Step by step instructions show you how to butcher a duck. Preparation to plucking - a detailed description with photos to walk you through the process.
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Losing Power in the Barn and Brooder
Barn/ Garage/ Chicken Coop Our ‘barn’ is actually a garage and chicken coop all rolled into one. We keep our lawn mowers, shovels, rakes, and implements of destruction, some hand tools, tarps, chicken feed, hay, and our poultry all in the same building. It’s not an ideal situation, but…
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Are Hatcheries Humane?
Raising Humanely Treated Poultry One of the main reasons I started raising my own poultry for meat and eggs is because I care about the humane treatment of animals. It may seem strange to hear that, as an animal lover, I raise and butcher my own birds. It isn’t an…
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Switching to Organic Chicken Feed
Feeding Your Chickens Organic Feed When I began raising chickens again three years ago, I was struck by how much even conventionally grown feed cost. Of course prices have gone up a considerable amount since then. With drought becoming more common, there is less feed and the price is higher.…
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How to Get More Eggs from Your Laying Hens
Get More Eggs from Your Hens! Keeping a backyard chicken flock productive is important to most chicken owners. Get the best ‘bang for your cluck’ by following my suggestions for how to get more eggs from your laying hens! Some folks don’t care how many eggs their hens are laying…
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The Chicken Chronicles: The World’s Dumbest Chicken
Entertaining, Yes. Smart, No I know a lot of folks love their chickens and think they’re smarter than we give them credit for. Sure, they’re entertaining creatures and I get kick out of watching them run raptor-style across the pasture, scratch contentedly in the compost, and chase butterflies in the…
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A Tale of Two Roosters
Replacing My Rooster Earlier this year my rooster, Del the Delaware, fell ill. It was obvious he would not survive much longer, so I put him down. Since then there has been no one to serenade us in the morning and I’ve really missed hearing the cock-a-doodle-doo of a rooster.…
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Raising Ducks for Meat
Ducks are a fine source of meat for the small farm or homestead. They are fairly disease resistant, easy to care for, and fun to raise. Large breeds of ducks are a more sustainable source of meat for the small homesteader than hybrid broiler chickens.
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How to Raise the Best Chickens for Meat
How to raise meat chickens for your table. Should you raise heritage breeds or Cornish cross? Get started on your own source of meat from the homestead!
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What Are Easter Egger Chickens?
Easter Eggers, Ameraucanas, and Araucanas are chicken breeds that lay eggs with colorful shells. Gather Easter Eggs right from the nest when you raise them!
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The Chicken Chronicles: Livestock or Pets?
Chickens as Livestock? Or Chickens as Pets? Earlier this week I discussed my chickens as livestock. You can read about it in “Butchering an Injured Chicken.” Keeping chickens for pets is a relatively new pastime. With the switch from an agrarian culture to a predominantly urban and suburban culture, most…
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The Chicken Chronicles – Butchering an Injured Chicken
Butchering An Injured Hen One afternoon I went out to the chicken coop to lock up the hens, give them fresh water and feed, and collect the eggs. I noticed one of my older White Leghorns had blood on her feathers. I inspected her carefully for signs of vent picking.…
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How to Butcher a Chicken on the Cheap
How to Butcher a Chicken Do you want to know how to butcher a chicken? I butcher my home-raised chickens so that my family has access to clean meat that was raised and slaughtered humanely. I’ve been doing this for years because my family is opposed to the inhumane treatment…
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Culling Old Hens from the Flock
Culling the Flock and Butchering Old Hens Monday morning I butchered some of my old hens. The oldest hen in my flock was one of the unlucky ones. She was an Ameraucana from my very first flock of 10 purchased the summer we moved here (2010). She was about 3…
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How to Get Free Chickens for Your Homestead
How to Find Free Chickens Are you interested in getting some free chickens? In addition to hatching out your own chicks from fertile eggs, you might be able to find unwanted chickens in your area. ‘Used’, or ‘pre-owned’ chickens, might not be as hard to find as you might think.…
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Butchering Features - Butchery - It's Almost Winter On The Homestead - Poultry - Raise Your Own Turkeys!
How To Butcher a Turkey
Learn how to butcher a turkey from start to finish. Complete instructions with photos of each step to guide you through the butchering process!