamy Tomato Basil Chicken” by my wife Rebekah, who I’ll affectionately refer to as “The Beautiful One.” Difficulty: Easy Comments: This deliciously creamy dish is an inspiration from my wife’s childhood love for the “Penne Pasta” option at C.R. Chicks in South Florida. I must say, her homemade version slightly tops the traditional dish at her old favorite.

Creamy Tomato Basil Chicken Ingredients: • onion, diced

Instructions:

• garlic, minced

1.

cook and drain pasta

• butter

2.

dice onion and mince garlic

• roasted cherry tomatoes

3.

add butter to pan and melt

• salt and pepper to taste

4.

sauté onion and garlic

• chicken, cooked and shredded

5.

when they have softened, add tomatoes

• pasta, cooked and drained

6.

add chicken and let simmer

• heavy cream

7.

add cream and stir

• basil

8.

add basil

• parmesan cheese

9.

serve over pasta

By Rebekah Rhodes Adapted from CR Chicks

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Caesar Dressing by “Food Renegade” Difficulty: Easy Comments: Quality olive oil is essential, as it’s the base for this recipe. We found that the flavor improved after being refrigerated. This salad dressing would be great for those who like a nutritionally-packed, oil-based salad dressing.

Day #1: Wednesday Breakfast Baked Bell Pepper Basket by “Food Renegade” Difficulty: Easy Comments: This made for a simple, easy, and creative breakfast.  Make sure to use large peppers and if needed, dam the peppers with your bacon. If you like hard-cooked eggs, just simply keep it cooking until you’ve got your desired texture.

Lunch Paleo BBQ Chicken Pizza. Crust by Deliciously Organic (affiliate link) Difficulty: Moderate, because of the paleo pizza crust. You could certainly cook a traditional crust, if desired. Comments: This pizza crust is a weekly tradition in our household. We usually top it with bacon, sausage, and fresh seasonal vegetables.  We will try this variation again.

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BBQ Chicken Pizza Ingredients: • pizza crust

Instructions:

• dark bbq sauce

1.

Spread your bbq sauce on your pizza crust.

2.

Spread mozzarella sauce over sauce.

3.

Sprinkle chicken, onions and basil.

4.

Bake according to pizza crust instructions

• mozzarella cheese • shredded chicken • red onion, sliced • basil, chopped By Rebekah Rhodes

Dinner Cheesy Bacon Chicken by “The Beautiful One” Difficulty: Easy Comments: This simple recipe packs a lot of flavor. This protein-packed dish would be an incredible choice to impress your meat-loving family or guests. Cheesy Bacon Chicken Ingredients: • chicken breasts

Instructions:

• bacon

1.

cut the chicken breast in half, lengthwise

• salt and pepper

2.

fry bacon

• colby cheese, sliced

3.

sprinkle salt and pepper on chicken breast

• monteray jack cheese, sliced

4.

grill the chicken

5.

place the cooked bacon on top of chicken

6.

place sliced cheese on top of bacon, let cheese melt

By Rebekah Rhodes Adapted from Outback Steakhouse 161

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Dessert Simple Chocolate Custard by “Nourished Kitchen” Difficulty: Very Easy Comments: Smooth, rich, but not overly sweet. This cold and refreshing dessert is one of my personal favorites.

Day #2: Thursday Breakfast Chinese Tomato and Eggs by “Food Renegade” Difficulty: Very easy Comments: This is a savory dish that makes an excellent use of tomatoes. The sesame oil creates a unique flavor that is key. We all loved the tomatoes, onions, and eggs together as it created a nice mixture of flavors.  This will be a recipe we use again!

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Lunch Chipotle Chile, Black Bean and Chicken Soup by “Nourished Kitchen” Difficulty: Very easy Comments: This “light” dish was surprisingly filling and had unique flavor.

Dinner Frittata by “Nourished Kitchen” Difficulty: Easy Comments: We based our recipe on this one.  It is not the same exact one.  Lots of possibilities and variety. A great way to enjoy eggs. This frittata recipe serves as an excellent base for vegetables or meat. If you’ve never heard of a frittata,it’s like a quick quiche. For anyone counting carbs, the crustless feature will be a nice bonus.

Dessert Vanilla Bean and Fresh Mint Ice Cream by “Nourished Kitchen” Difficulty: Easy Comments: The fresh, wild mint I harvested from the land made for a refreshing take on a classic dessert. This honey-sweetened treat is farm-friendly and guilt free.  

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Day #3: Friday Breakfast Bacon and Eggs by Yours Truly Difficulty: Easy Comments: As you might have guessed from our Kickstarter trailer (LINK TO THIS HERE) we love us some bacon and eggs. In fact, we eat it almost every morning. This dish has become our everyday staple for its taste, nutrition, and farm availability. Our taste buds explode with joy as we eat, and it never gets old.

Bacon and Eggs Ingredients: • 2 slices of bacon

Instructions:

• 4 Tablespoons unsalted butter

1.

Preheat cast iron skillet on medium heat.

2.

Place butter in skillet and melt.

3.

Put the bacon in a skillet and let cook.

4.

Cut bacon into pieces after it’s nearly cooked and stir.

5.

Whisk eggs and salt together

• 10 eggs • ½ teaspoon Salt • Pepper to taste • Fresh vegetables (optional)

By Justin Rhodes

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Lunch Indian Chicken Curry by our friend Arun Kumar Difficulty: Easy Comments: This is a classic Indian dish by our dear friend Arun. The Indian flavor and spices are always a welcome change to our taste buds.

Chicken Curry Ingredients: • 2 lbs chicken

Instructions:

• 1 large onion diced

1.

Fry onion first in oil 5-6 mins

• 3-4 cloves garlic

2.

Add ginger/garlic paste

• 1" piece of ginger (Make paste with the garlic and ginger OR buy the paste if you can find it)

3.

Add all spices and fry for at least 10 mins. (Add little bit of water if it gets dry.)

• 3 med roma tomatoes, diced

4.

Add tomatoes, cook until tomatoes are cooked down

5.

Add chicken

6.

Cook for 15-20 mins

7.

Add little water to make sauce and keep stirring

8.

May add a little salt at the end since you'll be adding water.

9.

Add chopped cilantro at the end.

• Chili powder to taste • Salt to taste • 1 tsp turmeric • 1 TBSP garam masala • 1 TBSP coriander powder • 1 bunch of cilantro (add as much or less as you want)

By Arun Kumar Notes: Serve over rice and with raita.

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Dinner Tarragon Chicken by “The Beautiful One” Difficulty: Easy Comments: A savory and memorable meal. This tasty dish would be great for a slightly special occasion or for when you have guests. Creamy Tarragon Chicken Ingredients:

• For Gravy

• 1 whole chicken

• 2 cups chicken broth

• butter

• 3/4 c. heavy cream

• salt and pepper

• 2 heaping TBSP corn starch

• fresh tarragon

• fresh tarragon

Instructions: 1.

set oven to 350 degrees

2.

rinse chicken

3.

place in dutch oven

4.

smear softened butter on the outer skin

5.

sprinkle salt and pepper to taste

6.

sprinkle fresh tarragon over top

7.

place lid on dutch oven

8.

roast in oven for 1 hour

9.

take off lid and let chicken brown until fully cooked (another 30 min depending on bird size)

10. lift bird out of dutch oven (let it rest covered on a cutting board) 11. Gravy 12. bring drippings to a simmer 13. add chicken stock and bring to a simmer 14. combine corn starch and cream, stirring well 15. add to drippings/stock, stirring 16. bring to a simmer 17. add tarragon 18. when thickened it is ready to serve

By Rebekah Rhodes Adapted from Stephanie

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Day #4: Saturday Breakfast Stinging Nettle and Cheddar Omelet by “Nourished Kitchen” Difficulty: Moderate on the account of the stinging nettle harvest. Comments: We loved the seasonal (and perhaps rare) addition of the nettles. Surprisingly tasty. Can’t wait for nettle season. Use caution during harvest!

Lunch Egg Drop Soup by “Food Renegade” Difficulty: Easy Comments: “Ah, that was good,” was the consensus as we recalled this meal. This simple soup was nice and creamy. This soup is something we are familiar with from Japanese restaurants, but it never crossed our mind to make it at home. I think we’ll be adding this into our every-other-week menu. If you store broth, this can be a quick dinner solution.

Dinner Cheater’s Enchiladas by “Organic Momma” Difficulty: Easy Comments: This is our absolute favorite way to eat an old bird. It’s “cheater’s” because you don’t have to make an enchilada sauce, but simply use sour cream and salsa. The Beautiful One cheated my layering this in a casserole dish rather than the traditional way.  All the flavors melt together nicely and create a fork full of great tastes.

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Dessert Coconut Macaroons by cravebytaylor.com  Difficulty: Easy Comments: My wife calls this sweet and puffy delight, “Coconut Manna from Heaven.” She could eat it three or four times a week. The chocolate added to this chewy dessert enhanced the sweetness and flavor. We opted to dunk the bottoms in chocolate as opposed to drizzling. Next time, I think we’ll experiment with dunking the entire thing.

Day #5: Sunday Breakfast French Toast by “Nourished Kitchen” Difficulty: Easy Comments: We’re suckers for this easy (and delicious) way to make an ordinary meal into something special. Peeled Eggs by “The Prairie Homestead” Difficulty: Easy Comments: For those of you who’ve had trouble peeling baked or hard boiled eggs. Steaming fresh eggs for peeling is an incredible solution for a quick and easy experience.   Lunch Tom Kha Gai by “Food Renegade” Difficulty: Very easy Comments: This dish has a slight pinch of sourness, but maintains an overall sweet and creamy taste. We loved the fresh cilantro and onion as it complimented this flavorful soup nicely.

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Dinner Leftovers started piling up by this point, so we took a break from cooking and dug in.  

Day #6: Monday Breakfast Fried Eggs in Bell Pepper Rings by “Food Renegade” Difficulty: Easy Comments: Normally our kids aren’t huge fans of cooked peppers, but they loved this! I think it was because the peppers cooked slightly and didn’t get to that “soggy” stage.

Lunch and Dinner In an effort not to waste, we cleaned up all our leftovers throughout lunch and dinner.  

Day #7: Tuesday Breakfast Sprouted Blue Corn, Buckwheat and Blueberry Muffins by “Nourished Kitchen” Difficulty: Easy Comments: For those of you who eat gluten-free and love the taste of cornmeal, these are great for you. This slightly sweet muffin will leave you feeling full and well-fed.

Lunch Chicken Salad by the “The Beautiful One” 169

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Difficulty: Easy Comments: Great for a cold main dish. Awesome alone or between bread (or lettuce).

Chicken Salad Ingredients:

• salt to taste

• chicken, cooked and shredded

Instructions:

• sun dried tomatoes, rehydrated and chopped

1.

Combine chicken, sun dried tomatoes, cheese, basil, bacon mayo and salt.

• havarti cheese, shredded

2.

Mix thoroughly.

• basil, chopped • bacon, cooked and crumbled • homemade mayo By Rebekah Adapted from Suzan

Dinner Chicken and Gluten Free Dumplings by “Nourished Kitchen” Difficulty: Moderate because you have to remember to soak your flour. We’re gluten free for personal health reasons but found this comparable to flour. Comments: Growing up in rural western NC means I’ve had a lot of chicken and dumplings. I can fondly remember my Granny making good use of old Chickens (and Guineas) through the slow cooking process of chicken and dumplings. Since we’ve been gluten free, this is a “soul” food I’ve truly missed. Now that we’ve discovered this gluten free recipe, we have a memory filled food option for the aging flock.   

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Ready for some Beef and Pork! After 25 chicken (or egg) meals in seven days we welcomed some beef and pork. Looking back on the experience, we’re glad we went through with it. We discovered so many delicious dishes in such a short amount of time. 

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Appendices

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Permaculture Design Elements

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Getting Started with Chickens Checklist

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General Checklist: ▢ Housing (1 square foot per chicken if they have access to the outdoors; 3 square feet per chicken if they don’t.) ▢ Feeder (enough to hold up ¼ to ⅓ pound of feed a day, per chicken) ▢ Feed pans (for grit, calcium, herb, liquid feeds, food scraps etc…) ▢ Feed (¼ to ⅓ pound of feed per day, per adult chicken) ▢ Waterer (enough to hold 1 quart per 4 chickens) ▢ Dust Box (approximately 2 cubic feet) ▢ Fencing (I like electric netting. Get enough for at least 3 square feet per chicken) ▢ Grit (small rocks to help them break down their food) ▢ Crushed Egg shells or oyster shells (supplies their need for calcium) ▢ Brooder (see checklist below) ▢ Nesting material (shredded paper, straw, wood shavings etc…) ▢ Deep bedding (8” in your permanent housing and yard. You won’t need deep bedding if you rotate your flock. Carbon material like leaves, straw, wood chips etc… work great for this) ▢ Bristle brushes (cleaning feeders, waterers etc…) ▢ Chickens (4-6 pounds of meat per chicken at 8-16 weeks. Figure about 4 eggs per week)

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Brooder Checklist: ▢ Brooder box (3 square feet per 12 chicks for 3 weeks) ▢ Small waterer ▢ Small feeder ▢ Heat lamp ▢ 250 watt heat light bulb (for daytime use) ▢ Cardboard box (to cover the chicks at night for warmth) ▢ Commercial chick starter feed ▢ Live foods (Add fresh live food like grass, weeds, food scraps daily ▢ Small grit ▢ Natural boost (day 1 mix ½ gallon to 2 tablespoons Apple Cider Vinegar, ½ cup of honey and 2 cloves of crushed garlic cloves) ▢ Pine Shavings (at least 8” for bedding) ▢ Feeder/Waterer “mess catch” (cardboard, board or ½” framed wire mesh over a feed pan under the feeder/waterer to catch manure and shavings)

Sourcing the Supplies

Online at Amazon.com Local Tractor Supply or similar Used on Craigslist.com

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Notes:

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Creative Feed Worksheet

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Soil Building Plants/Herbs

How to grow Comfrey: Acquire the root or crown cuttings. I buy my comfrey from a fellow permaculturalist, Coe’s Comfrey. Coe’s suggests you plant Comfrey in “‘fertile holes” to get established and it will thrive through the hottest summer or coldest winter. Comfrey needs three foot spacing for proper root development and the highest yields. Strong, mature plants on a three foot grid will have the larger outside leaves touching the adjacent plants after four to five weeks growth. Harvest the plant up to eight times a year by cutting down to two inches from the ground.

How to grow Stinging Nettles: Chances are you already have it. In that case, find it and transplant it to where you want it. Collect the mature seed heads and drop them anywhere you want nettles to grow. If you don’t already have the plant, you can easily buy the seeds. As you can see, comfrey and nettle are two great resources for the homestead. Be sure to stay on top of your management to keep them at bay. Even if you don’t need all of it’s natural bounty during the growing season for feed, you could certainly use it in the compost pile, or even cut it and dry it out for hay!

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Animal Carcasses

Feed direct You must cut the carcass open with a hatchet or something similar so the chickens can easily access the insides. You may consider removing the carcass after a day or so to prevent disease.

Bucket Maggots You’ll get more protein for your “bucket” if you don’t feed your carcass directly to your chickens, but rather feed your chickens the maggots that develop from the carcass! The flies will utilize much more of the carcass than the chickens. Drill dozens of ⅜ inch holes in a food grade bucket and suspend it in the air where your chickens will have access to it. The flies will do their thing and pretty soon maggots will be in search of some ground. As a result they will crawl out of the holes and drop right into your chicken run.

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Cover Crops

Cover crops to overwinter your garden: Plant cereal rye before your first frost date. This will will “die” back over the winter and come back in the spring. In the spring, graze your chickens over the patch with a mobile coop and electric net or cut and carry to your flock.

Cover crops in the spring before you plant a garden bed: Try planting yellow mustard, red clover, grain grasses, crucifers, alfalfa, and/or cold-hardy peas. A couple of weeks before you need the bed, allow the chickens in to eat, till, spread, and fertilize. Once they’re done, plant your seeds. If your chickens didn’t have time to complete the job, just finish it by hand by loosening the soil with a broadfork and pulling up the cover crop and laying it down in place as a mulch.

Cover crops in the garden between crops, during the growing season: Use a fast growing cover crop like Buckwheat as it can mature within 6 weeks. Once you need it tilled in, bring on the chickens!

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Cover crops for the plot after harvesting the main crop: Instead of the traditional cover crops, try edible cover crops like fall crucifers, mustards, raab, kale, rape, and turnips. Harvest the crops throughout the fall and early winter for you and the chickens, or allow the chickens some time directly in the garden.

Cover Crops while a crop is still going (under-sowing): This is especially useful if you won’t have time to plant after your garden crop is done. Wait until your garden crop is ⅓ of the way through it’s growing cycle, then “under-sow” a cover crop. Try any of the clovers (white, sweet, or red). White dutch clover is especially hardy as a living mulch that can even be walked on! Once you’re done with this garden, cut and carry the produce and cover crops to your chickens or give them direct access.

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Weeds Step #1:

Search and identify some common edible weeds:

Dandelion

Burdock

Lamb’s quarter

Stinging nettle

Yellow dock

Uproot with a potato fork or similar by driving the tool into the ground and loosening the soil around the roots (just enough to pull out the weeds). Step #2:

Clean them off and pitch to the chickens, roots and all. You can also put them through a grinder or cut up, if desired. Step #3:

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Garden

Consider some of the following ideas: Toss your garden trimmings to your chickens. Offer your flock what’s left of your produce. Cut and carry the goods or allow them access to the finished garden beds. Grow produce especially for your flock. Mangal and chard beet are great feeds, as well as salad bars, squash, and crucifers. Cooked (not raw) potatoes could served as a staples for your chickens. Consider growing winter squashes as they store extremely well and can be used as winter feeds. Since I have my wood stove heating my house during the winter, I cook hard foods like potatoes, broccoli stems, carrots, onion, etc., as I heat my house!

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Wild Seeds and Fruits Wild seeds and fruits can serve the “grain” needs of your chickens better than store bought grain. Gather wild seed or fruits (like berries) and plant to share the bounty with your birds. Every summer we could easily harvest gallons upon gallons of wild autumn berries, blackberries and wineberries.

Forage and Grain Crops It’s relatively easy to plant grain crops yourself if you select varieties like dent corn, sunflowers, sorghum or Amaranth. Follow the planting guides for any of these grain crops you choose. You could also grow great forage crops like Arrowroot, Chicory, Bok Choy, Buckwheat, Clover, Cocksfoot, Linseed, Lucerne, Millet, Forage Plantain, silverbeet, Alfalfa, Peas, Lentils, Chickweed, Comfrey, Dandelion, Nettles, Sunchokes, Berries (blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, etc.) and shrubs (siberian pea shrub, etc.). Choose a variety of these and plan a special patch for you and your birds!

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Nut Trees

Gathering wild nuts, planting your own trees, or giving them access to the forest can provide a significant amount of protein and fat for your chickens. Forage or plant: oaks, beeches, black walnuts, pecans and hickories. Nuts from these trees are obviously not digestible as they are. I suggest one of two things, depending on the size of your flock or harvest: if it’s a small harvest, just wrap your nuts in some old jeans or durable cloth and smash with a small sledge hammer. For larger jobs, consider running them through a feed grinder.

Fruit Trees Gather wild fruit or plant your own. Consider high-yield and easy-to-maintain trees like the persimmon, mulberry, paw paw and of course all your favorite apples, pears, peaches, bananas, etc. Harvest the produce for your chickens or give them access to the fallen fruit.

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Capturing Garden Pests

How to catch and feed garden pests: Go out in the morning with a bucket of water while the bugs are lethargic. Locate the bugs and hold your bucket underneath them while you flick or shake the bugs off of the plant and into the bucket of water. Throw the bug to your chickens, water and all.

How to debug the garden with the chickens: Allow your chickens supervised time in the garden. Allow your chickens in the garden for a limited time towards evening. They will naturally go home at dark, and won’t have time to turn their attention from the bugs to your produce. Generally, chickens like bugs more than they like produce, so with timed grazing, most of your veggies should be safe. It’s almost guaranteed that your chickens will get some of your produce with this method. In my experience the debugging has been well worth the cost of a few veggies. If your garden is small enough, you could protect your produce with chicken wire or similar and allow the chickens constant access for bug control! Lisa, from Fresh Eggs Daily, does this beautifully.

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Pond

How to use Duckweed: Acquire duckweed specimen from another pond or order online. If acquiring specimen from a farm, you might want to ease its transition before setting it out in the “wild”. Duck Weed Gardening put out a great resource on transitioning duckweed here. Fertilize the pond with some chicken manure and/or stock the pond with fish. Harvest as needed, but try to maintain 1.5 to 2 pounds per square yard on the entire surface. If there’s not enough, algae could grow and suppress it, and if there’s too much it will self mulch. Dry out the duckweed, as it’s 95% water. What’s left is up to 40% protein!

How to use Fish: Stock fish for yourself and be sure to give them all your leftovers and butchering “wastes”. Fertilize the pond by throwing in chicken manure. If you want to get extremely efficient you could arrange your chicken house (with a slotted floor) and allow your chicken manure and any spilt feed to fall directly into the pond. Grow fish specifically for your chickens. Harvest, cut them up for easier access, and serve them to your chickens fresh (raw or cooked). Great pond fish include catfish, bluegill, carp, bass, etc. If you’re going to have duckweed and fish, be sure not to have too many fish or they’ll eat your duckweed faster than the plant can grow.

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Soldier Flies

How to do it: Buy a BioPod. According to their website, “this can easily handle the daily food scraps produced by a large family – up to 5 lbs per day. It can even digest pet feces and most kinds of manure. For every 100 lbs of kitchen scraps you will get 5 lbs of friable compost, a few quarts of nutritious compost tea, and approx. 15-20 lbs of self-harvesting grubs - which are the freshest fish, herp, and bird food.” Build one yourself from plans on the internet. Here’s a relatively large bin, that looks reasonable.

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Sprouting

How to do the bucket or bowl method: Purchase your grains/legumes like peas, corn, oats, wheat, etc., whole instead of ground. Soak the desired amount of seeds for 24 hours in a food grade bucket or bowl. Pour out the seeds through a strainer or a bucket filled with holes and rinse thoroughly. Set your newly rinsed seeds in another bucket and bowl and leave for another 24 hours. If it’s warm enough (60 degrees Fahrenheit or higher), they will have already begun to sprout. Try to use a fairly warm room like a spot near the furnace in the basement. The colder it is, the longer the seeds will take to sprout. Rinse your seeds every 24 hours until all of your seeds have sprouted. This shouldn’t take more than four days. For a continual supply, use four buckets in rotation - one for soaking and the other three for the rinsed seeds.

How to do the greening method: Soak the desired amount of seeds for at least 24 hours. Spread over a tray in a thin layer. Cover with some organic matter like straw, dry leaves, etc., to prevent the seeds from drying out. Water everyday and harvest when they’ve reached the desire length.

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Composting

Week #1 Have your compost material assembled near the entrance of your run so it’s easily accessible. Better yet, put it just outside the fence where your pile will be, if you can throw it over. If you’re using a temporary electric net for your fencing you can bring in the corner where you’ll be working to keep the chickens out of your way. You can check the temperature of the pile throughout the week with a compost thermometer. Your ideal heat is between 130-160 fahrenheit. If it’s not getting hot enough within 24 hours it’s probably not wet enough and/or you have too much carbon brown material and need to mix in some more green material when you turn the pile next week. Fill the bin with your compost material, being sure to mix and water along the way. This week, as you feed your chickens your food scraps, just add it to the top of the pile. They’ll add their manure and eat all the edibles on top. Be sure to provide a ladder or ramp to help the birds get up and down safely.

Week #2 Remove your pallets from your week #1 pile and assemble the pallets in your next corner. You can rotate clockwise or counterclockwise, just go the same way each time. Now fill the bin with new compost material and flip your week #1 compost. If done right your birds will be extremely interested in the biota.

Week #3 Remove your pallets from week #2 pile and assemble them in your next corner and fill. Now, turn your 1st and 2nd piles. You’ll start to notice the progression of your piles. The chickens will eventually start showing less and less interest in the older, less active piles. The pile temperatures will start to drop. However, your piles shouldn’t shrink too much, nor should they smell bad. If this is happening, you’re losing nitrogen to the atmosphere as you don’t have enough carbon to capture it properly. If that’s your case, add more carbonatious brown mate-

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rial next week when you turn your pile. Here’s a picture of us turning a pile. Notice the steam coming from the heated pile!

Week #4 Remove your pallets from week #3 pile and assemble them in your 4th and final corner. Fill the bin and turn your 1st, 2nd and 3rd week piles.

Week #5 Harvest your finished compost from your first week and apply where needed! Start over by removing your pallets from corner #4 and assemble them in your 1st corner. Flip the 3 remaining piles. Now, you’ll be on a four week cycle.

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Vermicomposting

General Instructions on How to Vermicompost: Get a bin. DIY from plans online or purchase one. You can use wood, plastic bins or similar. Make sure the bin is ventilated. If you’re using plastic or rubber, drill ⅛” holes throughout. Estimate one pound of worms per square foot (surface area). Use a cover for the bin as the worms don’t like light and it keeps your moisture level regulated. Place the worm bin in a cool, shaded area. Temperatures should be maintained from 30 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit for optimization Keep at least four inches of moist material in the bin at all times. Establish bedding for the worms of shredded cardboard, paper, straw and/or something similar, then sprinkle with dirt and moisten. Make sure you don’t add much (if any) carbon to the mix, as you don’t want your material to heat up. You’re pile should remain as moist as a wet sponge. If you were to grab it, you should be able to squeeze out a few drops of water. Get your worms! Red Wrigglers work best and can be purchased online. Add food scraps all at once, or at least once a week. Mix it in with your bedding if possible. The worms will continually break this down. Don’t use too much citrus, meat, dairy, or pet poop as it will be difficult to break down or toxic (in the case of the poo). If your bin starts to smell, ease off the material for a bit and let the worms catch up. After 3-6 months it’s time to harvest both the compost and the worms. Scrape the newer, unfinished material out of the way and dig out the compost. You can sift out your worms from the compost and send them on their way (to the chickens) or you could throw it all to the chickens (especially if your chickens are in an area like a garden bed or pasture that could benefit from the compost).

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How I do it:

I dig a large pit my basement that is 4 x 8 feet and 16 inches deep. I lay cinder blocks around the edges as an edge. I use a non pressure treated 4/8 piece of plywood for the cover. On one side of the pit I lay manure and/or food scraps and water as I go. Given our one pound per square foot surface area I could put in as much as 16 pounds! I put cardboard over this and dampen, then close the lid and check regularly to add moisture as needed. When the worms are finished (3 - 6 months), I fill up the other side of the bin and the worms naturally migrate. Once the population of worms has grown enough for a worm harvest, I’ll actually harvest the unfinished material (about half way). Since my chickens are always on future garden beds, pasture, or compost I can throw them all of the material (worms and compost).

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Solar Cooker

How to do it: Build your own or purchase your cooker. Wiki how has 3 promising design options here and a quick search on Amazon revealed several cookers starting at about $100. Get a recipe for what you want to cook. Solar Cooker has several that include corn on the cob, eggs, potatoes, and even bacon! Cooking times will vary depending on your setup, sun exposure, temperature, and the amount you’re trying to cook. I suggest starting small and learning as you go.

Food Scraps

How to do it: Source a food grade container appropriate in size for your food wastes. This could be as simple as a jar, food grade bucket, or as elaborate as a store bought option. Feed the scraps to your chickens everyday! What not to feed? I believe chickens have a sense of what they shouldn’t eat. I encourage experimentation here. Offer it to them and see what happens. Obviously too much of any one thing is a bad idea, if it’s their only source of feed. If they have other options, they’ll just leave the excess of what they don’t need.

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Grass

How to do it: One option is to totally free range, but you’ll have to consider your predator threats, neighbors, and having chicken poop everywhere. I once grew Black Australorps for 16 weeks to consume as meat grown on free range (I only fed the 25 birds two 50 Ibs. bags of feed over the first eight weeks of their lives). The free ranging birds thrived and weighed out more than others I had grain fed free choice the entire time. It’s best if you can rotate your chickens over pasture or yard to new ground every day, or at least every week. You can use a chicken tractor for this or mobile pasture system with an electric net. I pastured 15 birds one summer enclosed in a 1,700 square foot electric net that I moved daily. I was able to get their feed consumption down to less than a 1/10 of a pound of commercial feed before the lack of feed affected their egg production. It’s even better if you can rotate your birds three days behind livestock. Flies will lay their eggs in the manure and at about the three day mark, you’ll have larvae for your chickens to consume. Not only have you provided chicken food at this point, the chickens naturally spread the manure by scratching through it and they help control the fly population for the livestock. If your chickens can’t have access to grass, bring it to them in the form of lawn clippings (if it hasn’t been treated). You can also cut and store hay for winter feeding. Mother Earth News published a nice article about how to cut hay by “hand”. You can see it here.

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Other Farm Products

Farm product ideas: Milk from anything (cows, goats, etc.). Offal from farm slaughter (things you might not want to consume like beef tongue, heart, liver, etc.). Check with your butcher and see if they’ll provide “pet food” packaging of the less desirable products that are edible. Bones from farm slaughter. They won’t eat the bones themselves, but they’ll pick them clean of their meat. Make sure you ask the butcher for the bones (they might not give them to you automatically). You could also make bone broth over your wood stove or with a slow cooker. You could then feed this to your flock in a feed pan or pour it over some bread to soak in. Eggs from your chickens or other poultry. I scramble mine and throw it directly on the ground, but you could certainly feed it raw in a feed pan. Offer feathers from your slaughters as the chickens may consume them to improve gut function.

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Fermenting Feed

How to do it: Put 2 - 3 days worth of feed in an adequately sized, food grade container. Add water until you have at least two inches above the feed. You should check back in an hour to make sure your grain hasn’t soaked it up. You’ll ultimately need at least an inch above the grain. It’s important to have the water layer as fermenting is an anaerobic process, which means it doesn’t need oxygen. Oxygen could cause mold growth. If you want, throw in a starter or add some pickle juice or similar to speed up the process. Cover your container loosely with a towel or lid. Just 24 hours of soaking will break down anti-nutrient properties, making them more digestible, but you’ll start to get the full effect of fermentation within three days. You can start harvesting your grain with a strainer daily. As long as you add dry grain and water to replace it you’ll have a continual flow. The fermented feed should smell sour, but never moldy. If it gets moldy you’ll need to throw it out and start a new.

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Chicken Housing Worksheet

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Four Basic Functions of a Chicken House:

1) Shelter (from wind, rain, snow, and sun): Is closed off on the windy and cold side. Offers enough shelter for all the chickens to find protection from rain and snow. Provides shade from the sun. Supplemental heat or insulation is removed (if you’re in US hardiness zones three and above). Remember, heat brings moisture and that moisture hosts disease and mold.

2) Adequate Sunlight: Housing openings are facing towards the sunny side No more than 25% of the roof is open and all the birds can find shelter during rain/snow. The front of your housing is open as much as possible to capture all the light and fresh air. Many great housing set-ups are 100% open in the front.

3) Proper Ventilation: Ventilation is installed above where the chickens roost at night. The chickens are protected from driving wind and rain.

4) Predator Protection: No more than 1” gaps anywhere. Housing door should be opened in the morning and closed at night to prevent predators unless you have a reliable predator-proof fencing system. Chicken wire or wire mesh should be used over open areas.

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Basic Design: ❏ A minimum of 1 square foot per chicken if they have at least 3 square feet of outdoor space. ❏ The housing is large enough to handle future growth. ❏ You have at least 3 square foot per chicken minimum if their house is permanent and they won't have access to

the outdoors (not recommended). ❏ Housing has a door (or a way to get out) at least 9” wide and 9” tall. ❏ If housing is permanent, then it’s best to use at least 8” of deep bedding (carbon material like leaves, wood

chips, wood shavings, straw, etc… ). ❏ If the coop is small, set it up to allow access to eggs from the outside and make it easy to harvest the deep bed-

ding. If possible, allow the manure to fall through the floor to the ground. Then move the housing often or harvest the droppings from underneath. ❏ The housing taking advantage of shade when possible. ❏ Food is kept in metal bins, out of reach of mice.

Perches: ❏ Enough perch space for around 9” per bird. ❏ Ladders have been provided for perches higher than three feet.

Nest Boxes: ❏ At least one nest box for every ten hens have been provided. ❏ Roughly one cubic foot each. ❏ Dark area to hide her eggs. ❏ Have roofs (preferably angled), so the chickens don’t perch on top and leave their manure. ❏ Have at least a 4” wall in the front opening to keep them from scratching out their nest bedding. ❏ Nest bedding of shredded paper, wood shaving or, straw. ❏ A landing bar about 4” out from the nest box so that your chickens aren’t having to jump straight into the nest

box. ❏ The nests are above the chickens eye level on the floor. ❏ Consider mesh bottoms for the nests to allow for self-cleaning.

Dust boxes: ❏ A dust box of around two cubic feet has been provided. ❏ The dust box is sheltered from the rain and accessible all day.

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ChickShaw Plans

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Supplies: Nineteen, 2x4x8s, Cedar or Untreated Two 1x4x8s, Cedar or Untreated One piece of ¾” plywood (enough for a 24”X24” piece) At least 16” of 1X2 or very similar. Note: Cedar is naturally weather-resistant and non-toxic, but it’s expensive. You can save money by purchasing NON pressure-treated lumber, but you’ll need to paint the wood or apply a sealer, being sure to use an eco-friendly (non toxic) source. Seven pieces Tuftex SeaCoaster PVC Roof Panel, 8’X2.17’ (for the roofing and siding). Two 9” X ¾” bolts (an inch or so longer wouldn’t hurt), to serve as axles for the wheels. I found mine at a local bolt and nut shop (the local hardware store didn’t carry them this long). Here I found some online that should work great. Two Marathon Flat Free 26X2.125” tires at Northern Tool. Two ¾” rigid couplings (for spacing the wheel from the frame). Two ¾”X2” washers (for keeping the wheels from rubbing the frame). Two Angle clips 1-7/16” X 2” (for strengthening the front legs). Twenty-four Framing Angles 1.5” X 1.625” X 1.25” (for reinforcing our framing). Four Mending Plates, 5” X 3⅛” (for adding strength to your wheel frames). Four Joist Hangers, 2” X 6-8 (for mounting your wheel frame to the Chickshaw). Three milk crates. I somehow have a bunch of these, so I just used what I had. If you don’t have any, you might be able to get some used at a grocery store or something, but if not, here’s a link to some on Amazon. One 6’8”-long pole (ideally 1 ¼” diameter, give or take) for lifting and pushing/pulling the Chickshaw. You could go slightly longer (probably 7’) and slightly thicker (but no more than 2” thick). At least 9’3” of ½-inch hardware cloth for the side walls. At least 18’ of 1” hardware cloth for the “flooring”. Four, 3.5” door hinges for the door and the roof. Five Lb of 8X3 deck screws (that’s 3” deck screws). Five Lb of 6X1⅝” deck screws (that’s 1 and ⅝” long) One Lb box of ¾” Poultry Net Staples for hammering in your hardware cloth. Four, ½” metal pipe straps for attaching your wheel axles (bolts) to the frame. 100-200 roofing screws, 1½, #10’s. (I’d get at least 100, but maybe 200. I’d rather have some leftover than not enough). Two, 3½” Safety Hasps for locking down the roof.

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Tools: Drill and appropriate drill bits. I used phillips screws, so I’ll use a phillips head drill bit. Measuring tape ¼” Bit Tip Holder drill bit for screwing in your roofing screws. Sawzall, hand held PVC saw or other hand held saw that can cut plastic. Tin Snips for cutting your plastic roofing. 1½” Hole Saw for drilling a hole into the arms for your “pulling poll”. I went ahead and got a four piece set, because these hole saws seem really handy. 6” long, Screw Driver Bit for drilling in your hard to reach Safety Hasps. Hammer

Cut list: 2X4’s Cut two 2X4’s @ 6’ each (two 24” pieces leftover) Cut the 24” leftover pieces into eight 6” pieces Cut two 2X4’s @ 4’¾” (leftover pieces are 47’¼”) Cut one 47’¼” leftover piece to 11” Cut the other 47’¼” leftover piece into one 28”, and two 8” pieces Cut two 2X4’s @ 5’9” (Leftover pieces are 27”) Cut the two leftover 27” pieces into two 24” pieces Cut two 2X4’s @ 5’6” (the two leftover pieces are 30”) Cut one of the 30” pieces into 28” Cut the other 30” piece into two 8” pieces

2X2’s Rip nine 2X4’s in half to make sixteen, 8’ 2X2’s Cut five 2X2’s @ 6’ (Leftover pieces are 24”) Cut one of the 24” leftover pieces into four 6” pieces Cut another one of the extra 24” pieces into two 9½” pieces and scrap the leftovers. Cut two 2X2’s @ 6’1” (Leftover pieces are 23”)

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Cut the two 23” leftover pieces into 22½” pieces Cut two 2X2’s into 5’9” pieces (leftover pieces are 27”) Save the two 27” leftover pieces for this project Cut two 2X2’s @ 6’, and scrap the two leftover pieces Cut one 2X2’s @ 5’5” (leftover piece is 31”) Cut the leftover 31” piece into two 15” pieces Cut seven 2X2’s @ 6’5” (leftover pieces are 19”) Cut two of the 19” leftover pieces to 13½”, and scrap the leftovers. Cut two of the 19” leftover pieces to 13 5/16”, and scrap the leftovers. Cut two of the 19” leftover pieces to 15” Scrap the remaining three, 19” leftover pieces Cut one 2X2 @ 30 7/16” and 40”,and scrap the leftovers Cut one 2X2 @ 43” and two @ 25½” ,and scrap the leftovers Cut one 2X2 @ 30 7/16”, and three @ 14”, and scrap the leftovers

1X4’s Cut one 1X4 @ 6’ (leftover piece is 24”) Cut the 24” leftover piece to 19½” and scrap the leftovers Cut one 1X4 @ 19½”, 36¼” (leftover piece is 40½”) Strip the 40½” leftover piece making two, 1X2 strips

1X2’s Cut one 1X2 into two, 8” pieces then scrap the leftovers

¾” plywood Cut a 24”X24” piece

Roof Paneling Cut one panel into two 31” pieces and one, 18¾”

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Cut one panel into two 31” pieces and one 29 3/16” piece. Cut a 29 3/16” piece from another panel and scrap the leftovers. Cut four panels at 80” and scrap the leftovers.

Building Instructions: The Base Let’s get started with the fun part. Put together two 6’ 2X4’s and two 5’9” 2X4’s to form a 6’ square. Be sure to have your two 5’9” pieces on the inside. Take your four 8” 2X4’s and cut @ 45 degree angles to form your corner braces. Cut your 1” wire mesh into three 6’ lengths and attach to the top of the frame with small u-nails.

The Perches 4. Attach your five 6’ 2X2 perches every foot across the platform. Just a little fun fact to clear up any confusion you may or may not have. 2X2’s and 2X4’s aren’t really that. A 2X4 is really 1¾” X 3½”, so a 2X2 is different, too. Don’t worry about it. Everything works out in the end. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll continue to “lie” by saying we’re using 2X2’s and 2X4’s. And yes, 1X4’s are a lie too. Forgiveness. 5. Flip the platform over and attach your mesh onto the bottom of the perches for added security. Now, flip it back to its original position.

Corner Posts 6. Screw in your two front posts (2’X4’X24”) using some of your framing angles. For these corner posts, I used two framing angles on the bottom of each post. At this point, It doesn’t matter which side you choose to be the front and back. I set it up so my perches are running front to back as opposed to running sideways. For reference, the front side in this picture is the side closest to the creek. It’s

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important to position your 2X4’s as seen in the picture. I have the 2X4’s wide side facing the front and back “walls”, if that makes any sense. Hey, just copy the photo and you’ll be golden. 7. Screw in your two back posts (2’X4’X28”), wide side facing “out” and secure with framing angles. Ok, this is fun...I hope. Well, I bet you’re having more fun than I had when I built this from scratch… or maybe you’re saying, “these instructions are crazy”. Hey, I welcome all feedback, even if it’s derogatory.

Top Frame 8. Ok, let’s put the top frame on. This time, use 2X2’s. Take 6’ pieces and use them for your sides and, you guessed it, two 5’9” pieces for your front rails. Rails? I guess that’s what you call that. Anyway, look at the picture, it’s shouting a thousand words I don’t know how to say.

Side Posts 9. Here’s another tricky part. This pic is deceptively simple, I warn you. But I know we can do this. Do you see the four vertical posts along the sides, in the photo below? Not the corner posts, but the side posts. The ones in the front (towards the creek) are your 2X2X25½”.

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Here’s the tricky part. Since your top side rail is sloping, you’re going to have to cut an angle in the top of these posts. I have no freakin idea what that angle is, so I went ahead and set the post up (it’s a little long) 2’ from the end, then marked the angle with pencil like so:

10. Now, cut that angle, and attach the bottom of the post with one frame angle and attach the top by screwing through the top “rail” into your post. Repeat with the other side. 11. Repeat steps 9 and 10 for the two vertical posts towards the back. These are your 2X2X27”. Front Angle Braces 12. If you thought our last angle cuts were crazy, we’re about to go “bat crap crazy”. See the two vertical posts in the middle? That’s easy. It’s the angle bracing posts that are a little tricky to explain. But you’re smart. Let’s start with the easy. Take your two 2X2X22½” and insert them into the front wall, two feet from either side. Notice how they so conveniently rest on top of the perches. Screw the bottom in with a framing angle and screw the top in by screwing through the top rail. 13. For those angel braces, go ahead and cut two 2X2X30 7/16 ”. Yes, that’s 30 inches and 7/16” combined. Hold your braces up, one at a time, and mark your angles and cut accordingly. If you mess up a bit, it’s not that critical. In fact, I was tempted to just go back and measure how much it would be to run a straight piece in (no angles) but the angles look good.

Back Wall 14. Ok, take a deep breath. No more angle cuts. These next three pieces are easy. See that horizontal piece going across the middle of the back? That’s your 5’5” piece. Go ahead and screw it in. I would use a couple of framing angles, one on either side, to screw this piece into your 2X4 corner post. Oh… I almost forgot. Place the horizontal board 15¼” up from the bottom framing. Just to make sure I communicate this right. Measure 15¼” from the top of the bottom 2X4, and make a mark at 15¼” on your two back corner 2X4’s. Now, you’ll want to place your 5’5” horizontal 2X2 just above the line (do not center your horizontal board on this line, but rather put it on top). Got it? Good.

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15. Take your two 2X2X13-5/16 pieces and screw them in 2’ from either side. See the photo. Doesn’t that look nice? Use framing angles to secure the bottom and attach the top by drilling through the horizontal 5’5” piece down into the posts. I didn’t use the framing angles or drill in from the top in the picture, but If I had to do it over again, that’s exactly what I’d do.

Side Angle Braces 16. By this point, I’d given up on all those crazy angle cuts. For these diagonal braces I just made straight cuts.. and these are on the inside, so it doesn’t look bad. Take your two 6’1” 2X2’s and set them along the inside wall, like the picture shows. Notice how I screwed the top end into the top side rail, and how “toenailed” the bottom end into the vertical front corner post. (And if you’re wondering what a toenail is, a toenail is hammering a nail or screwing a screw at an angle into a board.)

Attaching Your ½” Hardware Cloth 17. Now, get ready to put on our ½” hardware cloth. We’ll only need it for the two sides on the front “wall” and the two front sides on the side “wall”. Cut two 27½” pieces and staple nail them into the front two side on the front wall. Now, cut two 28” pieces and staple nail them into the front two sides on the side walls.

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Nesting Area Base 18. Are we having fun? Well, if not take a break for some tea. My permaculture teacher, Geoff Lawton says, “if it stops being fun, take a break for some tea and adjust the plan as needed”. Ok, if you don’t want tea, at least take a deep breath, stretch, whatever. 19. Ok, welcome back. Look at the picture below. That’s the base of the nest box. Simple right? Right. Go ahead and put your three 2X2’s together. This is easily done by screwing your two 15” 2X2’s onto either side of your 2X2X40”. 20. Now, screw in your two 1X4X19½” into the bottom. I did this by flipping it over. Notice how the 2X2 framing rests on the side of the 1X4’s and that the bottom of the 2X2 framing sticks out 1½”. That’s so we can mount this to our main frame later on. 21. Then, screw your long, 1X4X36½” into the bottom of your 2X2 cross piece.

Swiveling Landing Bar 22. I think it’s best to go ahead and put (what we call) your landing bar together. You see, if you don’t have a landing bar in the front of your nest boxes, it’s hard for your chickens to fly into their nests. They can be a bit clumsy. Now that I’m talking about characteristics of a chicken, I should mention that they’re also rather sloppy (aka poop in their nest box if you let them). So let’s make this landing bar swivel. That way, if our chickens start perching in their nest boxes, we can lift the landing bar (in the afternoon after they’ve laid all their eggs) to be a nesting box blocker. Then, they won’t perch in the nesting box and poop all over the place. 23. Anway, attach your two 1X2X8” onto the sides of your 2X2X43”. Make sure you put at least two screws into each side, otherwise the landing bar will twist. 24. Attach the landing bar to your nest box frame. BUT THIS TIME, only put one screw in either side, and don’t screw them in tight. These screws will serve as pivot points. Just look at the picture:

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Mounting the Nesting Area Base to the Main Frame 25. Go ahead and place your nesting box frame to the horizontal 2X2 running across the back of the chickshaw. Look carefully and you’ll see how I just rigged up some scrap lumber to hold the nesting box frame in place while I screwed it in. Place the frame in the center. To help you do this, just make a mark in the middle of your frame at 3’ and just try your best to center this thing by eyeing it. It’s not crazy critical that you get this part exactly right. 26. Screw in your vertical 9½” posts using a framing angle at the bottom and screwing in from the upper rail at the top. You’ll notice in the picture I used a “straight brace” to screw in the bottom. Yeh, no, don’t do that. I’ve since improved to framing angles.

Nesting Area Braces 27. Now we’re going to put on the diagonal braces. Grab your 15” pieces and cut 45 degree angles on both ends, then drill them in as seen in the photo. You’ll have to forgive me, the foremost brace is blurry! At first, I didn’t even want to include this pic, but I think it’s super helpful. Let’s just pretend all is well, as we focus on the diagonal brace further away. It’s all nice and clear. Hey, I’m not perfect. After you’ve put on those diagonal braces you can remove that “jerry rigged” scrap lumber that’s helping to hold up the nesting area.

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Back Paneling 28. Now it’s time for some paneling. Place your middle paneling for the back wall (the one that’s 18” tall), and screw it in. The side panelings will overlap, and that’s ok. Go ahead and attach your two side panels for the back wall (the ones that are 31”) . Yep, the corners will cover the opening to the nesting box. Take your tin snips and cut off the corners to reveal the opening into the next box. The back wall should look something like this:

Side Paneling 29. The side panels are a bit trickier, but by now, we’ve got this “tricky thing” down. Screw your “back” side panels in. They’re also 31” long. Place them so that the extra is sticking over the top. Go ahead and tin snip what’s “overhanging”. While you’re at it, screw in your “middle” side panels in too. There the ones that are 29 3/16”. Now, cut extra off of the top as well.

The Door 30. Now, let’s slap together our door, it’s easy. Screw in three 14” 2X2’s into your 2X2 piece of plywood somewhat evenly like so:

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31. Attach your hinges to your door, then attach your door in the center of the front:

32. Screw in your 8”X1½” piece of ¾” of plywood (or similar) to the middle of the top bar along the front. 33. Now screw in your bolt lock. The slide bolt side goes on the cross bar, and the receiver goes on the door like so. Now, my lovely assistant, affectionately calling herself, “Pumpkin Pie” will show you what I’m talking about:

Mounting the Wheel Braces 34. First, flip the rickshaw (very carefully). I lifted it up to one side, then gently let it down. 35. Mount your metal 2X4 joist hangers to the sides, as seen in the picture. Notice, one is at the corner area and the other is mounted about four feet away on one of the vertical wall posts (make sure you mount the bracket to these posts). I’m only going to show you my handiwork for one side, so make sure you repeat the process for the other side.

36. Now, install your two 6” 2’X4’s into the bracket. You’ll notice the bracket I got will also accommodate at 6” of 2X4, so there’s some extra bracket (no big deal). You should still be able to put at least one screw on either side.

37. You can now install your 11” diagonal braces after you’ve cut the ends to 45 degree angles.

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38. I think it’s best to go ahead and put your 4’¾” 2X4 on now. Screw it into your two 6” 2X4’s. 39. Now it’s time to make some marks. I really over-emphasised my marks so you could see them in the photo below. Look closely, can you see them? There are three of them on the long 2X4. The one in the middle is 24’⅜” from the end. The other two are 14” from that middle mark. Go ahead, mark away. If you don’t understand what we’re doing with all these marks, I think you’ll get it in a minute. 40. Now you screw in the two other 6” 2X4’s just outside your outer marks. These are your “inner” supports. Take a good look at the picture, and I think you’ll get the drift. These “inner” 2X4’s are for good measure to help support all the weight the outer 2X4 is going to carry. 41. Last but not least, put a flat bracket on each end (for crazy beastly support). Notice how this bracket connects our three essential supports: the 6” piece, the diagonal piece, and the long 2X4. Do this on both sides of this “contraption”.

Mounting the Wheels 42. Once again, I’m just showing you one side, so you’ll have to repeat these steps for the other side. Put your ¾” bolt through the wheel. Include the washer and spacer on one end. 43. Set the wheel in the center of your wheel brace. You should have a line marked in the middle from step #39, so just center your bolt on that. Now, screw in your ½” metal pipe straps to hold down both sides of your bolt. BAM! You’ve mounted your wheels.

Mount Your Front Legs: 44. Place your 13’½” 2X2 on your front corners and attach with the framing angles. 45. Mount your angle clips to both sides. 46. Screw in your two 6” diagonal braces to both sides of the leg. Cut the ends to 45 degree angles. It’s crazy, you can’t see the other angle brace in this photo, but it’s there.

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47. BAM!!! you’re done with the bottom. Now, flip this thing back over. I’m not sure which way you flipped it last time, but this time we need to make sure you flip it towards the wheels. If we flip it sideways we’ll put too much pressure on the leg. Anyway, just do this: Grab it on the front side (that’s the side with the two legs) and turn it up on it’s back. Then go and gently let the Chickshaw down. All the weight will end up on the wheels (no problem).

Attaching the Hinged Roofing Frame 48. First, mount your hinges to the back wall of the main structure, two feet from either side. 49. Now, take one of your 6’5” 2X2’s and attach it to your hinges. Make sure that your 6’5” piece is sticking 2 ½” out from either side (this insures your board is centered).

Framing the Roof 50. Let’s build our roofing frame, it’s super simple. So, lay out your two, 6’8” 2X2’s parallel to each other, about 6’5” apart. Now make some marks along your 6’8” pieces at 4”, 20”, 40” and 60”. 51. Screw in two of your 6’5” cross pieces onto either end of your 6’8” pieces.

52. Then, screw in the remaining four, 6’5” pieces along your marks and one both sides.

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Placing the Roof 53. Now, go ahead and put the roof on. You’ve got to attach the roof frame to your “hinge” board. Here’s the trick though: The end of the roof frame has to stick out four inches from your “hinge” board like you see in the picture. That way, your roof will stick out evenly on the front and back.

Attaching the Roof Panels 54. Place your four 6’8” panels on the roof. A couple things to note: By now, you’ve noticed the roof is on a slant. Make sure to run the panels from front to back, NOT from side to side. I should also say that there will be a lot of overlap with your panels. That’s totally ok, and it doesn’t really matter where you overlap. If you’re particular, then by all means, measure and trim away. 55. Screw the panels into your roofing frame using your roofing screws.

Attaching the Arms 56. In the photo below I’m placing the original 2X2 handles, but I’ve since upgraded it to 2X4’s (needed for extra strength). You’ll also notice the small wheel and wheel frame. Yeh, no, that didn’t work either. Nevertheless, the photo is still useful. First thing you’ll want to do is attach one end of your 5’6” handles to the frame. Just use one screw! That way your handle can still swivel so that you can adjust your height (before making it permanent in a second). 57. Now, hold the handle a foot or more below your waistline. That’s where you want it to permantly to be. That way, when you pick up the handle to move the “shaw”, you’ll be holding the handle around your waistline. Somehow you’re going to have to mark your spot and screw in the handle to make it steady. If I remember right, I carefully held the handle while walking (more like shuffled) to where I could screw in the handle right where it needed to be. If you have someone with you, they could hold it in place or mark it for you.

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Attaching the Handle 58. For the handle, you’ll need a strong metal pole (at least 6’11” long and not more than 2” in diameter). My pole was 6’11” long and 1 ¼” in diameter so if you’re going to source one (because you don’t have a scrap pole sitting around like I did) go ahead with my dimensions. For the sake of the rest of these instructions, I’ll assume you’re using my dimensions. If not, just adjust your plan accordingly. I know you can figure it out. 59. Get a 1½” hole saw for drilling your holes in the handle for the poles, and well… drill the holes. And don’t worry, a hole saw is not an entirely new saw, it’s just a drill bit attachment for your current drill. If you’re not using my specs, just make sure your hole is drilled bigger than the diameter of the handle (for obvious reasons - You’ll need to get your pole into the holes).

Attaching the Roof Latches 60. We better attach your Safety Hasps, cuz if you don’t your roof will fly off. Um… let’s just say my bad experience is your gain. I really think the picture speaks for itself, but I’ll explain a little bit. Mount your latch as seen in the picture, on the inner roofing frame (that should rest just on top of your main frame). It’s a little tricky screwing into that spot, so I screwed at an angle, and I used a long, 6” phillips screwdriver in my drill.

61. Now, dance a little jig…No, wait… I got a better idea. Take this thing for a spin. And remember, it works better with a camera;) 62. Ok, now that you’re back from your little joy run. I realized I forgot something. The nesting boxes! The chickens will need somewhere to lay. But it’s pretty easy.

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Creating the Nesting Boxes 63. Take your sawzall or hand held PVC pipe saw and cut your entrances out of your milk crates. Notice, in the photo below, how I left a few inches on either side and left a bottom lip of about four inches. You can be a little flexible with this, as every milk crate layout is different and sometimes it’s just easier to cut it a certain way. 64. Stuff the crates with straw or some other type of bedding and stick em in, making sure your opening is towards the inside.

Moving the Birds Into Their New Home 65. Ok folks… give yourself a big round of applause… Now go ahead and get some chickens in this thing. Probably the easiest way to do this is at night while the birds are lethargic and “blind”. Get them from their old house and place them in the chickshaw. 66. Let the chickens out in the morning, and you’ll notice most of them go back in that evening. You’ll probably have to round up a few the next couple of days until they get the gist. Be sure to hide their old house somewhere, otherwise some will seek it out (and get confused). Congratulations! You made your very own ChickShaw!

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DIY Chicken Tractor

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Supplies List: 10 untreated 2X4X8s - I like cedar, as it’s naturally rot resistant, but you could certainly use an eco-friendly, non-toxic coat of paint over some untreated lumber. There will be plenty of ventilation, so you won’t have to worry about it creating any respiratory problems. 10, Cedar 2X4’s are currently $8.08 at Lowes. 10, non pressure treated 2X4’s are $2.62 at Lowes. 1 untreated 1X4X8 16” of 1X2, untreated 16 feet of ½” hardware cloth, 24” wide. 4 sheets of ribbed steel roofing (aka classic tin roofing), 8’ long, or at least 25’ of tin. I sourced mine from an old barn roof we replaced. Use the “classic” width of 2.16” wide. A couple dozen 6 X 1 ⅝” deck screws A box of 8 x 3 deck screws 2 milk crates for the nesting boxes. 8’ electric fence wire (12- or 14-gauge), or rope for pulling the tractor. (Lowes sell wire/cable by the foot in the hardware section) 2’ of old water hose to use as a pulling handle over the wire. 2, 2-¾” spring link (aka, hardware carabiners) for attaching the wire to the tractor. 3 hasps for the two doors and lid. A box of ¾” poultry nails for nailing in the hardware cloth. 5, 3½” hinges for the doors and lid. 4, 3-⅞” Screw Eye Hooks for attaching your wire and pulling the tractor. 2’ of 1½” PVC pipe for the bottom skids (optional). These make moving the tractor a little easier and they help to keep the wood off of the ground which (slows rotting). Box of roofing screws (Note: These are the tools I actually use and truly suggest. You may like to know that some of the links are affiliate links, which means I’ll get a commission if you purchase)

Tools: Cordless drill with drill bits -- a 5/32 drill bit and a ⅜ drill bit for pilot holes (for the screws and the screw eye hooks). Measuring tape Pencil Hammer for your poultry nails PVC saw (or a saw suitable for plastic) for cutting your PVC and milk crates Skill saw for making your board cuts

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Tin snips for cutting the wire mesh and tin Socket wrench or heavy duty screw driver for screwing in the screw eye hooks.

Cut List: Rip-cut all your 2X4’s. If you’re saying, “Huh”, let me explain. Essentially, this is sawing your board parallel to the grain (long ways). So, you’re really just creating 20 2X2s. Set aside 8 of these “2X2s” to be used as they are. Cut one 2X2X8 into two 40” pieces and one 11” piece (scrap the 5” leftover). Cut one 2X2X8 into two 40” pieces and one 15” piece (scrap the 1” leftover). Cut two of your 2X2X8s into 24” pieces. (Should make 8 pieces.) (Shouldn’t have scrap left.) Cut one 2X2X8 into a 47½” piece and two 24” pieces (scrap the remaining little bit). Cut one 2X2X8 into two 40” pieces, and one 15” piece (scrap the remainder). Cut another 2X2X8 into two, 40” pieces and one 15” piece (scrap the rest). Cut one 2X2X8 into a 24” piece, a 30” piece, and a 40” piece (scap the leftovers). Cut one 2X2X8 into a 26½” piece, two 23” pieces, and two 10” pieces (scrap the rest). Cut one 2X2X8 into two 40” pieces and one 15” piece (scrap the inch left over). Cut one 2X2X8 into two 9¾” pieces. Save the 76.5” left over piece just in case you make a mistake and need it to replace something. Save the remaining 2X2X8 to make up for mistakes, or to use on another project. Cut your 1X4 into two 20” pieces, a 23” piece and a 26⅝” piece (scrap the left overs). Cut two 8” pieces from a 1X2 piece of wood. Cut four 24” pieces of your ½” hardware cloth Cut one piece of your hardware cloth 21” X 26” Cut one piece of your hardware cloth 22” X 18” Cut another piece of hardware cloth at 43½” (24”X43½”). Cut four 26” pieces of tin Cut two 13” pieces of tin, and take one of those pieces and narrow it to 19”, making sure you leave the rib. Now you have a 13”X19” piece of tin. Cut two 14½” pieces of tin then narrow each them to just 7½” wide. Be sure to leave a rib in each piece. Cut three 43½” pieces of tin. Cut your 2’ piece of PVC in half to make two 1’ pieces of PVC piping. We’re going to rip those later, or you can do it now. It’s just that I have a nice picture in the instructions showing how in the world I ripped these things.

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Building the Frame 1. You ready for this? Ok, good. Let’s start by laying out two 8’-long pieces of 2X2 parallel with each other, about 40” apart. 2. Now, screw in two of your 40” pieces on either end of your 8’ pieces. Make sure you’re placing the 40” pieces on the “inside” if you know what I mean. In other words, I don’t want your frame to be longer than 8’. So don’t mount your 40” crossbars to the outside of your 8’ pieces. Just take a really good look at one of the picture below. 3. Repeat steps one and two to make another rectangle frame. 4. This next part takes a bit of finess. Go around and screw in your four 24” posts, like like you’re creating a table. 5. Now put in your side vertical posts every 24” from the very end. That’s 3 vertical posts on either side (24” apart). Be sure to put your posts on the center of 24”. 6. Notice there’s not a vertical post in the middle on the “back” wall. From now on, I’ll refer to the end furthest away (in the picture) as the back wall. That’s the wall that will eventually hold the nesting boxes. Hang on, we’ll get to that in a minute. You should now have a ridiculously loose table looking frame. Good job. 7. Now, let’s do the front/middle/vertical 2X2 post. Wow, that was descriptive. By the way, I’m referring to the “front” as the side facing the right in the picture below. The front will eventually have the door. This vertical post needs to be centered at 21½” from the outer edge of both sides. 8. I’m sure there are several ways you could attach the bottom, but I recommend flipping this over and placing your other frame on top. 9. Screw your other rectangle frame onto your posts. If you don’t have a “other” rectangle frame then you missed the part where I said make two of these things in step number one. No big deal, just review step one to make another rectangle frame out of 2, 8’ 2X2’ and 2, 40” 2X2’s. Be sure to screw in at the same measurements (for example, every two feet for the side posts) as this will ensure your posts are actually straight up and down.

Adding Diagonal Bracing 10. Take two of your eight footers (2X2s) and use them as diagonal bracing along both sides (on the inside of the frame). Ok, how do I say this next part? Make sure the braces don’t run in the same direction. Notice how the one furthest away slopes down to the right and the closer one slopes down to the left. Do that. Why? Because I said so. No really, it’s one way I figured where we could mount three perches in keeping with certain rules. You’ll seen in a minute. 11. Take your 47½” 2X2 piece and use it as a diagonal brace across the front. Now, make sure you slope it up from left to right. It’s important to keep that right side “open” for the placement of our door later on.

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Adding the Perches 12. Let’s start with the middle perch (it’s the easiest). Grab a 40” 2X2 and place it across the middle. Notice how it “rests” on the middle of both cross braces. Nice! Screw it in. 13. Now, let’s add the perch that’s on the right. It’s also 40”, 2X2. Be sure to mount it a foot up. You might notice that I’ve taken care to make sure the chickens have at least a foot above the perches (so they can be on them) and a foot below (so they can roam underneath them). There’s one more thing about the perch on the right. Look closely, and notice I used an angle brace. I must have been day dreaming, cuz you can totally drill through that vertical post into the perch. Do that. Forget the angle brace. 14. The left perch. You can’t tell from here, but it not level. In nature, chickens would perch on a branch. When was the last time you saw a straight branch? Oh, I know what you’re saying, “but aren’t branches round?”. My chickens don’t seem to mind the square perches, and it makes for an economical solution. If you’re really concerned, you could totally sub these out for round perches. 15. Ok, seriously, we’ll get back to building. It’s important that the perch on the left NOT go any further to the left. That’s because we’ll need to leave room for our future nesting box contraption. To know where to place this left perch, measure out one foot to the left of the middle post.

Putting up the Back Framing 16. For the “back” side, run a 40” 2X2 across the back, placing it 11” up from the top of the base frame. If I were you, I would take one of your 11” 2X2s and rest your cross piece on that. Then you don’t have to measure anything. 17. Now, screw in an 11” 2X2 in the center (that’s 21½” from either side).

Nesting Box Base 18. Let’s first build the 2X2 framing. Screw in two 15” 2X2s onto the end of the 26½” 2X2. See the photo below. 19. Now, let’s put our 1X4 “bottoms” onto this framing. I like to put these together by screwing in the 1X4’s on top of the framing, then flipping it over when it’s done. That way I can use smaller screws by screwing through the 1X4. So, go ahead and loosely place your two 1X4X20” pieces on either side and your cross 1X4X23” cross board on the frame. 20. Screw in the 1X4 sides by running them flush along the outside of the 2X2 side “posts” and have the 2X2’s sticking out 1¾” at the “bottom.”

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21. Now, place your 1X4 cross board in the middle running between your two side 1X4s and screw into the 2X2 frame. Make sure you’re placing the 1X4 cross piece flush to the outer edge of the 2X2 cross piece. Now, flip this contraption over. Does it look like the picture below? Good. Let’s move on. 22. Oh.. you need a break? My dad used to say, “we’ll break when it’s over”. No seriously, if you’re not having any fun, take a moment for some tea. Re-group.

Putting Together the Landing Bar Ok, welcome back. Let’s finish this thing! 23. Let’s put together the swiveling landing bar. Screw in the two 1X2X8s into the ends of your 30” 2X2 and you’ve got a the swivel bar. Notice how I put two screws in on either side. That keeps the 2X2 cross piece from twisting. 24. Mount the swivel bar by setting it on you nesting box base. Screw only one screw into either side and make sure you don’t screw it in tight. You want it to be loose so that you can use these screws for “axles” to swivel on.

Mounting the Nesting Box Base 25. Go ahead and rest your nesting box in the center (just estimate the center at this point). Use a scrap piece of wood or a partner to hold up the other end of the nesting box base while you work on attaching it to the frame. 26. To center this thing, measure 5” from the inside of the corner posts. 27. Screw in you two vertical 2X2X9¾” posts on top of the arms of the nesting box base. 28. Take your two 10” pieces and cut 45 degree angles on both ends. Go ahead and screw in your 10” diagonal braces. This will go a long way for holding up the nesting box base.

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Putting up the Hardware Cloth 29. Hammer in your four 24” pieces of hardware cloth into the front sides of your chicken tractor. 30. Hammer in your 21”X26” piece of hardware cloth onto the front left “panel” of your chicken tractor. Make sure you’re mounting this on the left side of the front. That’s important because we’ll need that right side to serve as our door.

Building the Door 31. First, lay out two 23” 2X2s parallel with each other about 15” apart. 32. Now, grab three 15” 2X2s and screw two of them onto either end. Put the 3rd one “smack dab in the middle.” 33. Then, I like to attach my two 3½” hinges. I mounted one in the middle of the upper half, and the other in the middle of the lower half. Make sense? Check out the photo below. 34. Go ahead and attach your 22”X18” screen with poultry screen nails. Look closely. I used staples, but have since transitioned to nails. (They’re much stronger) 35. Pat yourself on the back; you’re on your way to making this tractor very multi-functional. You could use it as a tractor (of course) but now you could use it as a small coop (letting them out during the day).

Mounting the Door 36. Check it out -- I’ll save you a lot of hassle installing this door. Do you see that scrap 1X4 jammed in below the door? Ok, that’s holding your door perfectly in place (until you attach it). You can use anything that’s ¾” thick (yes a 1X4 is not really a 1X4, but a ¾”X3½”). Also notice how I didn’t set the door flush to either side (it needs room, folks). Just mount your hinges so that the little round “hingy” part (oh my, what would you call that) is out over either of your edges (door post and door frame). Take a look at the photo below and notice how the “hingy” part is in the middle of the crack.

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Put on the Door Hasp 37. Screw in your 3½” door hasp like so:

Putting on the Side Panels 38. Go ahead and put your side panels on. By panels, I mean those used or new tins you’ve rounded up. Grab your four 26”-long pieces of tin and screw them into the back two quarters on either side. Be sure to use your tin screws with rubber washers. 39. The back paneling is a little tricky, but we can do this, I’m sure. Let’s start with the bottom two panels. Start by placing your 13” tall piece of tin on the lower right side. Screw in a couple of screws into the right post and then the middle post. 40. Now cut a 13” X 19” piece and make sure you still have one of those “vertical” ribs. 41. Place that 13” X 19” piece on to the bottom left corner. Make sure you put your ribs together. The ribs won’t line up over a post, but they provide enough strength to be stable. Just screw in the corners, bottom, and top of the tin into your frame. 42. Take your two 7½” X 14½” pieces and attach them to either side. Make sure you run ribs along the outer edges. Notice how I have a bit of overhang over the bottom. That’s a good thing, as it helps keep the water runoff out of the coop.

Putting on the Nesting Box Door 43. I changed a few things about this feature since the time I took the photos of the build. So, I had to go out into the yard and get this shot. I pulled out the nesting boxes for the photo (you’ll add those later in the process). Hey look, there are some “teenagers” as I like to call them (young birds, 3-9 months old). It’s light at the end of the tunnel! Can’t you just envision your birds in there have a grand ol’ time? 44. Attach a 3½” hinge to your 26⅝” 1X4. 45. Now, attach the hinged 1X4 to the left side. Notice how the “hingy” round part doesn’t hang out over the edge, but just barely touches it. Notice also how the “hingy” round part sits so the round part is facing out. Do that. If you’re doing this right, the 1X4 shouldn’t be touching the right side of the frame. 46. You can now easily attach your 3½” hasp. I’d start by attaching the lock part first. Then place the hasp on that lock and then you can easily see exactly where to attach the hasp.

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Roofing Frame 47. Lay out two 8’ 2X2s about 40” apart. 48. Now grab five 40” 2X2s and attach them at the ends every 24”. Make sure you attach them on the center of the 24” on either side. Oh, and I like to put two screws in on either side of each 40” piece. That way, there’s no twisting. 49. Get two 3½” hinges and attach them to your frame around the two-foot marks from either end. Yep, around where you have your 40” cross pieces. Look closely at the pic and you can see where I mounted my hinges.

Putting the Roofing Frame On 50. So, I sat the tractor near a wall to help stabilize the roofing frame while I attached it. You could also hold it up with one hand and drill with the other. It’s tricky, no lie… and works better with a friend. Just “gird up your loins” and attach the thing. Oh, I should tell you… place the roofing frame on the tractor frame first. That way you can adjust to get it perfectly on top (no overhangs/underhangs). Then you lift up the side without the hinges and screw in the other side (that does have hinges, obviously).

Putting on the Roof Hasp 51. Notice we’re putting this on BEFORE we put on our roofing. It’s a lot easier to attach that way and looks much better too. 52. Also, notice how my hatch sits a little off-center. That’s to avoid having to mount the lock end of the hatch to the ridge of the tin. It’s not big deal to be a little off-center and it makes it so much easier just to attach it a little to the right of center (or left).

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Putting on the Roof 53. Take your three 43½” pieces of tin and put them on the three open quadrants of your roof. They should lay over each other nicely. Attach them with your roofing screws.

Attaching the Eye Hook Screws 54. Prop up an end of the tractor for easier access to the bottom frame. 55. Drill a ⅜” pilot hole on either side of the tractor to prep for the “O” ring. 56. Now, screw in your eye hook screws then repeat these three steps on the other side. Oh… I used that socket wrench to screw in the “O” ring. It helped a lot but you could use a screw drive, stick, pipe or something similar.

Making the “Puller” 57. Get your cord, wire, rope or whatever, and slip the two feet of gardening hose into the middle of it. 58. Now, make loops in either end. I used thick electric fence wire (12-14 gage) and was able to twist some loops in the end somewhat easily. 59. Twist or tie some loops in each end and attach your carabiners.

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Building the Nesting Boxes 60. Take your plastic milk crates and saw an opening in the front of each box. Keep an inch or two of wall space on the sides and 3 to 4 inches on the bottom walls. My boxes were super beat up (and that’s ok), but I think you’ll get the point from the picture. 61. Place the milk crate nesting boxes in the nesting platform and voila, you’ve got a nesting area that cleans itself!

Prepping the PVC Runners (optional) I put on several feet of PVC runners as skids to make moving the chickens tractor a little easier and to lift it up a bit to keep it off the ground (less rot). 62. Take the two feet of 1½” PVC and saw it in half. 63. Now, split each piece down the middle. I did this by putting it in a vice and sawing it through.

Placing the runners (optional) 64. Screw in your four runners (round side facing out) along all four corners. Make sure to mount them on the ends of your 8’ 2X2s that are on the bottom of your tractor. I flipped the chicken tractor on its side for access. Make sure to screw diagonally through the side of the runners. That way your screw heads aren’t sticking out the bottom, catching the ground. I used a 5/32” bit to drill a pilot hole for each screw, making it so much easier. 65. Ok, it’s time for its maiden voyage! Drag the tractor (or find a friend to help you carry it) to its spot in your yard or homestead.

That’s it. You’re done. Congratulations!

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Bucket Nest Plans

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Supplies: 1, 63” 2X4 (landing bar) 4, 5’ 2X4’s (front and back walls) 2, 26” 2X4’s (diagonal braces) 2, 21” 2X6’s (side walls) 3” wood screws for putting together the nest box frame 5, 5 gallon buckets 14½” tall

Notes:   Look at the picture. Make note that the sides are 2X6’s. I cut the ends of my two 26” at 45 degrees to mount to the wall and nesting box frame. I allowed 15” to hold the 14½” buckets. You could adjust that according to the size of your buckets. However, if you go bigger, you’ll need longer 2X6 sides so that your landing bar can stick out at least 5” from the main frame (to prevent chickens roosting too close and manuring the contraption).

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Dust Bath Plans

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Tools: • Shovel • Small bucket or container for wood ashes • ½ hardware cloth about 2’X2’ mounted to a frame (for straining your dirt, if you have rocks in your dirt).

Supplies: • 18 Gallon Plastic Tote: This is exactly what I use. I love it, as it’s easy to carry, durable and has a lid. The lid is useful for covering it at night (if it’s outside or if it’s inside, and you don’t want the chickens to perch on it).

• Fill Dirt: I’d say you’d need about 2, 5 gallon buckets worth. I sourced mine from a hole my boys have dug underneath a barn shed. Oh yeh, you want to make sure it’s dry dirt.

• 4 cups of Limestone: Now, we’re getting into the bonuses. You should be fine with just fill dirt, but if you want a little bit of insurance, let’s go the extra mile.

• 4 cups of Ashes: Yes, ashes… from your wood stove or fireplace. • 4 cups of food grade Diatomaceous Earth (DE): This powdery “stuff” is crushed sedimentary rock. The reason DE is effective for mite control is that it absorbs the waxy outer layer of insects, causing dehydration. Yes, yes. Bee’s too. Just don’t go around sprinkling this on bee’s and you’re golden.

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Herbs (optional) And if you want to go all out, add some herbs: • Lavender, Mint, and Rosemary are natural insecticides. • Anise, Dill, Fennel, Ginger, and Mint are good disease and parasite preventions. • Dried Wormwood keeps lice and mites away. • Dried Yarrow is anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory, clears sinuses and respiratory systems, is a stress reliever, heals wounds, and serves as an insecticide.


Instructions: 1. Grab your plastic tote and fill with fill dirt. Make sure your dirt is dry. Screen the dirt with wire mesh if you have lots of rocks in the dirt. 


2. Now, throw in your ashes, lyme and DE, and stir it in with your shovel. 


3. Throw in any herbs according to your desire. 


4. Place inside the chicken coop if possible. This will ensure they have a place to bathe even if it rains. If you can’t place it in the coop, cover at night or when it rains. 


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The Good Mama Checklist

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Essential #1: Water ❏ Keep the waterers clean by scrubbing daily or as needed. ❏ Use Platforms for ground waterers to help keep them free of debris. ❏ Provide at least one quart of water for four adult chickens ❏ Point Vacuum sealed waterers downhill when on a slope and make sure they’re sealed properly. ❏ Plan on offering twice as much water when it’s hot. ❏ Take measure to keep water unfrozen during the winter.

Essential #2: Food How to Transition to More Live Feeds: ❏ Use your current feed program as a base. ❏ Provide calcium (eggshells or oyster shells) for their mineral needs. ❏ Begin introducing more live feeds (food scraps, worms, weeds, grass) ❏ Ration your feed and avoid free choice feeding ❏ Start offering less commercial feed, so your chickens will work harder to source their feeds. ❏ Make sure your chickens are getting enough by tracking egg production and feel their crops after they're in the coop at night. ❏ Avoid medicated feeds, ❏ Prevent chicks from getting into adult premixes.

Essential #3: Shelter ❏ Provide Shelter from the major elements. ❏ Allow enough sunlight into the house (at least 25% open) ❏ Build in proper ventilation, even in cold areas.

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Essential #4: Family Relations

Tips for Working with Roosters: ❏ If a Rooster is being too hard on the ladies add more rooster competition or separate as needed. ❏ Remove the spur’s sharp point with pruning shears if needed, as a last resort. ❏ Build trust with a rooster by restraining from physical punishment for flare ups. ❏ Prevent children from taunting the rooster. ❏ Use quiet and gentle movements ❏ Be careful if you have to catch a hen in the present of a rooster. ❏ Roosters will fight each other when introduced if they are equally matched. ❏ Introduce equally matched roosters in cages ❏ Know that rooster have to establish an order of dominance and may fight to the death. ❏ If it’s clear that your roosters are going to fight to the end, it’s better to cull the one you don’t want to keep. ❏ Provide plenty of room for roosters and hideouts for an easy subordinate retreat.

Tips for Mixing Age Groups: ❏ Expose young chicks to adults to help build their immune systems. ❏ Give plenty of space for newly introduced chickens. ❏ Don’t worry about Hen fights. They will establish a pecking order but in a much less violent manner than roosters. ❏ Have extra waterers and feeders, so they aren’t forced to fight over access. ❏ When getting new chickens in a free-range setting, you’ll need to confine them inside their coop for about a week to teach them where home is. ❏ Clip the wings of newcomers so they don’t fly the fence (or stall door).

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Essential #5: Health Basic Preventative Measures: ❏ Provide a wide variety of live feeds. ❏ Provide calcium and grit supplements at all times. ❏ Provide a dry dust box at all times. ❏ Have clean water available at all times. ❏ Give your chickens plenty of space inside and outside (at least three square feet). ❏ Make sure your coop is well ventilated and offers protection from the elements, yet is opened as much as possible towards the sun. ❏ Make sure you have at least 9” of roosting space per chicken so they can get off of the wet, manured ground at night. ❏ Use deep bedding in non mobile coops of at least 8” and add more carbon material regularly. ❏ Implement the “Holistic Trinity” of Garlic, Apple Cider Vinegar, and Diatomaceous Earth. ❏ Use a natural water boost for day old chicks. Click here (link to this section of the getting started article) for a recipe. ❏ Fermented feed for the first few weeks of their lives, if not throughout their entire lives. To learn how to ferment their feed click here (link to this part of my feed article).

Essential #6: Protection Tips for Protecting the Flock: ❏ Close their door at night. ❏ Keep small chicks in chicken tractors. ❏ Keep housing secure and keep your openings no large than one inch. ❏ In the event of aerial predator attacks on adult chickens, consider housing them for a few days to encourage the birds of prey to move on. ❏ Consider encouraging Crows. ❏ Use electric net fencing.

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❏ Guns or traps can be used as a last resort. ❏ Check eggs regularly if you have a snake problem. ❏ Prevent snakes by eliminating rodents, keeping the area clean and reducing hideouts. ❏ Remember roosters can be great natural guardians of the rest of the flock. ❏ Avoid keeping cats. ❏ Provide retreats for cover from aerial predators. ❏ Hang shiny objects in the wind like tinfoil and cd’s to scare away aerial predators. ❏ If you have a permanent fence for your chickens burry 6” or so in the ground to prevent digging predators. ❏ Clip wings to keep your chickens in the fence and away from predators. ❏ Consider guard animals like dogs or even geese.

Essential #7: Self Care ❏ Take care of yourself. ❏ Eat Well. ❏ Get plenty of rest. ❏ Exercise. ❏ Enjoy your job. ❏ Have fun with friends and/or family.

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“Herbify” Your Flock Starter Plan

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“Herbify” the Chicken Coop: Herbs of Choice and Their Benefit: Mint is a rodent and insect repellant, disease prevention, parasite control and encourages feather growth. Lavender has a calming effect on the chickens, increases blood circulation, highly aromatic and is an insecticide. Oregano is anti-parasitic, anti-fungal and has antibiotic properties Yarrow serves as an anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory, clears sinuses and respiratory systems, is a stress reliever, heals wounds and is an insecticide.

3 Ways to Use Herbs in the Chicken House: 1) Spread fresh herbs on the floor of their coop. 2) Hang fresh herbs in the coop. 3) Make a coop refresh spray out of Lavender and Mint.

How to Make a Coop Refresh Spray: Divide the herbs (Lavender and Mint) into two jars and crush a bit with your fingers. Add white vinegar to each jar, completely covering the herbs and leaving 1/4” headroom in each jar. Set the jars to the side to age for a week or two. Shake every few days. When the mixture turns greenish brown it’s ready to be strained into a spray bottle. Spray in the coop as needed

Other Herbs You Can Use in the Chickens Housing: Bay Leaves

Lemon Balm

Lemon Grass

Pineapple Sage

Rosemary

Thyme

Basil

Bee Balm

Catnip

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“Herbify” the Nesting Box Herbs of Choice and Their Benefits: Lavender is calming, increases blood circulation, is highly aromatic and serves as an insecticide. Mint is a Rodent and insect repellant, disease prevention, works as a parasite control and encourages feather growth. Lemongrass repels flies, mosquitoes and other flying insects.

How to Use Herbs in the Nest Box: Spread the beneficial herbs in the nest boxes and refresh as needed.

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“Herbify" the Run Herbs of Choice and Their Benefits: Lemongrass repels insect pests. Basil repels insect pests, creates orange yolks and is high in protein, serves as a anti-bacterial, improves mucous membrane health and is rejuvenating. Dill is an antioxidant, is calming, prevents disease, controls parasites, improves respiratory health, is high in protein, repels harmful insects and is an anti-diarrheal. Rosemary repels insects, is a pain reliever, improves respiratory health and is calming. Mint is a rodent and insect repellant, offers disease prevention, controls parasites and encourages feather growth.

How to use Herbs in the Run: Surround the Run With Beneficial Herbs Take advantage of Lemongrass, Basil, Dill, Rosemary and Mint by planting them close to the run.

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“Herbify" the Dust Bath Herbs of Choice and Their Benefits: Lavender, mint and rosemary are natural insecticides. Anise, dill, fennel, ginger, mint and seaweed are good disease and parasite preventions. Dried wormwood keeps lice and mites away. Dried yarrow is antibacterial, anti-inflamatory, clears sinuses and respiratory systems, is a stress reliever, heals wounds and serves as an insecticide.

How to use herbs in the Dust Bath Mix any or all of the dry herbs mentioned above into your dust box. Not sure how to dry herbs? Check out the DIY project from Lisa Steele below:

Gather Supplies for an Herb Drying Rack: 3 wooden picture frames

paint (if desired)

window screen

8’ of small chain

20 small eye hooks

drill

small drill bit

pliers

staple gun

scissors

What to do: 1.

Collect three old picture frames.

2. Paint the frames (if desired) and let dry. 3. Cut screens to fit the backs of the picture frames (make sure to allow for 1/2” overlap). 4. Staple screens to the back of the picture frames. 5. Pre drill holes and screw in eye hooks in the top of the four corners of the frames. Pre drill and screw in eye hooks in the bottom of the two top frames. 6. Cut chain in 8” (13 pieces). 7. Attach chains to eye hook by bending open chain link around the eye hook. 8. Attach as single chain at top to hang the unit. 9. Hang in a dry location. Herbs take two days to two weeks to dry depending on environment and herb. 10. Store in jars or use immediately.

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“Herbify" the Feed:

Herbs of Choice and Their Benefits: Garlic repels fleas, ticks and other parasites, controls odor, and is a natural wormer, has overall health benefits, increases feed conversion, supports respiratory health and immune system. Basil and Lemon Balm are insecticides, create orange egg yolks and are high in protein Parsley is a laying stimulant, helps blood vessel development and circulation, encourages feather growth and is high in protein. Oregano is anti-parasitic, anti-fungal and an antibiotic. Bee Balm, Dill, Oregano, Thyme helps respiratory health. Fennel, Marjoram, Nasturtium, Parsley are egg laying stimulants. Cilantro, Sage, Spearmint, Tarragon are great for general health. Alfalfa, Basil and Dandelion greens create orange egg yolks. Comfrey - Aids digestion, is an anti-inflammatory, supports bone and artery growth, has vitamin B12 and is high in protein.

How to Feed Herbs Cut up Garlic and make available free choice as a supplement. Add Garlic or any of the other herbs dry or fresh to the daily feed ration. During their molt use Anise, Dill, Fennel, Garlic, Mint, Parsley to encourage feather regrowth.

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“Herbify" the Water

Herbs of Choice and Their Benefits: Garlic repels fleas, ticks and other parasites, controls odor, and is a natural wormer, has overall health benefits, increases feed conversion, supports respiratory health and immune system. Basil and Lemon Balm are Insecticides, create orange egg yolks and are high in protein Parsley is a laying stimulant, helps blood vessel development and circulation, encourages feather growth and is high in protein. Oregano prevents disease, is a natural wormer, serves as an antibiotic and helps with respiratory health. Dandelion is an antioxidant and a great source of calcium.

2 Ways to use Herbs in Your Water 1. Brew an herbal tea with Basil, Lemon balm, Parsley, Oregano, Dandelion either fresh or dried. 2. Add smashed Garlic cloves to their water and change out every few days.

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“Herbify" the Chicks

Herbs of Choice and Their Benefits: Parsley is high in vitamins and helps with blood vessel development and circulation. Bay leaves are an antiseptic, antioxidant, boots the immune system and is an insect repellant. Cilantro is an antioxidant, anti-fungal, it builds strong bones, is high in Vitamin A and K. Comfy aids digestion, is an anti-inflamatory, supports bone and artery growth, contains vitamin B12 and is high in protein. Pineapple Sage aid in nervous system development and is highly aromatic. Nettles, Parsley, Sage, and Spearmint improves overall health. Rosemary, Dill, Parsley and Mint assist feather growth. Basil, Bee balm, Cinnamon, Clover, Dill, Echinacea, Rosemary, Thyme, or Yarrow are great for respiratory health. Basil, Chervil, Coriander, Dill, Fennel, Marjoram, Parsley, Spearmint and Tarragon are herbs with high protein.

Two Ways to Use Herbs With Your Chicks 1. Make an “egg custard” by whisking eggs, minced garlic, dandelion greens, a bit of honey and some water. Fry and let cool then serve to the chicks. 2. Add any of the dry or fresh herbs listed above to the chick feed on a regular basis. Chop the herbs to make it a bit easier for them to eat.

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“Herbify” Health Remedies

I asked Lisa what some of the common chicken ailments are and how they can they be treated with herbs. She gave me the following tips: Chickens are most susceptible to respiratory problems. You can head those off, or treat an ailing chicken, with basil, bee balm, cinnamon, clover, dill, echinacea, rosemary, thyme or yarrow added to their diet. Sage is thought to fend off salmonella and oregano has been studied as a natural antibiotic along with thyme. Internal worms can be fought with nasturtium, garlic, pumpkin seeds, wormwood, chamomile and catnip. As with our health, building a strong immune system is always best. It's far easier to prevent illness than to treat it.

Making herbs a regular part of your flock's diet helps immensely with their health.

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This infographic design was made with the infographic software Venngage.

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5 Stages of Breeding Checklist

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Stage #1: Selecting Stock for Breeding ❏ Start off by vowing to keep good records. ❏ In the fall (when you’re culling) or in the spring select and mark your top 10% for breeding. I suggest recruiting someone with experience to help. Look to the Sustainable Poultry Network or a reputable local breeder. If need be you can select your stock based on your own records of vigor, production and a comparison to the “Standard of Perfection” for your breed.

Stage #2: Managing Breeder Chickens ❏ Wait until your breeding hens are old enough to have laid eggs for a couple of months, then you can start saving her eggs. ❏ After you’ve selected your breeding stock, divide them up into two to three families assuming your doing spiral mating (also called clan mating). If you don’t have enough for that many families (at least one rooster with one hen), then you can start with one family and split next year. ❏ Mark these families with bands and call them something. I call them blue and green family and mark them with blue and green bands. When their chicks hatch, I will identify and mark those chicks as being with their particular family. ❏ Isolate your breeder families away from the flock and other breeder families. Allow 2 weeks before collecting fertilized eggs so that any previous (undesirable) fertilization will be flushed out.

Stage #3: Handling Fertilized Eggs ❏ Once your breeding stock is separated from the main flock, you’ll want to give them about ten days together before you start saving eggs for setting. ❏ Start collecting fertilized eggs. Keep in mind how many chicks you want to hatch, how many a broody hen can sit on, and how many broody hens you’ll think you’’ll have. ❏ Save eight eggs per broody hen. ❏ Only save the cleanest eggs while avoided the large and small extremes. ❏ Store your eggs in an egg carton clearly marked for the breeding family. Once you get more than twelve, you can begin rotating out the older eggs and replacing with the newer ones. Store the fertilized eggs at room temperature and don’t wash.

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Stage #4: Managing the Broody Hen

Set up a Broody Station: ❏ Set up an area that offers separation from the rest of the flock (this could be as simple as wire mesh partition). ❏ This can be an area built among your existing operation or in a separate location. I use and old homemade brooder box located in my garage. ❏ Offer at least enough room for the nesting box, a waterer and a feeder (2’X3’X18”) ❏ Add a nesting box with fresh material like straw, shredded paper, or pine shavings ❏ Add fake eggs to the nesting box for when you transfer the broody hen. ❏ Add a small waterer and feeder. ❏ Make sure she has an area to relieve herself. Deep bedding or wire mesh floors will work. If you're using a wire mesh floor suspended over the ground, make sure it’s off the ground and push the manures through on a regular basis.

4 Ways to Encourage Hens to go Broody: ❏ Hopefully, you have a breed that will go broody. Avoiding hatchery birds and strive for traditional breeds like the Black Australorps, New Hampshire or Orpingtons, to name a few. ❏ Leave a fake egg (or several) in the nest at all times. Having something to sit on that resembles an egg could encourage her to go broody. ❏ Make sure your nesting area is “secluded” and dark. The chickens need to feel their nesting area is a “safe” place from predators. ❏ Keep the nesting boxes clean and free of mites or other annoying insects.

Three Ways to Tell if You’ve Got a Broody Hen: ❏ The hen is continually on a nest ❏ The hen puffs up, pecks you or is overly aggravated when you reach towards here or collect eggs from underneath her. ❏ The sure fire way to know is if she stays on the nest through the night and doesn’t perch.

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Setting the Broody Hen: ❏ Remove the broody hen at night when she’s tranquil and will be most disoriented from the move. ❏ Place the broody hen in her broody station inside of her nesting box directly on the fake eggs. If she acts like she’s ready to jump, gently hold her down a few seconds. If she continues to want to jump after you release your hand turn her nesting box around again the wall so that she can’t get out, then turn her around in the morning. ❏ Leave her in the broody station on the fake eggs for a day. If she stops being broody, then it’s not meant to be. If she’s continually broody, then place your fertilized eggs underneath her. I set eight, and wouldn’t suggest any more than that for a beginner. You can set as much as she can adequately cover, so it does vary by breed and size of the individual. (Be careful not to push this thinking; it’s ok if a few don’t hatch.) The mama will equally rotate every egg from the center to the edges. If she’s got too many, chances are they will all be too cool. You can keep her brooder without fertilized eggs for at least a couple of weeks. Believe it or not, she’ll happily sit there until she gets her eggs, plus the three weeks it takes to hatch the eggs. ❏ Mark your calendar 20 days out. Most of the time, they’ll hatch within 21 days, but it can take longer. ❏ Make sure you check her feed and water daily. She won’t eat or drink much and will lose as much as ⅓ of her body weight. ❏ Clean out any poop throughout the process. Don’t be alarmed if her poops are rare, massive, smelly, or diarrhea. ❏ About ten days in, check the eggs for viability (if desired). Working at night, you can “candle” the eggs to see if there’s life. You’ll pull out the infertile eggs as they are rotting and could crush or even explode, creating a smell and attracting harmful bacteria that could penetrate the other eggs. To “candle,” get a strong flashlight and hold the egg directly on the lamp. If you see veins in the eggs, it’s doing well. If you see a solid lump, it’s no good. If they all seem to be bad, you should leave them be as you might not be candling right. ❏ On day 20 you can do another check for viability. This time holding each egg to your ear and gently flicking it. You’re likely to hear a chirp inside. ❏ Once the 1st chick begins to hatch, it can take up to 3 days for all them to hatch, but I’ve never seen it go longer than 12 hours. The mama will instinctively lay there until they’ve all hatched. If she get up and there are still whole eggs, they’re bad. ❏ Resist the temptation to assist a struggling chick trying to get out of its shell. As harsh as this sounds, it’s a very strong indication of weakness and will more than likely remain weak and sickly. ❏ Enjoy watching the mama shelter and feed her chicks.

Stage #5: Managing Mama and Chicks ❏ Move Mama and chicks out as soon as possible. If you can’t put them out right away, be sure to bring in fresh, live foods. ❏ Be sure not to feed adult pre mixes as they contain calcium that will harm the chicks. Take note that the Mama hen won’t need calcium either as she’s not producing any eggs. ❏ Depending on your aerial predator situation you may be able to free range mama and chicks, but if you can’t, a bottomless covered house like a chicken tractor or pastured poultry pen will do just fine.

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How to Humanely Butcher Your Chicken Dinner

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Tools and Supplies: (I use and/or suggest) Note: These are the tools I actually use and truly suggest. You may like to know that some of the links are affiliate links, which means I’ll get a commission if you purchase.

Poultry Transport Cage Restraining Cones Sharp Knives: 6” Multipurpose, Deboning Knife by Victorinox 3” Knife by Victorinox 8” Chef Knife by Victorinox Knife Sharpening Kit The honing tool Pruning shears Waterproof Apron Waterproof Boots Buckets Scalder: Outdoor Turkey Fryer Electric Scalder Liquid Soap A Thermometer A Scalding Poker Extension Cords Power Strip

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A Machine Plucker: Drill Plucker Drum Style Plucker Commercial Plucker Large Cooking Pot A Sink and a Processing Table: Drinking Water Safe Hoses Mobile Butchering Table Two Persons Butchering Table Hand Soap and Towels Stainless Steel Bowl(s) Cooler(s) Transport Tray(s) Towels (for drying the birds) Vacuum Sealer and Bags (gallon or rolls) Food Scale

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Tools and Equipment Checklist: ❏

Poultry Transportation Cage

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Restraining cones (or rope for hanging)

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Sharp knife(s)

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Honing Steel

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Pruning Shears

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Waterproof apron

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Waterproof boots

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Buckets (I use four)

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Scalder

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Thermometer

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Liquid soap

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Scalding poker

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Extension cords

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Power strip

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Plucker (or rope for hanging chickens while hand plucking)

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Large pot

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Processing sink and table

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Hand soap

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Hand Towel(s)

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Stainless steel bowl(s)

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Cooler(s)

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Transport Tray(s)

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Dry rack or towels

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Vacuum sealer

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Bags

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Scale

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Preparing for Butchering

One week Before: Go over your checklist and order any supplies you might need before butchering day. One day before or earlier the day of butchering. Designate an area for processing that’s shady, has access to electricity and running water. Set up your processing area the day before or early morning the day of slaughter. Sharpen knives. 12 Hours Before: Withhold feed to make sure their crop is empty. This is not a necessity but makes it easier and cleaner when processing. I just separate the chickens I’m going to butcher into a cage or a pastured poultry pen (depending on how many I’m processing) before I feed that morning. 2-4 Hours Before: Get your scalder going in plenty of time to get to your desired temperature. It can take several hours for an electric or a fire to heat water up to 145 degrees, so plan accordingly.

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Butchering, Step by Step

Step #1 - Place the chicken in the restraining cone and gently pull his head through the bottom. Step #2 - Hold the head with your subordinate hand and quickly, slice into the side of the neck as close as you can get towards the cheek bone (this optimizes the amount of neck you can save). Be sure to slice hard enough to get through the skin and into the blood veins but not too hard as to begin cutting into the windpipe and neck. Step #3 - Quickly slice the other side of the neck to encourage a quick bleed. Step #4 - Bend the Chicken's head to encourage bleeding and hold her head steady (if her nerves cause her to shake). If there’s lots of blood coming out, you’ve made a successful kill, if not, you’ll need to quickly slice again until sufficient blood flows. He’ll bleed a lot initially but will slow significantly after the first few seconds and will trickle to 3 minutes. Step #5 - Place your chicken in scalding water. Notice I didn’t say boiling water. I like a temperature of about 145 degrees. Step #6 - Thoroughly and evenly scaled by moving the chicken around with some sort of poking device. At 145 degrees it takes 30 seconds to a minute. You can test the bird during the scald by pealing at her feet and or her wings. If his feet easily peel and the wing feathers easily come out, the scald is good. Step #7 - Dip the scalding chicken into a bucket of cool water to stop the “cooking” process. Step #8 - Pluck the chicken by hand or speed up the work significantly with a machine (up to 10X faster). Step #9 - Pick off any excess hair or feathers. Step #10 - Pull the skin off of the feet. Step #11 - Remove the toe nails by bending and pulling against the curve. Step #12 - Cut off the leg by cutting between the joints. Step #13 - Pull or cut off the head with your shears. Step #14 - If you’re going to save the head for cooking, rub the coating off the comb and wattles and pinch the beak and pull off the cuticle. Step #15 - Singe hairs, if desired. Step #16 - Cut the skin around the base of the neck to reveal the crop. Step #17 - Peal the crop downward off of the breast bone. Step #18 - Put your thumb through the neck between the neck, crop, esophagus and windpipe. Step #19 - Pull the the crop and skin off. Step #20 - Cut the tubes close to the body. Step #21 - Cut the neck with your shears angled down from the body so there’s no bones to pierce future storage bags. Step #22 - Cut the oil gland off by slicing down and out. Step #23 - Make a small slit through the abdomen skin as close as possible to the vent so not to cut any intrals.

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Step #24 - Open the carcass with both hands. Step #25 - Reach in scraping against the rib cages with your finger nails loosening the entrails from the body. Step #26 - Hook the esophagus in your finger or just grab behind the entrails and pull them out. Step #27 - Cut off the heart and liver. Step #28 - Save these in your stainless steel bowl of cold ice water if you’re saving them. Step #29 - Cut away the gizzard. If you’re saving the gizzard cut it open long ways from one end and remove the grit/food along with the yellow lining, rinse and set aside. Step #30 - Save the testicles from males, for consumption, if desired. Step #31 - Cut away the entrails cutting as close as you can to the vent in order to save as much fat as possible. Step #32 - Pull the lungs out. Reach in and dig into the lung with your finger nails prying them out. Step #33 - Rinse your bird and place it in the cooler You can leave your bird whole or go ahead and part it. If you want to cut it up, here’s one way to do it.

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Cutting the bird into pieces

If you want to go ahead and part your bird, here’s how to do it quick and easy: Cut the wings by turning the bird on its side pulling the wing away from the body. Pull on the wing while you cut a half circle around the wing. The wing should start to separate as you pull and cut and you’ll easily see where you can cut below the bone to remove the wing. I try and cut as close as I can to the wing as I’d rather have the extra meat on the breast, not the wing. Cut the skin between the legs and the body by laying the chicken on it’s back and cutting as close as possible along the leg. Cutting close to the leg assures maximum skin coverage for the breast. I prefer to sacrifice a little skin on the leg as opposed to the breast. Take both legs and bend with weight of the bird to reveal the area between the joints for your next cut. Separate leg from thigh by cutting through the fat line. Remove the back by cutting down the fat line then bending and pulling to break and remove Turn the breast over, revealing the bone. Score the bone at the center Pop out the keel bone by bending the breast upward and prying it out. Cut the breast in half

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Storing Your Chicken

Dry off your chicken with towels. Place in storage bag and vacuum seal Weigh and label Place in fridge for three days to tenderize the meat then stick it in the freezer for long term storage.

Cleaning Up

Feed the feathers to the chicken or compost them. Compost the entrails, blood (if you’re not consuming it) and any other unused parts by burying them deep inside of a compost pile or leaving them on the outskirts of your property for the wild animals.

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Simple Baked Chicken

Ingredients: 1 Fresh or Frozen (thawed) Whole Chicken 2 to 4 TBSP Butter Salt Pepper

Instructions: Rinse the chicken. Spread two to four tablespoons of butter to keep moist during the bake. Add salt and pepper to taste. Bake at 350 degrees for one and half hours.

Cook some veggies for your sides and and voila, a quick, easy and healthy dinner.

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Resources

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These are ALL resources I use. Many are free, some I happily paid for. If these folks (or items) happened to offer an affiliate link then (by all means) I used that. Heck, why not get paid a little (4-8%) if you buy something. Plus, for some reason, the law requires me to put that out there. Weird.

5 of My favorite resources: 1. Permies.com: An extremely active community (forum) of permaculture folks from around the world. Go ahead, imagine a sustainable/permaculture topic… Yep, it’s there. From composting (everything) to finding a date, it’s all there. I stay on top of the best conversations by subscribing to their “daily-ish” email HERE. 2. Miller Manufacturing: These guys have almost everything you need for raising chickens. I use (and love) their vacuum seal waterers, feed pans, automatic feed pans and feed scoops. Plus their stuff is easy to get at any farm supply store or on Amazon. 3. Circle A Brand Clothing: Fellow kickstarter (and local to me) who custom makes heritage style clothing. It’s the hat I wear in the film, “Permaculture Chickens” and most all of my outside farm projects. 4. Sturdy Brothers:Yet another kickstarter company, making high quality hand made (in America) aprons, totes, belts etc… I love their waxed canvas aprons for protecting my clothes while I work on the farm. Again, I’m wearing their apron during the film and most of the time while working outside. 5. Premier 1 Supplies: High quality mobile electric fencing company. Gosh, I still have my first net, from like six years ago or something crazy. And, I’m not easy on stuff. Just found out over the summer, it’s the choice of Joel Salatin (and he doesn’t do sponsorships, just buys quality stuff). 


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Books on my shelves: • Introduction to Permaculture - If I could only have one book, this would be it. • Permaculture, a Designers Manual - And, if I could only have two books. • Small Scale Poultry Flock - My “go to” chicken book. Tons of respect going out to Harvey Ussery for this amazing book. • Pastured Poultry Profit - A classic jewel from Joel Salatin on how to make money with chickens. • You can Farm - Another great one from Salatin about making money on the farm. • Four Seasons Harvest - Master organic gardener grows veggies all year round (in Maine)! • Gaia’s Garden - Toby Hemingway’s incredible book on permaculture gardening. • The Four Hour Work Week - I recommend this book often to anyone trying to quit their job, leverage the power of the internet and start their own business. • Launch - And if someone wants a blue print on exactly how to successfully sell their product or service (no matter what it is), this is their book. (This is only a recommendation for the book, not the course.)

Videos: • Back to Eden - This free (feature length) film taught me how to garden with wood chips and cut down on weeding, the need for fertilizers, crop rotation and even irrigation. I sold my tiller years ago and have been using this method ever since.

• Geoff Lawton’s Zaytuna Farm Tours - It’s this video that showed me the incredible possibilities of permaculture and got me into the movement.

• Geoff Lawton’s FREE Videos - And two of these videos inspired my chicken run on steroids (where I feed chickens 100% on compost). Plus so much more… from making gas with cow poop to building a cob house for $500.

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Films: • Permaculture Orchard - Learn how to eliminate pesticides and lots of labor with permaculture techniques in the garden. The visual and educational quality of this film is what inspired me onto the path of educational documentaries. We would not have “Permaculture Chickens” if it wasn’t for this film.

Podcasts: • Permaculture Voices - Diego does an excellent job interviewing some of the best in permaculture and sustainable business. This is where I first heard about all the cool things sustainable folks are doing through the internet to get their product/services out there. • The Survival Podcast - Jack Spirko’s passion is to help you live a better (more freedom) life, if times get tough, and even if they don’t. • Smart Passive Income - Pat Flynn has pioneered the podcast and online business world. This is my #1 business podcast for tips and tricks for running a successful business.

Online Blogs: Fresh Eggs Daily: Lisa Steele’s blog on all thing natural backyard chicken keeping. Community Chickens: Mother Earth News’ online blog about chickens. PermacultureNews.org: Curated, daily news from the sustainable/permaculture community. ThePrairieHomestead.com: Tips, tricks and recipes related at the homestead level. thewellfedhomestead.com: Paleo/GAPS recipes from a farm perspective FoodRenegade: Challenging politically correct nutrition. We love ancestral nutrition in all its forms -- Paleo, Primal, WAPF. Nourished Kitchen: traditional foods blog that explores the connection between culinary heritage, health and sustainable farming.

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Online Resources: Organic Science Compost Calculator - Figure out the perfect mix of “greens” and “browns” based on the material you have available. Henderson’s Chicken Chart - Quickly compare many breeds of chicken with size, egg production and much more. Burpee Planting Calendar - Plug in your zip code and Burpee’s online calculator will tell you what you can plant and when. Permaculture Plants - Oh man, this is an incredible resource of all the useful shrubs, trees and plants from a permaculture design (useful) perspective. Chickens and You- Pat Forman’s Foundation of intimate (live) chicken courses. Pat is my personal “go to” when I have a question about chickens. The Sustainable Poultry Network - Online directory of reputable breeders of heritage, dual purpose chicken breeds. This is where I found my first genetically supreme flock.

Business Authorities I Follow: Tim Ferriss’ The Four Hour Work Week Blog: Inspiring podcasts and business articles. Pat Flynn’s Smart Passive Income: “How to” podcasts and blogs Bryan Harris’s Video Fruit: How to build (and market to) and email list. Brian Dean’s Backlinko: Real (actionable) tips for getting on top of Google “organic” search results. Neville’s Kopywriting Kourse (BLOG): Excellent (and funny) way I’m learn copywriting (sales writing).

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