If Attracting Native Pollinators is the prettiest homesteading-related book of 2011, The Small-Scale Poultry Flock is the most thought-provoking.  You can read my gushing review on our chicken blog, along with my summary of Ussery's most interesting points:

Breeding small flocks of chickens --- Homestead-scale tips on growing better birds.

Choosing mother hens --- Breeds and traits that make good broody hens.

Chicken feed: Beyond the basics --- Chicken food groups, mangels, and more.

Keeping chickens happy in the winter --- Ussery has a variety of tips for dealing with this tough time of year.

Eating the whole chicken --- Parts of the bird you never knew were a delicacy.  (Mountain oysters, anyone?)

Diversifying your poultry flock --- Did you know you can train geese to weed your garden?

I would have made the book a lunchtime series over here, but as you can see, I couldn't summarize it in five posts.  In fact, there are dozens of fascinating tidbits in his book that I didn't manage to fit into a post --- go read it!

Want more in-depth information? Browse through our books.

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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