Pure Poultry: Living Well with Heritage Chickens, Turkeys and Ducks

by Victoria Miller, Jeannette Beranger (Foreword by)

Overview

Hatching a sustainable life with heritage poultry

Houdan. Nankin. Indian Runner. Narragansett. These may sound like exotic place names or unusual varieties of produce, but each actually refers to one of the many hundreds of lesser-known poultry breeds which tempt the livestock owner who's prepared to venture into less familiar territory. Providing an alternative to commercial breeds and hybrids, heritage breeds each boast their own unique characteristics and personality traits, and are a valuable (and entertaining) addition to a sustainable food system.

Pure Poultry is the first book in nearly a hundred years to focus specifically on heritage breeds of chickens, turkeys and ducks and their role in a self-reliant lifestyle. This timely, beautifully illustrated resource includes:

• Detailed guidelines on everything from housing, breeding and day-to-day care, to processing, cooking and preserving
• Much-needed information on using heritage breeds for egg and meat production
• Tips, inspiration, recommended reading, and additional resources
• A unique planning worksheet that simplifies the process of starting out with poultry.

Brimming with quiet humor, Pure Poultry is an immensely readable "how-to and why-to" based entirely on personal experience-including plenty of lessons learned the hard way. Pure Poultry shows how heritage-breed poultry can enhance and deepen anyone's quality of life, whether you have a farm, a small backyard, or a neighbor with space to share.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781550925463
Publisher:	New Society Publishers
Publication date:	11/01/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Victoria Redhed Miller grew up in Seattle, in a family of eight children. She married her husband David in 2000, and in 2006, they moved to their off-grid homestead in the foothills of Washington State's Olympic Mountains. The property had been bought by David's grandparents in 1936, and moving there to live fulfilled one of his childhood dreams.

In 2007, they began raising heritagebreed chickens, joined in 2008 by turkeys and ducks. Within a year, they obtained an egg dealer's license and have been selling chicken and duck eggs to a local restaurant and several retail stores ever since.

Both skilled do-it-yourselfers, Victoria and David designed and installed their solar electric system, and have plans for hydroelectric power as well. Victoria loves photography, reading, gardening, canning, meat curing and making beer and wine. Most recently, she has built a licensed microdistillery on their property.

Victoria Redhed Miller is a writer, photographer and homesteader who lives off-grid on a 40-acre farm in the foothills of Washington's Olympic Mountains with her husband David. As well as raising heritage chickens, turkeys and ducks, she works towards enhancing her family's self-sufficiency through gardening, food preservation, craft brewing and distilling, antique repair and restoration, and other traditional skills.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Introduction: (Heritage) Chickens and Turkeys and Ducks: Oh, My!
1. When Good People Get Poultry
2. Another Beautiful Day in Paradise
3. Daydreams
4. A Slippery Slope: Which Comes First, the Chickens or the Homework?
5. A Rooster Called Charlemagne
6. Poultry from Scratch
7. Turkeys Are People Too — but They're Not Chickens
8. Everybody Look Busy — Here Come the Ducks!
9. Violet, Bumptious and Hampty
10. Heritage Turkeys and Chickens Are More Sustainable, and They Have More Fun
11. "The Mind of a Turkey"
12. Chicken Tractors and Slug Slurpers
13. Hunt and Peck: Putting Natural Foraging Behavior to Work
14. Turkeys and Chickens as Guard Animals?
15. Weasels Are Smaller Than You Think
16. Bobcats with Chicken Breath, and Other Bedtime Stories
17. Keeping the Ducks Safe at Night
18. Turkeys in the Canyon
19. Equal Rights for Unhatched Chicks
20. Keeping Poultry with Other Farmyard (and Backyard) Animals
21. Small Farm New Math: If (Chicken Tractor), Then (Pig Plow)
22. Farm-fresh Eggs: What's the Big Deal?
23. Duck Eggs Are Delicious, and Great for Baking
24. Slaughtering and Processing Poultry
25. The Best Laid Schemes...
26. How to Cook Your Heritage Turkey
27. Tastes Like Chicken: Making a Case for Heritage Chickens as Meat Birds
28. Pot Pies and Preservation
29. Egg Money
30. The Bigger Picture: Poultry in the Community
31. Chicken Coop for the Winter-hardy Soul
32. Back to Standard Time, Which the Birds Never Left
33. Warmth
34. Pure Poultry Premise #1: Purebred Birds Are More Sustainable
35. Pure Poultry Premise #2: Shorten the Food Chain
36. Pure Poultry Premise #3: Challenge the "Get Big or Get Out" Adage
37. Pure Poultry Premise #4: Have Fun!
38. Abundance and Gratitude
39. On Being Unplugged
40. Nesting
41. Tomorrow

Appendix A: Poultry from Scratch Worksheet
Appendix B: Resources
Index
About the Author

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Part memoir and part roadmap to success, Pure Poultry tells a compelling story full of grit, passion and discovery as the author and her husband embrace a sustainable, off-grid life in the woods — with chickens, turkeys and ducks. Whether you are a seasoned fowl keeper or a passionate dreamer, you will find yourself nodding, laughing, commiserating, learning and simply enjoying the author's knack for weaving her experiences, observations and lessons into a page-turner of a narrative. Once I started reading, it was next to impossible to put Pure Poultry down, even when I heard my own geese honking for their supper. And when I finally closed the book, for the last time, I knew exactly why I keep the fowl that I do, I learned some tricks I'd not discovered in the past 35 years and I felt happy!"
— Oscar H. "Hank" Will; sustainable farmer; editor in chief, GRIT Magazine ; author, Plowing with Pigs

"In Pure Poultry , [Miller's pragmatism and mirth] come through in a beautiful blend, making this a great book for anyone who is dreams of waltzing down the country-living path (whether or not you intend to raise heritage poultry). And in sharing her own life experiences, she also provides an excellent resource for the aspiring poultry person to learn the how to's of keeping chickens, ducks and turkeys in your own backyard or on your own farm."
— Carol Ekarius, author, Storey's Illustrated Guide to Poultry Breeds

" Pure Poultry is not merely about chickens, ducks, and turkeys, but about one couple's off-grid sustainable life style that includes keeping free-range poultry for fun and profit. Author Victoria Redhed Miller's engaging style draws you in right from the start and holds you captive all the way to the end. Reading Pure Poultry is like visiting with an old friend."
— Gail Damerow, author of The Chicken Encyclopedia

" Pure Poultry is a fun, easy read and full of personal stories. Sharing their experience raising turkeys, ducks and chickens is a lesson to all. All beginners can learn from their wins and mistakes at getting started with poultry."
— Frank R. Reese founder of Good Shepherd Poultry Ranch