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Backyard Chickens 8 Your Readers share their favorite photos of their flocks.

Best Backyard Chicken Breeds for Kids 18 The A whole new generation of youngsters is falling in love

Flock Owner Offers Advice Remember these lesser-known needs when caring for your feathered friends.

10 COVER PHOTOGRAPH: ADOBE STOCK/ROMAN PYSHCHYK

Chicken Coop 101 Take advantage of the lessons learned when the author and her husband started raising chickens.

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with poultry and is eager to learn how to raise them.

Anyone Can Raise Chickens You can start chicks off right by following this expert advice.

Hatching a Plan

It’s all in a day’s work for entrepreneur Ryan Kelsey, who rises with the chickens.

Why Raise Heritage Livestock?

Such breeds connect us with our past and often can bring a variety of benefits to a farm.

From Total Loss to Sustainable Success

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A hardworking family from New Orleans lost everything in Katrina. With only themselves to rely on, they started an extremely successful sustainable chicken farm.

on Pasture 36 Poultry Don’t underestimate the nutritional value of the weeds and

grasses on your ground.

Seven Safety Tips for Free-Ranging Chickens

Follow this experienced chicken owner’s advice to keep your flock happy and healthy as they roam around your yard.

Feed the Flock Whether free-range, forage, or a combination of the two, learn what makes an effective diet for your chickens. www.Grit.com

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6 Tips to Prepare Your Flock for Fall Get your chickens ready for the coming winter weather with advice from an experienced chicken keeper.

A Healthy Flock: What You Need to Know Backyard chicken-keeping tips will help you keep your birds thriving.

to Do About Poultry Remorse 50 What Avoid this malady by following these five tips from an

experienced chicken owner

Get Smart: Protecting the Flock 52 from Predators Knowing the enemy is the first step to keeping your chickens safe.

and Preventing Lice on Chickens 56 Treating Learn how to identify the presence of life to avoid an infestation in your chicken flock.

Treating and Preventing Chicken Frostbite Protect your flock from winter freezes with the help of these tips.

Chicken Chill 62 Winter A seasoned chicken keeper from New England shares

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her tips for preparing your flock to thrive this winter.

82 Ducks or Geese for Family Poultry?

Both are fun birds to keep on the farm, but there are some key differences.

A History of Geese as 84 Guard Animals Owning a flock of geese is also a great way to control weeds.

How to Create an All-Weather Dust Bath Avoid mites by helping your chickens keep clean even when snow covers the ground.

How to Prepare Chicken Coops for Winter in 6 Steps When winter threatens, make sure your chickens are prepared for the worst the season may offer.

Eggs, Eggs, and More Eggs

Once your flock has started laying eggs, what do you do with all the extras?

Cooking With the Backyard Poultry Flock Your backyard flock keeps growing, and you have more eggs and chicken meat than you do recipes—or you did until now.

Grit's Guide to Chickens

in the Garden 86 Chickens You can ‘recoop’ much of the expense of raising chickens by putting their manure to work in your garden and enlisting your birds for organic pest control.

Litter Management 92 Deep Pile on the mulch for great compost and better chicken health in the coop.

Affordable Ways to Keep Your Flock Warm Some easy methods help increase the chance your chickens will survive a spate of cold weather.

Chicken Coop 101

free-range during the day, they need a safe haven to sleep. Make sure nothing can get underneath the coop or through the door or windows. We use two types of locks on all our doors (hoping if they can get one open they can’t get the other) and every window has a barrel-lock on the inside. We also added a tough wire to all the windows so they can remain open during the hot summer. Here are a few more things we’ve learned. For more, visit my blog at www.lifeatcobblehillfarm.com. Lesson One: You want to make sure you can get in the coop to clean it. Whether you want a portable house or a large coop as we have, make sure there is access to the indoor and outdoor areas. We chose a shed-style coop that my husband designed and built. We had to build an outdoor run because of loose dogs in the neighborhood. We started with a small solar panel for a light, but ended up running electricity to it as well (see Lesson 10). Our outdoor run features a “people” door as well as a chicken tractor door. The idea of the smaller door is you can pull the chicken tractor up to it and load them in. I would change two things: The people door isn’t quite tall enough, so you have to duck (after hitting your head once, you will remember to do so), and make the chicken tractor door so it opens out not in. We built sloped roofs for the snow we get in the Northeast. We also chose metal roofing to go with the rest of the outbuildings on the property.

Take advantage of the lessons learned when the author and her husband started raising chickens.

By Staci Ducharme

You about anything. I’ve seen rabbit

hutches, tool sheds, and portions of barns converted into chicken coops. If you’re lucky enough to start from scratch, or you’re able to remodel an existing structure, there are a few things we’ve learned you might want to take into consideration. A little red shed was the existing chicken coop and tiny outdoor run when we purchased our farm house. We knew we wanted to build a new, larger coop and run, and had hoped to do so prior to bringing chickens home. It didn’t happen as planned and I am now thankful. We learned a lot using this small coop that wouldn’t have crossed our minds. The girls and handsome Mr. Clyde lived there for about three months before the new coop was built. As a start, regarding the size of your coop, the general number seems to be 3 feet to every chicken. (Our coop is 8 feet by 10 feet and around 8 feet tall.) Remember to also keep in mind you want a roost area, feeding area, and egg laying area. Think through the feeding area, because if it’s too close to the roost area you’ll end up with feeders full of manure. You also want to make sure the coop is safe from predators. Even if your chickens

Grit’s Guide to Chickens

left to right: iStock/Stieglitz; Fotolia/Ivonne Wierink

can make a chicken coop from just

Lesson Two: If you have an outdoor run, you want the door to open into the run. In the first coop, we had to wade through the mob of chickens, all yelling to be let out, to open the door because it opened in. I love this. We put a latch on the door in addition to a clip to keep smart raccoons and other critters out at night. Lesson Three: If you have an outdoor run, offer lots of roosting space. They absolutely love it. Jay made a handy little ramp, including wood strips, so they could get traction on their way down.

With a large coop, ensure there is a way to get inside for cleaning, and consider adding an outdoor run, plenty of outside roosting space, and a ramp to allow the chickens to get inside.

All chickens love a spot to dust bathe and a large litter pan filled with play sand and some wood ash is like a day at the spa! In the interior of the coop, we added a small solar light. Jay designed and built the nesting boxes with a small perch in the front. (We place golf balls inside each box, it really does encourage egg laying in the box!) Lesson Four: You should have one nesting box for every four to five chickens. Also, the nesting boxes don’t have to be large, although Jay wanted the girls to have plenty of room so he built ours a little bigger than necessary. Generally, a box 12 inches square is plenty of space. We put straw in ours, and the girls enjoy rearranging it while waiting to lay their eggs. Our nesting boxes are purposely positioned below the window, because you want a dark, quiet area for them. We also added a slant roof to the top hoping to deter the girls from roosting on it. Although it hasn’t stopped them completely, it does make it more difficult. We used all available space. We put the nesting boxes up high enough to have storage space underneath for small cans of

their feed. Also, the door to the outdoor run is tucked underneath. We use the deep litter method; however, I still rake the manure in the mornings after a night’s roost. I purchased a rake from our local hardware store and had Jay put two nails in the wall to hold it. It works perfectly for letting the litter fall through but holds the manure to throw in the compost bin. We built lots of roosting space as well as two roosting shelves. We discovered during our use of the first coop that the girls love the shelves and fight over them every night. Jay wanted them to be happy, so he put two in the new coop. Make sure you use something such as a 2x4 for the roost so they are comfortable wrapping their feet around it. Lesson Five: We put four windows in our coop for plenty of ventilation. We have two small windows on the north and south sides of the coop that are up high enough it won’t be breezy on the hens as they roost. One is kept open all the time for constant ventilation to prevent ammonia buildup. We open both when www.Grit.com

anyone can raise

Raising and a great deal of fun.

baby poultry is easy

chickens

Many people start with chickens, but you might also consider ducks, guineas, turkeys, or geese. You can order chicks from a hatchery, buy them at a local farm store, or allow a hen to hatch eggs and raise the chicks for you. Raising purchased chicks is easy, but remember they rely on you for their every need.

The Chicks Are in the Mail

Just before hatching, a chick absorbs and stores the last of the egg yolk it’s been feeding on throughout incubation. This last bit of yolk can sustain the chick for several days before its first drink or meal, providing a window of opportunity for shipping chicks from a hatchery to your front door. When your chicks arrive, open the box in the presence of the postal clerk or carrier. Shipments from a reputable hatchery are insured, and the hatchery will likely replace losses if there are a large number of fatalities. That sounds scary, but I’ve rarely had problems. It is not unusual, however, to have a couple of losses (either in transit or within the first day or two) of weaker chicks that just didn’t have a good start. Even in the best of circumstances, transit through the postal system is stressful for chicks. Provide them with warmth, water, and food immediately.

You can start baby chicks off right by following this expert advice. By Harvey Ussery

clockwise from left: iStock

(4)/Irina Igumnova, Craig Veltri, Savany, Oana Vinatoru

Setting Up a Brooder

Grit’s Guide to Chickens

A brooder is a warm, draft-free environment to replace a mother hen’s body heat. You can buy a commercial brooder, but it is cheap and easy to assemble one from materials on hand (a large cardboard box will work for a few chicks). The brooder must have a heat source. Any lamp with 100- to 250-watt bulbs will work for about a dozen chicks. Or you can buy a special brooder heat lamp or use small electric heating elements. For temperature control, lamps can be raised or lowered. The closer the lamp is to the floor, the warmer the air at the chicks’ level. Secure the lamp or heater so

Top to bottom: A metal stock tank provides a sturdy, draft-free environment for chicks; After a week or so, chicks begin to feather out and take on personalities; Letting mother hens do the work will make raising chicks easy. Opposite: The Silkie is a breed known for its strong instinct to hatch eggs. www.Grit.com

Get Smart: Protecting the Flock from PREDATORS Knowing the enemy is the first step to keeping your chickens safe. By Karen K. Will

Chicken farm is a tenuous balance of predators and

keepers understand, without a doubt, that a

prey—nature’s checks and balances. Chickens, after all, look for ways to die. So unless you build the poultry version of Fort Knox, or imprison your birds in a bunker with a concrete foundation, you will, on occasion, lose some souls to predators. The best strategy for stopping thieves is vigilance. At our farm, the 30-plus laying hens roam free in a large fencedoff pen with the goats, adjacent to the pigs. They have a homemade coop in which they dutifully put themselves away each night at dusk, as well as an old Butler grain bin in which to take shelter. An enormous, hollowed out silver maple tree is their chosen spot to roost and enjoy the shade in the heat of the day. Admittedly, much of the ground is scratched bare (all the better for dust bathing), but a large area of the chicken yard also consists of tall weeds, saplings, and grass, where they go exploring and scratching for insects.

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(7)/Borut Trdina, Jim Kruger, Steven McSweeny, Robert McKay, Kathleen Reidnauer, Jeannot Olivet, lendry clockwise from bottom left: iStock

Despite all their free ranging and the “entertainment” available to them, chickens (and turkeys especially) do not like to stay put—enabled, of course, by their wings, which we don’t clip. In fact, a group of our Midget White turkeys and Dorking chickens take an evening stroll every night around the barns, investigating the new grass growth and the birds in an opposing yard. By their wandering nature, poultry are vulnerable to predation. Nevertheless, there are measures you can take to reduce your losses. You either can eliminate predators by lethal methods or you can employ tactics that prevent their access to coops and pens. Since the former is nearly impossible and sometimes illegal, we’ll focus on strategies that deter predators, or keep them out entirely.

The Usual Suspects

Before you can control predators you must first identify them. Determine where, how, and when birds are lost. What does the damage look like? Are the birds maimed, or is there just a pile of feathers left behind? A simple, but not fail-safe, first method of deduction is to lay sand around the crime scene area. Smooth it out just before confining your birds for the night. Examine it in the morning for tracks. This requires perseverance because tracks can quickly be destroyed by your chickens, or predators may visit intermittently. The list of poultry predators is long, but they all leave a calling card.

Channel your inner CSI when examining the evidence. • Many domestic dogs (including your dogs) may kill for sport, simply maiming the bird and leaving it to die (they lose interest once the bird stops moving). Dogs who kill for sport often kill large numbers of birds at once. However, some dogs kill and devour the entire bird, leaving just the feet and head, and a sea of feathers. • Domestic and feral cats will eat small chicks entirely, but leave the wings and feathers of young birds. Cats have been known to kill full-grown chickens; they’ll consume the meaty parts, leaving the rest scattered around. • Raccoons hunt alone or in tandem with their family group. They’re nocturnal, so they’ll attack at night, kill more than one chicken, and eat mainly the guts. You may find the carcass(es) far away from the coop. They also steal and eat eggs from nest boxes. Raccoons also have the tendency to reach into a pen and pull off a chicken’s head or leg—whatever it can grab—so if you find a bird with its head and crop missing, a raccoon should be at the top of your suspect list. • Opossums hunt alone, and they attack and devour small birds on the spot. In addition to robbing nests of eggs at night, opossums will sneak up to sleeping birds on roosts and take a bite out of a breast or thigh. • Skunks hunt alone at night. They are notorious egg snatchers, often leaving www.Grit.com

BRIOCHE This bread is a great way to use up nine eggs quickly, and it is the perfect bread for French toast and bread pudding, which will use up even more eggs. Yields 3 loaves. 11⁄2 cups warm water (temperature of bath water) 11⁄2 tablespoons yeast 1 tablespoon salt 11⁄2 cups (3 sticks) butter 1 ⁄2 cup honey 9 eggs 8 to 10 cups all-purpose flour, divided 1 Place water, yeast, and salt in large mixing bowl or bowl of stand mixer with 6-quart bowl. 2 Melt butter in measuring cup, and add to yeast mixture. Then use buttery measuring cup to measure honey and add to bowl. (This method makes the honey slip right out of the cup.) 3 Add eggs and 7 cups flour, and

begin mixing. The dough will be sticky when everything is thoroughly mixed. Begin adding flour in 1⁄2-cup increments, mixing thoroughly between additions, up to 81⁄2 cups. If you’re mixing with a spoon, at some point you will probably have to give it up and start mixing with your hands. When you have added 81⁄2 cups flour, add more in 1⁄4-cup increments until dough is no longer sticky. (If using a mixer with dough hook, the dough is ready when the dough hook is pushing it around the bowl in a ball. Do not add any additional flour once it reaches that point.) Toward the end, add flour a couple tablespoons at a time, because it is much easier to make wet dough drier than the other way around. 4 When the dough forms a ball and is no longer sticky, cover bowl and let dough rise for 1 to 2 hours. Punch down and separate into three portions for baking now, or pull off a third of dough to bake now and put remainder in refrigerator for baking in a few days. (I never

mix up a single loaf of bread for two reasons: It takes no more time to mix up three loaves than one, and my mixer has a hard time mixing up a single loaf because the bowl is so large. If you have a smaller mixer bowl, you can reduce the recipe by a third to make two loaves at a time instead of three.) 5 Butter or oil 3 loaf pans. If dough is fresh, let it rise for about 30 minutes after shaping and putting in loaf pans. If dough has been refrigerated, it will need 90 minutes to 2 hours to warm up and rise, depending on the temperature in your house. 6 Preheat oven to 350 F. 7 Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until done. Yeast bread is done when you thump it and it sounds hollow. If you are not clear on that sound, color is a good indicator, too. It should be golden brown. Or, for a more scientific approach, stick a thermometer into the center of the loaf, and it should be about 200 F when done.

Lancaster Country Casserole Recipe and photograph courtesy National Chicken Council. Yields 4 servings.

Moroccan Chicken With Eggplant-Zucchini Ragout Recipe and photograph courtesy National Chicken Council. Yields 4 servings. 3 tablespoons olive oil, divided 11⁄2 to 2 pounds chicken leg quarters 1 teaspoon salt, divided 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided 1 small eggplant, cut into 1 ⁄2-inch dice 1 medium zucchini, cut into 1 ⁄2-inch dice 1 small onion, diced 2 cloves garlic, minced

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⁄4 cup white wine or water 1 can (141⁄2 ounces) diced tomatoes with juices 1 ⁄4 cup roughly chopped pimiento-stuffed green olives 2 tablespoons capers, rinsed 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar 1 teaspoon sugar 2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley 1

1 In large skillet over medium-high heat, warm 2 tablespoons olive oil. Season leg quarters with 1⁄2 teaspoon salt and 1⁄2 teaspoon black pepper. Add leg quarters to pan, skin-side down, and cook, turning once, for 8 to 10 minutes per side. Remove chicken to plate, and set aside. 2 Remove all but 2 tablespoons fat from skillet. Add eggplant to hot skillet, and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes. Add remaining olive oil, zucchini, onion, and garlic, and cook for an additional 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. 3 Increase heat to high, and add white wine to pan, stirring to scrape up any browned bits. Add tomatoes with juices, olives, capers, vinegar, and sugar. Place chicken legs in mixture, and bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low. Cover and simmer for 35 to 40 minutes, or until chicken registers 170 F with instant-read thermometer. 4 To serve, divide ragout evenly onto individual plates, top with leg quarters, and sprinkle with parsley.

4 to 6 ounces uncooked wide egg noodles (2 to 3 cups cooked) 1 can (103⁄4 ounces) cream of mushroom with roasted garlic soup or cream of roasted chicken with savory herbs soup 11⁄2 to 2 cups cooked, cubed chicken 1 cup frozen peas and carrots 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese, divided Salt and pepper, to taste 1 ⁄4 cup plain breadcrumbs 1 tablespoon butter, cut into pieces 1 Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease shallow 9-inch square baking

dish; set aside. 2 Cook noodles following package directions; drain. 3 Combine soup and 1⁄2 can water in prepared dish. Add noodles, chicken, peas, and carrots, and 1⁄2 cup cheese. Season with salt and pepper, and toss. Top with breadcrumbs and remaining cheese. Dot with butter. 4 Cover and bake for 20 minutes. Uncover and bake for an additional 10 to 15 minutes, or until bubbly.