The Small-Scale Poultry Flock

With information on building soil fertility, replacing purchased feed, and working with poultry in the garden.

The most comprehensive and definitive guide to date on raising all-natural poultry, for homesteaders or farmers seeking to close their loop, The Small-Scale Poultry Flock offers a practical and integrative model for working with chickens and other domestic fowl, based entirely on natural systems. Including extensive information on: 

• Formulating and making your own feed
• How to breed and brood the flock (for breed improvements and for genetic conservation), including the most complete guide to working with broody hens available anywhere
• Providing more of the flock's feed from sources grown or self-foraged on the home place, including production of live protein feeds using earthworms and soldier grubs
• Using poultry to increase soil fertility, control crop-damaging insects, and make compost - including systems for pasturing and tillage of cover crops and weeds
• Step-by-step butchering - one of the best guides available - complete with extensive illustrative photos

No other book on raising poultry takes an entirely whole-system approach, nor discusses producing homegrown feed and breeding in such detail. This is a truly invaluable and groundbreaking guide that will lead farmers and homesteaders into a new world of self-reliance and enjoyment. 

SKU 7088. Copyright 2011, softcover, 382 pages.

About the Author:

Harvey Ussery has been developing his whole-systems poultry husbandry for decades and has been writing about chickens and other fowl for Backyard Poultry since the inception of the magazine in early 2006. He has also written numerous articles for Mother Earth News and Countryside & Small Stock Journal, and has published in American Pastured Poultry Producers Association's newsletter, Grit!, over the years. Ussery has presented at national and local events on poultry, homesteading, and energy and sustainability issues, and maintains a highly informative website, themodernhomestead.us. He lives with his wife, Ellen, in Virginia.

Praise for The Small-Scale Poultry Flock: 

"The Small-Scale Poultry Flock is the only complete guide available to using your poultry as an integrated part of a self-reliant farmstead - a topic not addressed at this depth and breadth in any other poultry book... This book covers it all." -Elaine Belanger, editor, Backyard Poultry

"Here's the ultimate book for those who want to know everything there is to know about raising poultry." -Gene Logsdon, author of Holy Sh!t and The Contrary Farmer

"Ussery raises the larger question: What kind of world do we want to live in? One that treats animals as units of production, or one that honors all life, especially that farmstead marvel, the domesticated chicken?" -Sally Fallon Morell, president of The Weston A. Price Foundation