Bird Selection
Selecting your new bird requires careful consideration. Start by deciding your plan for bird ownership. Do you want fresh eggs? Are you raising birds for meat? Or for the show ring?
There are several breed options and it may be a tad overwhelming to choose. Don’t wing it though! To help you make an informed choice, this section covers:
Factors to consider when choosing a breed
Best breeds for eggs
The history of poultry
LATEST BLOG POSTS ON THIS TOPIC:
Common Chicken Breeds for Backyard Owners
When you think about a flock of backyard poultry, what kind of chicken comes to mind? Do you dream of Delawares, plead for a Plymouth Rock or wish for a Wyandotte? Here we will describe the most popular and commonly found chicken breeds for California backyard owners so you can better identify which bird will best suit your needs. What to Look For First, let’s go over a few defining features that will help with identification. Most notably, the “plumage” (feathers) of many breeds will come in a variety of colors, making identification strictly based on color difficult. When
The Basics of Incubating Hatching Eggs
Due to the life changing events of the global pandemic, many people have taken up new hobbies such as baking bread or curling. One less confusing hobby many people have dabbled in is hatching chicken eggs. When I was in elementary school, we incubated and hatched our own set of chicken eggs. We would take turns watching the eggs, checking the incubators temperature and humidity, and turning the eggs. We only had the eggs for about three weeks before they all hatched, and we got to see a bundle of cute chicks running around the class. A good time
Sources of Baby Chicks
From a disease, welfare and husbandry perspective, the best place you can source your fertilized eggs or baby chicks from is a farm or hatchery that is part of the National Poultry Improvement Program (NPIP). To be NPIP certified as a hatchery means that the birds on the farm are tested for various diseases possibly including Salmonella (it depends on which level of NPIP certification the farm/hatchery has) which can cause your eggs to be contaminated with a foodborne pathogen (aka it can get you sick). From a poultry health perspective NPIP requires testing for various other infectious diseases
Raising Backyard Ducks for Eggs
When we think about eggs, we often assume that chicken eggs are the only option! However, waterfowl (birds that spend a lot of time in the water) like geese and ducks are often great egg layers, and their eggs carry significant nutritional benefits for human health. In this article, we will share some of these amazing benefits: Duck egg whites are often richer in albumin, a healthy source of protein that our bodies need to function. There is an added benefit too - cakes and other delicious treats made with duck eggs are often fluffier and richer in flavor.
The Chicken and the Egg: Which Breed to Buy, and Why
If you’ve started the process of procuring poultry and choosing chickens, you’ve probably found yourself in need of some background on breeds. After all, there are LOTS of different kinds of chickens out there, and not all of them are created equal! The type of bird that best suits your needs will be determined by considering the following factors: Your local temperature, The size of the space available for your chickens to use & the temperament you want your chickens to have, The amount of time you have and the age you want to start with, Your unique preferences