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Build Your Own Small-Scale Chicken Plucker
Posted by: | On Oct 24, 2010 | Comments
Butchering chickens is not a pleasant task, as anyone who has tried it can tell you. And plucking the birds is a time consuming chore. So before butchering season this fall, we decided it was time to get a mechanical feather plucker. After looking around for an inexpensive unit and trying to decide which of the different designs would work best, we decided to make our own. This is what we came up with … Read More->
Pick Your Plucker
Posted by: | On Oct 24, 2010 | Comments
If you slaughter a lot of birds, a mechanical plucker can speed the work considerably. Most models feature the same stiff rubber “fingers” (available from suppliers of poultry accessories) inset into a rotating plate or drum, which “slap” the feathers off the scalded bird … Read More->
Homestead Poultry Butchering
Posted by: | On Oct 24, 2010 | Comments
Butchering skills are almost essential for anyone serious about keeping an ongoing homestead flock. Whether you breed your own stock or buy day-olds straight run, you face a large surplus of males for whom there is no long-term place in the flock. Even if you keep a flock of hens only, they usually cease or greatly decline in egg production long before the end of their natural lives. Maintaining them “on welfare” is a fine option if you are keeping “pet chickens,” but hardly a practical choice for those tending their flock as part of a productive homestead. Whatever your reasons for culling the flock, you will find that the meat from your own birds is orders of magnitude superior to the remains of the sad creatures from concentration-camp industrial poultry production. … Read More->
Backyard Chicken Eggs Are Safe
Posted by: | On Oct 24, 2010 | CommentsThis summer half a billion industrially produced eggs were recalled due to being tainted with salmonella. What in the world is going on? Salmonella bacteria commonly live in the intestines of humans and animals, including chickens. Several strains of salmonella survive in soil, water, and any place else animal or human feces are found. Strains [...]
“Coop DeVilla” My Recycled Trailer
Posted by: | On Oct 24, 2010 | Comments
I’d like to share my adventures that culminated in the ultimate recycling and operational efficiencies of my chicken coop creation. About a year ago I came across an old 18-foot, one-door travel trailer and over the course of a few months renovated it into a chicken coop with a fenced yard and opening to pasture for my then, 16 hens. By using a trailer it’s so easy to relocate it every two weeks so that the hens still have new grass frequently when not out pasturing … Read More->
Frizzles: One of our Odd Breeds
Posted by: | On Oct 24, 2010 | Comments
One of the more unusual looking chickens you may run across is the Frizzle. Frizzled chickens are not so much a breed, as a type of bird. Any breed of chicken can be bred to be frizzled, but the most commonly seen Frizzles are based on Cochins, Plymouth Rocks, Japanese, and Polish chickens. Frizzles are among the hothouse flowers of the poultry fancy, by nature of their plumage which requires special care and breeding to obtain and maintain. … Read More->
