The temporary or part-time farmer should definitely consider the humble chicken as a provider. One Mother Earth News expert puts it this way: "Dollar for dollar and pound for pound, poultry-especially chickens-has got to be the all-time best livestock that any homesteading family can raise. A flock of a half dozen to fifty birds will (if allowed to roam freely by day and protected from predators at night) exert a positive control on any mini-farm's insect population, and set the table with both tasty meat and fresh eggs."
If you've ever eaten farm eggs, you must have quickly discovered their great taste compared to the supermarket product, which is stored for long periods before the shopper sees it. Fresh farm eggs are firmer; the yolks have deeper colors. And of course, excess eggs can easily be sold: a sign in front of your driveway will usually fetch enough customers.
Raising poultry will keep your own stewpot filled; as in the case of eggs, you can develop a clientele for chickens. Likewise, there is added income if you can hatch baby chicks. In fact, some small farmers have garnered contracts with hatcheries; you produce fertile eggs which are shipped to the hatchery for artificial incubation.
Or you incubate the little critters yourself and then sell them to egg farmers.
Poultry raising is still possible on small acreage, which should be located far enough from any town to avoid the problems associated with urbanization, in fact, you should always inquire about local ordinances. Large cities are paranoid about chickens living in backyards. And keep in mind that someone-you, a companion, or a friend-must be present every day. You can delay gardening for a day, but you can't delay supervision of baby chicks or the feeding of pullets or hens.
Some Warning Words
Before you rush out and go into the poultry business, investing all your savings in these creatures, you should be aware of certain negative things. First of all, the business isn't very profitable. Eggs and chicken meat fetch chronically low prices.
Second, consider the competition-the corporate poultry giants. Most large-scale poultry producers count their flocks in the thousands and feed the birds specially prepared rations, using expensive machinery. All of this takes large investments in equipment and housing and considerable knowledge. An executive from a leading feed company puts it this way: "In the United State poultry production has become a large industry in agriculture, with big commercial ranches and farms specializing in different kinds and phases of poultry production. Equipment, management practices, feeds, marketing, have all been geared to these large commercial poultry producers."
The giants tend as many as 75,000 birds at once, using advanced technology to feed them, to increase their egg production, or to prepare them for supermarket sales. A small part-time farmer would be insane to buck these huge corporate operators. Instead, survival comes from a modest operation. No point in putting all your eggs into one basket; eggs and poultry should be only part of your overall farm operation. And as such, it can be rewarding in more than money; you'll also find it a pleasure to see the little noisemakers grow and to produce. Wake up to the sound of a rooster! Run into the hen house and remove the still-warm eggs. And that night at supper taste your barnyard chicken, which is infinitely more flavorful than the mass-produced article.
A Little Nuts-and-Bolts Advice
Get off to a good start by buying your birds from a reputable hatchery or breeder with a good disease-control program. (Your State or U.S. Department of Agriculture will have hatchery listings.) Several breeds and crosses of chickens are suitable for small farm flocks. If egg production is your main aim, egg production stocks, such as White Leghorn strain crosses, are recommended for white eggs. (There are also some good brown stocks which are good layers.) Consult a local hatchery or your county agricultural agent for information on sources.
One way to start a flock is to buy day-old chicks. Most commercial hatcheries now separate chicks by sex, so you can choose mostly pullets for egg production or include cockerels that will be used for meat.
Very young chicks require a lot of care, and must be kept in a heated brooder house, or better still, under the feathered wings of a mother hen.
Chicken babies can be raised in any type of building that can be controlled for satisfactory temperature conditions and good ventilation for day-old animals up to eight weeks of age. Maintain a minimum of sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit temperature for the first two weeks and ensure ventilation without draft. Allow Vz square foot of floor space per bird to six weeks and a minimum of 1 square foot per bird from seven through twelve weeks.
Besides a place for brooding you must provide warm temperatures simulating the body heat of the mother hen. Commercial stoves with thermostat control or infrared lamps can be used. The number of chicks per heating unit varies with the brooder size and manufacturer's recommendations. Allow a maximum of 350 chicks per 36-inch diameter brooder.
You may prefer to buy older chickens-ready-to-lay pullets, or hens that have completed one year of production. Pullets can be brought from a commercial pullet raiser, and yearling hens from a commercial egg producer. Be sure the birds were tested for and are free from diseases.
You'll need a suitable building, which can be constructed from used materials. Apart from a poultry house, there should be solid fencing against dogs and other predators. Laying houses must be adequately lighted and ventilated. Chickens have no sweat glands, and temperatures exceeding a hundred degrees kill the birds.
Fortunately, chickens do well in a small garden area, where their life is far superior to that under artificial lights in corporate sheds. And if they eat your leftovers, scraps, worms, insects-instead of just commercial feeds-they'll taste much better at the table. Experts recommend that you add about 85 pounds of mash and grain per year per bird.
Regardless of the quality of your poultry, good results cannot be expected unless the birds are fed.
When using a commercial product, the manufacturer's recommendations should be followed. Avoid mixing recommendations of several different companies, because each firm designs its product for a specific feeding program. You might consult the nearest USDA office or an agricultural extension expert at a close-by university. You'll learn that egg production requires a different food formula than feeds for future broilers. Naturally, water is another essential; you can buy special water containers at a hardware or feed store.
Raising forty chicks a year should take care of flock replacements and provide enough food for your own table. (If you think of selling your birds, you'd be wise to develop some markets first.) Nowadays, a hen, if well cared for, can lay from 150 to 300 eggs a year. A few chickens therefore suffice for your breakfast needs.
If you have fed your laying hens carefully, you should get high-quality eggs for the market. Most people gather the eggs from the nests twice daily, and clean and cool them. The eggs should be held at a temperature between forty-five and fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit.
If you are going to sell the product, do not include undersized, cracked, or thin-shelled eggs, because size and shell quality affect price.
Watch your flock for signs of disease, and act promptly if they occur. Symptoms may include: coughing, sneezing, difficulty in breathing, watery eyes, a sudden drop in feed consumption, droopiness, paralysis, and abnormal droppings such as diarrhea or blood. When you suspect illness, isolate the sick birds immediately from the rest of the flock. Get a reliable diagnosis and start treatment at once. Kill very sick chickens, and burn or deeply bury the remains to prevent spreading the disease.
Clean all feeders and waterers regularly. Remove droppings frequently, and keep fresh litter on the floor. Clean and disinfect the entire building thoroughly at least once a year, especially after any sick birds have been held there.
Turkeys
Turkeys can be raised on small farms, but they do require special care and equipment. Young turkeys must be kept warm and dry.
Turkeys should not be allowed to run with chickens, and young animals should not be kept with older ones. Turkeys should not be put in buildings that have housed chickens within the past three months. These precautions are necessary to keep your Thanksgiving gobblers from contracting blackhead and other serious diseases.
The birds are usually sold as mature roasters or as fryer-roasters, sometimes called broilers. Small-type mature roasting turkeys of both sexes will be ready for market after 22 to 24 weeks; large-type ones at 24 to 28 weeks. Bigger hens, however, often are marketed after 20 weeks.
Small white birds make excellent fryer-roasters. Large white females also become satisfactory fryer-roasters after about 13 weeks.
Buy 100-day-old turkey poults from breeding flocks tested for and free from pullorum-typhoid, typhimurium, and sinusitis. After getting the birds home, you should feed and water them right away.
Young turkeys are notoriously slow to eat and drink. The task may be difficult at first. Solution? Take the birds, dip their beaks into the water for a drink, then into the feed, before placing the poult under the hover. Attractants such as a light top dressing of rolled oats or chick-size cracked corn help get the young turkeys started on feed and prevent starve-outs.
You could also consider buying turkey chicks from a reliable hatchery or breeder. The same equipment (brooder house, hovers, waterers, feeders, litter) used for brooding chicks applies to growing turkeys up to eight weeks of age. After the day-old poults are installed and everything checked, the young birds should be left alone for a short time to adjust themselves to their surroundings. Visiting distracts the gobblers from feed and water.
For the first eight weeks, poults need a starting mash containing 28 percent protein. After this, they should be fed a growing mash, loose or pelleted. The brooding procedure up to eight weeks of age is the same as for chickens, but the temperature should be higher for turkeys. Start the brooder stove at about one hundred to one hundred and five degrees Fahrenheit. After the first week the hover temperature can be reduced five degrees.
It takes about ten to twelve weeks for poultry growers to put their turkeys "on the range," which may be grass or other pasture, and should be well drained and fenced. Roosts and shade should be available. Some kind of portable range shelter on skids is needed; its wire walls should be strong and close enough to keep out predatory animals like foxes, dogs, and skunks. Take care to latch the shelter door each night when the birds are inside. Naturally you can keep turkeys outdoors only in fairly mild climates.
Like the chicken business, the turkey commerce has its negative points. The demand for meat is steady enough, but prices haven't gone up for some years. Moreover, huge turkey farms get rich because of their mechanization and mass marketing. (The USDA considers 5,000 birds a minimum for the turkey business.) Slaughtering plants and wholesalers are not always willing to deal with the small operator, shunning the offer of fifty to a hundred birds. Because of this, it would be smart to figure out your sales possibilities before laying out your cash. Talk to the nearest co-op market, the communes, anad some friends. And inquire about the local health regulations.
Ducks
The number of ducks raised annually for meat in the United States is in the neighborhood of 10 million. Little change in production has occurred in the past decades.
Approximately 60 percent of the ducks are grown on Long Island, New York. Although climatic conditions on Long Island seem ideal for duck production, major production may eventually shift to areas with lower feed and labor costs, and with better real estate values and property taxation. Meat-type breeding stock is usually picked from duck flocks hatched in April and May. The potential breeders are selected when the birds are six to seven weeks of age. At this time the distinctly different voices of males and females make it easy to separate the birds-females "honk," males "belch." Select birds that are vigorous and have good weight, conform to the rest of the flock, and have healthy feathering.
You can achieve maximum efficiency for growth and reproduction by using commercially prepared diets sold in pellet form. Lack of pelleted feed should not discourage anyone who produces ducklings on a small scale. Satisfactory results are also possible with mash-a mix of grains and other nutrients, ground up into a "mash." Naturally, you must provide water with your food. How about diseases? They won't generally affect ducks raised in small numbers and in relative isolation.
Before you know it, your little duckling is going to market. American meat ducklings are ready between seven and ten weeks of age if they were fed high-energy diets and were originally selected for good health and conformity. Major producing areas usually have one or more modern processing plants to handle the birds. They are generally sold frozen and ready to cook after thawing. If you raise limited numbers of ducks, you can try special retail grocery outlets that sell live or freshly killed ducklings.
To make a little money, you must "think local." Call on some local grocers or butchers; visit the better restaurants in your area.
Your sales should be brisk in winter. Duckling is generally regarded as a special item during the holidays.
Geese
One advantage in raising geese is that they generally require less care and attention than the same number of chickens.
For example, young geese can be put on pasture when they are only a few weeks old. They will need little additional food as long as the grass is green. The birds are good foragers. Even small geese are hardy and not susceptible to many of the common poultry diseases. And geese are frequently used as weeders for such crops as strawberries, sugar beets, and corn. They also prove useful as weeders in orchards and vineyards.
Geese are raised in small flocks in all parts of the United States as a sideline, as a hobby, or for ornamental and exhibition purposes. The handsome birds are produced commercially on both general and specialized farms in the north-central states, especially in Missouri, Iowa, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Indiana. California and Washington are also among the leading states. (Annual U.S. production is estimated at approximately a million birds.) Experienced farmers know how to pick the right birds; the geese should be vigorous and well developed, with a history of rapid growth, and compact, meaty bodies. Medium-size birds are usually the best breeders.
You should mate geese at least one month prior to the breeding season. The larger breeds mate best in twos or threes or in a ratio of one male to three or four females in large flocks. Ganders of some of the lighter breeds will get along satisfactorily with four or five females. Geese are slow to make it with new birds, so it is difficult to make changes in established matings or introduce new stock into the flock. Also bear in mind that geese can be vicious with people. Keep children away.
Except in very cold areas, breeding geese prefer to be outdoors. The birds also make nests on the floor of a hen house, in coops, boxes, or barrels provided in the yard.
Farm geese are usually sold in the fall and winter at the age of five to six months. Most birds go to market when they weigh from 11 to 15 pounds. Your best poultry markets are in large cities. Geese bring the highest prices at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Geese feathers are valuable and, if properly cared for and marketed, may be a source of extra income. Three geese usually produce one pound of dry feathers, used by bedding and clothing industries. In fact, that quality down parka in your closet is probably filled with the soft white coat of geese.
To be sure, if you seek more exotic birds, you can always raise partridges, pheasants, swans, peacocks, or squabs.
For additional or more specific information on raising poultry, consult your county agricultural agent, your state agricultural college, or the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C. 20250.
