Chickens.

Butchering & Cooking

• How and When to Butcher Chickens - from Mother Earth News
• How to Cut a Whole Chicken Into Pieces - from Mother Earth News
• How to Cook Heritage Chicken Meat - from Mother Earth News
• when to butcher delegates: reports from 12 weeks to a year. Most suggest 14-18 weeks
• SMALL-SCALE POULTRY PROCESSING PROCESSING
  • Small-scale Poultry Processing - same article in html
• Small-scale poultry processing - i think it's a different article
• Kill Them With Kindness: How to Make and Use a Killing Cone
• DIY Chicken Kill Cone – Cost Less Than $2.00
• How to build a killing cone
• How to Kill a Chicken - good description and pictures of whole process
• How to Slaughter Chickens for Meat - good details and pictures of each step
• HOW TO BUTCHER A CHICKEN
• Killing, Plucking, Eviscerating, & Cutting Up Your Chicken
• Homestead Poultry Butchering - This is Ussery's step-by-step description with pictures. May be the same as in his book.

Calendar of chicken care

• Year-Round Chicken Care Calendar - Locally saved version of Original article.

General notes and design guidelines

Sizing Operation:

• Grazing area. Overall, it seems you need to plan on about 100 sq. ft. per bird per week. Here's a good summary of the thinking: Getting started with rotational chicken pastures

General Resources

• The Homestead Poultry Flock - Entry page for poultry info on Harvey Ussery's web page.

Raising chicks and brooder management

• Tips for Incubating and Raising Chicks with a Mother Hen - best summary tips for working with broody hen.
• Brooding Chicks Is Easy April:May, 2012 Backyard Poultry - excellent basic guide. wish i had found this one before doing our first batch. (saved as local pdf because original link no longer worked.
• Deep Litter in Chicken Coops : Deep Litter in Chicken Coops. Also created pdf of old article because no longer available.
• Brooding Chicks: Two Options - covers both brooder and letting the hen do it.
• Quick Expert Tips and Checklist for How to Raise Chickens from Day-Old Chicks... - Week by week chick raising guide

Health

• Remedies for Health Problems of the Organic Laying Flock
• 9 Point Comb to Toe Chicken Check Up & DIY Antiseptic Ointment
• Keeping Chickens Healthy and Happy

Egg Problems

• Optimum Egg Quality: A Practical Approach
• Soft, Thin or Missing Egg Shells
• How a Hen Makes an Egg & Egg Oddities
• Identifying and Responding to Factors That Can Affect Egg Quality and Appearance - NC State

Research

General

• POULTRY BEHAVIOUR - Very good overview and particular details of chicken behavior. Site looks to have other useful info.

Standard Breeds

• Henderson's Handy Dandy Chicken Chart ( pdf version) - "An Alphabetical List of More than 60 Chicken Breeds With Comparative Information"
• Call of the Hen - classic guide to selection for breeding.
• Pick-A-Chick: Chicken Breed Comparison
  • The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy's Guide to Rare Breeds of Chickens chart of breeds & characteristics
  • Ongoing selection of Breeding stock
• Choosing a Chicken Breed: Eggs, Meat, or Exhibition
• FeatherSite - The Poultry Page - pictures of breeds
• American Poultry Association
• Standard of Perfection (1951 Version) - online version of book. Delaware section begins on page 176. Chanteclers start on page 147.
  • Chantecler section of 1951 edition
  • Delaware section from 1951 edition
• Storey's Illustrated Guide to Chicken Breeds - Delawares on page 83 (91).
• Selecting and Judging Chickens for Production - 4H guide.
• The On-line Books Page - Poultry Standards - list of links to online books.

Delawares

• Delaware Chicken (ALBC)
• Delaware Poultry Club - History of the Breed
• Origin of the Delaware Breed
• The Delaware Chicken - By Don Schrider +\"Once a Prominent Broiler Breed—Still an Excellent Dual-Purpose Breed"

Broody Hen Management

• Caring for Broody Hens: Facilitating Egg-hatching

Feed

• What do Chickens Eat? A Complete Guide to Feeding Adult and Baby Chickens
• The 5 Stages To the 100% Self-Sustaining Flock - covers composting with chickens.
• Eliminate cost of chicken feed - Permaculture on crops chickens like.
• Basic calculations about how much to feed:
  • 1/4 pound per day per chicken
  • General estimates (source):

Type of Bird	Feeding period	Total amount of feed
Layer chicks	First 10 weeks	9-10 lbs per bird
Broiler chicks (based on Cornish Game Birds)	First 6 weeks	8-9 lbs per bird
Chickens (layers)	1.5 lbs per bird per week

• How much will my chickens eat? - Extension article. Very good detailed analysis. Here's the bottom line conclusions:
  • Assuming a 50 lb bag of feed, the typical feed requirements are as shown below:
    • For chicken meat production
      • Commercial-type broilers:
        • 5-6 bags to raise fifty 3 lb chickens
        • 7-8 bags to raise fifty 4 lb chickens
        • 10-11 bags to raise fifty 5 lb chickens
        • 13-14 bags to raise fifty 6 lb chickens
        • 16-17 bags to raise fifty 7 lb chickens
      • Slow growing broilers:
        • 5-6 bags to raise fifty 3 lb chickens
        • 9 bags to raise fifty 4 lb chickens
        • 12-13 bags to raise fifty 5 lb chickens
    • For raising replacement pullets for egg production:
      • Commercial white-shell egg layer: 3-4 bags for 25 pullets to 18 weeks of age
      • Dual purpose type breed: 4-5 bags for 25 pullets to 20 weeks of age
      • Commercial brown-shell egg layer: 3-4 bags for 25 pullets to 18 weeks of age
    • For egg production:
      • Commercial white-shell egg layer: 3-31⁄2 bags each month for 25 hens
      • Dual purpose-type hens: 4-41⁄2 bags each month for 25 hens
      • Commercial brown-shell egg layer: 3-4 bags each month for 25 hens
• Organic Diets for Small Poultry Flocks - covers use of whole grains
• Choice-Feeding of Small Laying Hen Flocks - Let the chickens choose.
• Poultry Rations and Feeding Methods
• Why and How to Ferment Your Chicken Feed
• Keeping Your Chickens Healthy Through Winter - Some good ideas like hanging a cabbage for them to pick at or putting a bale of alfalfa for them to work on.
• how do you make your own chicken scratch
• Garden Betty’s Homemade Whole Grain Chicken - also see her corn free version. Here they both are:
  • Basic: Makes 8 1/2 pounds (fills 10-pound feeder)
    • 4 cups oat groats
    • 4 cups black oil sunflower seeds
    • 4 cups hard red wheat berries
    • 2 cups soft white wheat berries
    • 2 cups kamut
    • 2 cups millet
    • 2 cups whole corn
    • 1 cup lentils
    • 1 cup sesame seeds
    • 1 cup flax seeds
    • 1/2 cup brewer’s yeast
    • 1/4 cup kelp granules
    • free-choice oyster shells
    • free-choice grit
  • Corn-free: Makes 8 1/2 pounds (fills 10-pound feeder)
    • 4 cups oat groats
    • 4 cups black oil sunflower seeds
    • 4 cups hard red wheat berries
    • 2 cups soft white wheat berries
    • 2 cups triticale berries
    • 2 cups rye berries
    • 2 cups millet
    • 2 cups sesame seeds
    • 1 cup flax seeds
    • 1/2 cup brewer’s yeast
    • 1/4 cup kelp granules
    • free-choice oyster shells (or crushed eggshells)
    • free-choice grit

General Resources:

• BackyardChickens.com
• http://www.waldeneffect.org - great homesteading blog and lots of chicken information. They also produce a whole series of inexpensive e-books on variety of topics.
  • Getting started with rotational chicken pastures
• Controlled Grazing of Virginia's Pastures - Vary thorough reference on rotational grazing in general. Covers chickens but mostly general info on different crops.
• Coop Thoughts: How to build grazing frames for your backyard chickens
• Rotating Chicken Paddocks - What a Relief
• FAO - Small-scale poultry production
• Establishing a small-scale, sustainable, pastured poultry operation - Rodale
• Chickens in Winter
• A Beginner’s Guide to Backyard Chickens - overview and good set of links to explore further
• Starting a Small Flock of Chickens
• The Small-Scale Poultry Flock - book
• How To Raise Backyard Chickens
• http://www.beginningfarmers.org/information-about-raising-chickens/ - Good intro resources with excellent list of links deserving further research.
• Everything You Need to Know About Raising Broiler Chickens - good pasture seeding recipes

Electric fence

• DIY Wireless Arduino Electric Fence Tester
• Remote Electric Fence Monitoring System
• Making an Electric Fence Indicator Light

Misc

• Dustbox for the Chicken House
• How to Make an Easy Dust Box for Chickens

Coop Stuff

• The Magical Chicken Tunnel

Ventilation

• Patandchickens' Big Ol' VENTILATION Page - Basic message is that you need more!

Automatic pop door opener designs

• $30 Automatic Chicken Coop Door Plans - here's some discussion and suggested improvements
• Solar-powered automated chicken coop door with the MSP430 microcontroller
• How to make an Automatic Chicken House Door
• Automatic pop hole opener
• Building an automatic chicken door opener
• Automatic Chicken Coop Door Opener Project - eloquent idea here for automatic locking mechanism.
• Chicken controlled door opener - best idea of all: use weight of chickens on roost to shut door.
• New Simple Hen House Door Controller - simple design using off-the-shelf components.
• Our mobile chicken coop - Sunny Slope Orchard - Nice mobile coop design with automatic door opener using windshield wiper motor.

Sources for chicks/Eggs

From http://www.ameraucana.org/
Jerry R Sineath (2014) 
Ameraucana - Wheaten Large Fowl & Brown Red Large Fowl
Will ship eggs.
2506 Lane Road
Greensboro NC 27408
(336)987-2470
Jrsineath@yahoo.com

Files

• Deep_Litter_Manure_Mgmt.pdf: Deep Litter tips
• Feeding_Chickens_the_Easy_Way.pdf: Tips on grazing chickens
• Common_Poultry_Diseases_UF.pdf: Common_Poultry_Diseases_UF.pdf
• Brooding Chicks Is Easy April:May, 2012 Backyard Poultry.pdf: Brooding Chicks Is Easy April:May, 2012 Backyard Poultry.pdf
• Deep Litter in Chicken Coops.pdf: Deep Litter in Chicken Coops.pdf