Homesteading – Raising Chickens and Poultry – Meat – Eggs – Quality Checks

Homesteading is a unique farming practice and beneficial. Raising chickens and other poultry provides meat, eggs, and income for farmers. Farm-fresh chickens and eggs are delicious, and farmers know exactly what is in them. Farm raised normally means hormone free, chemical free, and toxin free. Grocery stores cannot guarantee the quality and safety of the chicken and eggs they sell.

Raising livestock and homesteading requires planning, preparation, the right habitat for any livestock on the farm, ensuring a balanced diet, and proper hygiene to prevent diseases.

Advice for newer homesteaders, do your research before purchasing any type of poultry. Not all poultry can be housed together, due to diseases in their feces such as it is advised not to house chickens and ducks together. Their diets are different. Ducks require more niacin in their diets than chickens. Some chicken feed contains coccidiostats that can be poisonous to ducklings.

A ducks’ social and behavioral structures are different, which can lead to conflicts, especially when housed in small spaces. Drakes can be aggressive towards chickens, attempting to mate with them, potentially causing injury or even death. Ducks are more susceptible to certain diseases, such as avian influenza, and can also be silent carriers of salmonella. Duck eggs usually come in two colors: white or blue/green, depending on the breed. Cayuga ducks are known for laying black or charcoal gray eggs. Duck eggs are larger than chicken eggs, with thicker white fluid and larger yolks. They are just as delicious as chicken eggs, with a stronger flavor.

There are a variety of chickens to choose from, depending on the color of their eggs, meat bird’s verses heritage birds, and the beauty of the bird. It is all personal preference and the need of the family to raise the chickens or ducks. There are several hatcheries to purchase chicks online. Tractor Supply, Rural King, and other farm stores sell chicks too. Here are a few hatcheries to choose from that we have personally used to buy poultry.

• Murray McMurray Hatchery – Webster City, Iowa (800) 456-3280 Email: Complete form

• Cackle Hatchery – Lebanon, Missouri (417) 532-4581 help@cacklehatchery.com

• Meyer Hatchery – Polk, Ohio (419) 945-2651 info@meyerhatchery.com

• Townline – Zeeland, Michigan (888) 685-0040 Email: Complete form

Our farm uses Murray McMurray Hatchery and Cackle Hatchery the most. It is my personal preference. All these hatcheries are good and reasonably priced. They ship poultry through USPS. You pick the order up when the post office notifies you, they have arrived. The birds are given immunizations, before they are shipped, to ensure healthy livestock.

Feeding poultry for healthy livestock, hormone and chemical free, requires research. Look online for recommendations, view videos, and read the ingredients on the feed bags. We mix our own feed using cracked corn, black sunflower seed, red pepper, oats, scratch feed, chicken layer. We use cat food. We let it soak in water to ferment, then feed the chickens. This helps the protein level in the eggs and water intake. Oyster shells are given to provide calcium to strengthen the eggshells.

Our mixture changes, depending on the season. In winter months, red pepper spice helps chickens to lay eggs in the colder months. When chickens molt (losing their feathers to grow new feathers), we add red pepper spice. This encourages the chickens to continue laying eggs and helps with their molting stages. Timing is everything if you want your poultry to continue laying eggs through various stages and seasons. Allowing chickens to forage, free range, provides farmers with healthier eggs and meat birds. Chickens are not vegetarians. They are carnivorous and eat bugs, worms, and meat scraps from your kitchen.

Types of eggs:

• Brown

• Dark Brown

• White

• Blue

• Green

• Conventional – From hens living in cages in chicken manufacturing areas, fed grain and water. Brown and White eggs in a variety of sizes.

• Free-Range – Produced by hens that have access to the outdoors, consuming a diet of grains, water, forage, insects, and other meat found. They nest on perches. Brown and white eggs in a variety of sizes

• Cage Free – Eggs are laid by hens in an indoor floor operation, in a building or open area such as a barn. They have unlimited access to fresh food and water, and some forage for food, if they are allowed outdoors. Free range and cage free housing systems may or may not have automatic egg collection systems. Brown and white eggs in a variety of sizes.

• Organic – Based on the U.S. Department of Agriculture organic standards related to the methods, practices, and substances used in producing and handling crops, livestock and processed agricultural products. Hens are fed with rations of ingredients that were grown without conventional pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, or commercial fertilizers. Brown eggs and White eggs in a variety of sizes.

Different shades of farm fresh brown eggs. We started feeding our chickens red pepper spice to increase egg production.

 Grading: 

AA – Highest quality, freshest eggs with thick, firm whites and high, round yolks

A – Very high-quality, slightly less fresh than AA eggs

B – Less fresh eggs with thinner whites and runnier yolks, often used in processed egg products

Different Chicken Breeds - Color of eggs and meat bird selections:

• Rhode Island Red: Brown eggs and meat bird

• Australorp: Brown eggs and meat bird

• Leghorn: Lays a high number of white eggs, not an excellent choice for a meat bird

• Wyandotte: Brown eggs and meat bird (gentle disposition)

• Maran: Dark, chocolate-colored eggs and a good meat bird

• Araucana: Famous for laying blue eggs.

• Barred Rock: Brown eggs and meat bird.

• Easter Egger: This is a mix of different breeds, known for laying eggs in assorted colors (blue, green, and pink)

• Orpington: Brown Eggs and good meat bird (Friendly and easy to raise) Excellent mothers.

• Legbar: Blue eggs and excellent mothers

• Cornish X Rocks: Best meat bird – butcher at 2-2-1/2 lbs. live weight. These birds are hybrids. It is not recommended to breed, and they will be too big to breed at the time of maturity. They will not produce the same high quality in the next generation. They may lay eggs, but the egg will be small. They are poor free-range birds.

We enjoy brown or dark, brown eggs more than white eggs. They have a better flavor and the shells are stronger. White eggs tend to break easily since the shells are thinner. We raise Buff Orpington chickens since we enjoy brown eggs. They are gentle and easy to raise.

Raising chickens can be enjoyable and fun if the housing, dusting area, perches, and floor are set up for easy maintenance and the eggs are clean when you gather them. We love listening to the sound of chickens and the rooster crowing, first thing in the morning. You can raise several types of poultry on your farm, if you set the housing, feed, and watering systems up correctly.

We raise Red Bourbon turkeys next to our chickens, hoping they will breed. They are beautiful birds! We also raise guineas. They make great watch dogs when we have a visitor. The sounds they make are loud and used to alert us.

Red Bourbon Turkeys - Beautiful!

Guineas - Watch dogs for visitors

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