20.01.

2015 Poultry for small farmers: Journey to Forever

Poultry for small farms

There's a lot of good poultry information on the Web, along with some excellent books for small-
scale or backyard poultry keepers. (See Poultry resources for small farmers.) Here is some
useful information you might not find so easily.

Muscovy ducks
Khaki Campbell ducks
Chickens
Geese
Rabbits
Guineafowl
General tips
High-protein poultry feed from thin air
Poultry as unpaid labour
They're not pets
Doing it (slaughter)

Muscovy ducks
First choice for small farms and backyards. "For really efficient
meat production in the tropics we should be looking at
Muscovy ducks," says ECHO (Educational Concerns for
Hunger Organization). Not just in the tropics.

"We started with a drake and two ducks. After eight months
we've had about 25 eggs to eat and 45 ducks of various sizes
to eat." Keith passing the time of day with
BD (Big Duck)
Muscovy ducks can lay up to 195 eggs a year over a 40-week season. They'll nest three or four
times during the season, hatching up to 20 ducklings a time. That leaves plenty of eggs for you,
and LOTS of great meat!

If you've never eaten Muscovy, you should know that it's really
something. Muscovy is not at all greasy like other duck meat, it's
more like extra-special veal, with a fine texture, very little fat, and
a unique and delicious flavour. It's the finest duck there is, and
maybe one of the finest of all meats.

Muscovies are unique, the only domestic ducks that aren't derived
from mallards. They come from South America and they're tree birds rather than water birds. So
they don't need a pond to swim in (they do need water, but a large basin will do). And they fly.
They're bigger and heavier than other ducks, and flying gives them large and powerful breast
muscles, and strong, meaty legs. Muscovy breast looks like a fair-sized steak, you wouldn't guess
it was duck.

data:text/html;charset=utf-8,%3Ch1%20style%3D%22color%3A%20rgb(51%2C%200%2C%200)%3B%20font-family%3A%20'Times%20New%20Roman 1/10
20.01.2015 Poultry for small farmers: Journey to Forever

For the producer they're cheap and troublefree: Muscovies more or

less produce themselves. They're self-dependent, better foragers than
other ducks, they grow fast and they seldom get sick. They clean up
after your other livestock, eating what the others spill or leave.

They're personable and intelligent, great to have around, and they're

quiet: they don't quack, the ducks chirp softly and the drakes hiss,
and only when they have to -- they're not chatterers like geese, or
showmen like roosters. Calm birds. And though they fly, they fly
around, not away.
Muscovy ducks are good
They come in black and white and various shades of grey and brown, mothers -- the little brown
with a bright red crest around their eyes and above the beak, like a ones are Khaki Campbells
cockscomb. Muscovies have never been industrialized or hatched by the Muscovy
(Keith Addison)
"developed", probably because they don't come in standard sizes: the
drakes are much bigger than the ducks. A full-grown drake weighs about 15 pounds, and a duck
up to 9-10 pounds.

Start with a drake and three ducks. Muscovy hens can set three or four times a year, with
clutches of eight to 20 eggs. The eggs hatch after 35 days, the birds reach full size in 120 days,
but can be slaughtered after 90 days. The meat yield is higher than
any other duck, with 50% more breast meat, which is 98% lean,
and the skin has 50% less fat than other ducks (but slaughtering a
Muscovy will still yield a jar of fine duckfat for cooking).

It's said Muscovies have less fat because they come from a hot
climate and don't need the fat to keep warm. Strange, then, that in
temperate winters they produce a warm waistcoat of fine down (a useful by-product). We've had
Muscovies at temperatures dropping to -15 deg C, and they didn't mind at all. Hardy birds.

Muscovy Ducks -- Good information and an informative and entertaining write-up from the
Domestic Waterfowl Club of Great Britain (yes, Muscovies do have a great sense of humour!):
http://www.domestic-waterfowl.co.uk/mozzie.htm

Muscovy Ducks -- ECHO Technical Note, from the Poultry Research Centre, Papua New
Guinea. Some good general advice, excepting that ducklings do not need to be removed from the
mother -- Muscovy ducks are excellent mothers. Even ducklings without mothers can be left to
roam together outside with fair safety (no dogs or cats though). They're sensible little beasts, like
their mums. They don't need much feeding, all Muscovies are good at foraging and fending for
themselves. Muscovies don't need nearly as much care and management as this article implies.
http://www.echotech.org/mambo/images/DocMan/MuscovyD.PDF

Muscovy ducks -- Chapter 9 of "Microlivestock: Little-Known Small Animals with a

Promising Economic Future", 1991, Board on Science and Technology. Read it online
(free) or print it out at the National Academy Press:
http://books.nap.edu/books/030904295X/html/125.html

data:text/html;charset=utf-8,%3Ch1%20style%3D%22color%3A%20rgb(51%2C%200%2C%200)%3B%20font-family%3A%20'Times%20New%20Roman 2/10
20.01.2015 Poultry for small farmers: Journey to Forever

Home Grown Cooking from HGTV -- Muscovy Duck with Burgundy and Cranberry
Sauce, serves two:
http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/ah_recipes_sauce_dressing/
article/0,,HGTV_3194_1383740,00.html

Khaki Campbell ducks

Called Campbells because they were developed by Mrs Adele Campbell in Britain a hundred
years ago, and they're khaki-colored, or darker, like cocoa, with green beaks, and the drakes
have dark green heads and bronze backs and tails. Very cute ducks.

Adele mixed Indian Runner, Mallard, and Rouen ducks in search of an egg-laying machine, and
succeeded admirably.

There are some breeds of chicken which might be able to outlay a Khaki Campbell, but they're
probably highly specialized birds and might be more trouble than they're worth. Khaki Campbells
are no trouble at all -- they're hardy, and good foragers. They'll lay 300 eggs a year or more --
up to 340. And they'll eat all the slugs and snails in your garden, and clear the pond of
mosquitoes. Good backyard duck.

"Capable of sitting on and hatching its own eggs," says one reference -- no it's not! That's what
Adele accomplished with them -- they don't get broody, and that's why they lay so many eggs.
We only once saw a Khaki Campbell getting broody. She got agitated, quacked a lot, and fussed
around in a thicket trying to make a nest, but after a few minutes she gave up and went for a swim
instead, looking a bit puzzled and slightly embarrassed.

For more Khaki Campbells, put a few of the eggs under a nesting Muscovy. The Muscovy will
hatch them, and look after the ducklings with her own. A chicken might do it too.

Indian Runners are also good egg-layers. Both types make good eating and meat production is
good if you hatch the eggs under Muscovies.

You don't need a pond for ducks, but so much the better if you have one. Even a sunken bathtub
will do, but make sure there's a shallow end so the ducklings can get out again, or they could
drown. Don't let ducklings swim until they're a few days old.

Khaki Campbell Duck -- General information from the Poultry Breeds site at Oklahoma
State University:
http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/poultry/ducks/khakicampbell/index.htm

Chickens
If you've only eaten industrial chickens up till now, then you really don't
know what a chicken tastes like. A true free-range chicken from an
organic smallholding or a backyard bird raised on scraps and scratchings

data:text/html;charset=utf-8,%3Ch1%20style%3D%22color%3A%20rgb(51%2C%200%2C%200)%3B%20font-family%3A%20'Times%20New%20Roman 3/10
20.01.2015 Poultry for small farmers: Journey to Forever

is quite different -- you'll be amazed! And delighted.

Chickens are a must on farms of any size, and the ideal bird where space
is limited. They scratch -- once, twice -- sharp eyes spot little bugs and
tiny weed seeds, the beak darts down. Try to arrange it so that chickens
get to work over your whole place every season, along with the ducks.

Chickens give you meat and eggs, they'll mix, shred and manure your
compost materials for you, they're not much trouble , and they put
themselves away at night. You don't need a rooster to have eggs, but
you do need one if you want to breed them. Chickens cluck away busily
Rooster at Peaceful
and shriek if they're frightened. Roosters Garden, Lantau (Keith
are noisy -- don't believe it that they only Addison)
crow at dawn! But you get used to it.

Keep hens for laying, eat excess cockerels -- roosters fight, one is
enough.
Chickens at Peaceful Garden,
Lantau There are very many chicken breeds -- get what's most common
in your area. Try for a good, all-round, general-purpose bird.
Rhode Island Reds and Plymouth Rocks are general-purpose chickens. Leghorns are egg-layers,
Cornish for meat. Bantams are conveniently small and good insect-catchers, and good setters too
-- you can hatch other birds' eggs under a bantam.

Grazing arks -- good designs here:

Profitable Poultry Production by M. G. Kains, 1910

... and here (see Chapter 5. Poultry and Bees):

Handy Farm Devices and How to Make Them by Rolfe Cobleigh, 1910

Geese
Strict vegetarians, ace lawnmowers, excellent watchdogs,
intelligent, individualistic and opinionated, sociable, good
conversationalists. Geese are great if you have the room: a
fair-sized lawn or a small meadow, and a pond helps, but
it's not essential. They're very little trouble, they can get
most or all of their food from grazing and they help control
weeds. One of the most efficient meat producers.

Feed them extra if you're breeding them. One goose egg is a

meal for two. In their wild state, geese are one of the few
creatures that mate for life. In domestic flocks they're more
promiscuous, but the flock itself is a tightly-knit family unit, very clannish -- they don't approve of
other birds

data:text/html;charset=utf-8,%3Ch1%20style%3D%22color%3A%20rgb(51%2C%200%2C%200)%3B%20font-family%3A%20'Times%20New%20Roman 4/10
20.01.2015 Poultry for small farmers: Journey to Forever

The first two eggs are infertile, take them away and cook them. You get more geese if you put the
first lot of eggs to hatch under a broody Muscovy duck, then the goose will lay a second lot.
Geese usually lay for 20 weeks in the year, from the spring. Chinese geese lay up to 100 eggs in a
season.

Using Geese To Control Weeds -- Geese will not compact the soil as heavy machinery or
people will. They will work seven days a week, rain or shine. They can be put into wet fields to
work when machinery would bog down and cause severe damage to soil structure. Their agile
necks allow them to pull weeds close to and from within the crop plants, where machine or hoe
cannot. At the end of the season the grower can also process the geese for meat and feathers. All
of this is accomplished while the geese are naturally spreading nitrogen-rich manure all over the
field. -- 3,000-word article, Metzer Farms, California.
http://www.metzerfarms.com/weeder.htm

Weeding With Geese, by Glenn Geiger and Harold Biellier, Department of Animal Sciences,
University of Missouri-Columbia -- Why do geese eat certain plants with relish while showing no
interest whatsoever for others? Perhaps only a goose knows the answer. Proper use of geese can
practically eliminate the need to hoe and pull grass and weeds. Expensive hand labor is replaced.
The University of Tennessee Agricultural Experiment Station reports that using geese in cotton
fields can save $35 or more per acre. 1,600-word article.
http://muextension.missouri.edu/xplor/agguides/poultry/g08922.htm

Rabbits
Rabbits breed like, well, like rabbits. They breed all year and the
gestation period is only a month or less -- soon you'll have lots of
rabbits. One buck to up to 10 does, but you have to keep them apart.
You have to keep bucks apart too: rabbits fight. And they burrow under
fences. Free-ranging is out, but grazing arks work well. Good meat
production but not trouble-free. If you have children they'll do the work
for you -- children love rabbits. Grass, hay, vegetable scraps.

Start with a buck and two does and you'll have rabbit meat all year
Rabbits in a grazing ark
round. For breeding, take the doe to the buck, or they'll probably fight. at Frogditch Farm,
Leave them together for two days, then take her back again 12 days England, 1986 (Keith
later. If she refuses to mate, then it Addison)
worked the last time and she's pregnant. Leave her with her
babies for six weeks, then mate her again two weeks later. In
other words she'll breed four times a year.

Rabbit manure is high-quality, easy to handle.

Guineafowl
Guinea fowl are an all-round asset on a smallholding. The only downer is the weird and noisy
noise they make -- and even that's an asset, because they're better watchdogs than watchdogs

data:text/html;charset=utf-8,%3Ch1%20style%3D%22color%3A%20rgb(51%2C%200%2C%200)%3B%20font-family%3A%20'Times%20New%20Roman 5/10
20.01.2015 Poultry for small farmers: Journey to Forever

are (as good as geese). And you get used to the row. Guineafowl need very little care -- just
leave them alone, they do what they like, feed themselves, look after themselves, and lay about
the best eggs going. Smallish but rich and delicious! -- as they should be, nurtured on a rich and
varied diet of insects and weed seeds. They effectively keep the pests down. Guinea fowl are
THE best control for ticks.

Guinea Fowl for Tick Control -- "The second year we were here, we purchased a few
guinea fowl. Ticks have been very rare in our life since then." Good basic tips on free-range
guinea fowl.
http://www.countrysidemag.com/issues/3_1998.htm#Tick%20Control

General tips
Spreading wood ash on the floor of the chicken coop under the roosts is a good way of dealing
with the droppings. The chicken manure and the wood ash react, driving off the nitrogen and
drying out the manure, producing an easily handled, easy-to-store, organic fertilizer rich in
potassium and phosphorus. (Like all "fertilizers", you get the best effect by adding it to the
compost pile rather than the soil.)

Spread the type of "browns" you use for composting in the chicken run -- dead leaves, spoiled
hay, straw, sawdust, shredded newspaper and cardboard, wood chips. Throw edible scraps
from the vegetable garden and the kitchen on top. The chickens will scratch it up, manure it, and
mix it thoroughly for you -- when it's ready, put it straight in the compost bin.

Vermicomposting -- with red worms -- makes extra sense if you have poultry. Worms are high
protein (better than beef) and make excellent live (or dried) poultry feed. Worm populations
double at least in six weeks, and they eat their weight of compost material a day. It's not hard to
figure it so that you get a good supply of excess worms for your poultry. See Vermicomposting.

See "Friend Earthworm: Practical Application of a Lifetime Study of Habits of

the Most Important Animal in the World" by George Sheffield Oliver, 1941. Dr Oliver
was one of the first to harness the earthworm to the needs of the farmer and gardener, making
highly fertile topsoil for optimum crop growth, and producing a constant supply of cheap, high-
grade, live protein to feed poultry. He devised simple yet elegant and effective systems to bring
costs and labour down and productivity up to help struggling farmers make ends meet. Full text
online at the Journey to Forever Small Farms Library.

High-protein poultry feed from thin air

Lots of flies around? Collect some kitchen slops -- cooking water and juices and leftovers from
meat and fish dishes, some milk: anything that will go really putrid if you leave it for awhile. Then
leave it for awhile. When it stinks really badly, gather some compost materials, say 4-5 cubic feet,
spread it out in the sun, and sprinkle it with the putrid kitchen liquids. Don't get it too wet --
slightly more wet than compost should be.

In no time it'll be buzzing with flies. Leave it until you're quite sure lots of flies have had ample

data:text/html;charset=utf-8,%3Ch1%20style%3D%22color%3A%20rgb(51%2C%200%2C%200)%3B%20font-family%3A%20'Times%20New%20Roman 6/10
20.01.2015 Poultry for small farmers: Journey to Forever

opportunity to lay their fill of eggs. Then scoop it all up, put it in a double garbage bag (one inside
the other), put the bag in a suitably sized cardboard box, and close the bag lightly. It will soon
stop smelling. Check it every day.

After a week or so, you'll open it to find the surface flat, finely divided, and writhing slightly, or
even considerably, with maggots, lots and lots of maggots. Now's the time, don't leave them to
turn into flies. Two options:

Option 1
Sift it with a circular gardener's sieve with a 3/16" mesh (stainless steel mesh is best). This will
leave you with a pile of nice black compost and a sieve full of maggots -- first-class poultry feed.
Your chickens, ducks, guinea fowl will think it's Christmas. The geese, who're strict vegetarians,
will be appalled and disgusted by the whole thing, but never mind. Add the siftings to the compost
bin or the worm bin. Maggots, by the way, assist rather than hinder the composting process. And,
disgusting as they may look, fly maggots do not spread disease.

Option 2
Let the birds do the sifting for you -- but don't throw it onto their bedding or the mulch in their run
because they'll miss a few maggots, leaving them to hatch into flies. On bare ground, they'll
definitely get them all.

You've just wiped out a generation of flies.

Instead of using liquids, you can let a couple of litres of kitchen scraps get thoroughly putrid in a
bucket with a lid on it and use that instead.

See The Housefly by Professor Roy Hartenstein, online at the Journey to Forever Small
Farms Library.

Putting the Bluebottle Fly to Work -- from "Friend Earthworm: Practical Application of a
Lifetime Study of Habits of the Most Important Animal in the World" by George Sheffield Oliver,
1941, online at the Journey to Forever Small Farms Library.

Poultry as unpaid labour

If you keep Muscovy ducks (you should!) there might not be enough flies around to make a
boxful of maggots for you.

A Canadian study of fly controls with dairy calves found that Muscovies caught 30 times more
houseflies than commercial flytraps, baits or flypaper. The ducks also ate spilled feed so flies
couldn't breed in it.

The Heifer Project Exchange quotes a development worker in Togo in Africa reporting that the
local people were not bothered by flies because their Muscovy ducks killed them all. They
slaughtered some ducks, opened the crops to see what they'd eaten, and each one was filled with
hundreds of flies. (ECHO)

data:text/html;charset=utf-8,%3Ch1%20style%3D%22color%3A%20rgb(51%2C%200%2C%200)%3B%20font-family%3A%20'Times%20New%20Roman 7/10
20.01.2015 Poultry for small farmers: Journey to Forever

Slugs and snails eating your salad greens? Old country lore says: "There is no such thing as a
surfeit of slugs, merely a dearth of ducks."

Particularly Khaki Campbell ducks, also Indian runners, though all ducks are ace slug catchers,
they'll even go after their eggs in the soil. The ducks, though, might also appreciate your salad
greens, so you'll have to watch them.

They're not pets

You can get very fond of these birds. Distinguish at an early stage between birds for breeding and
birds for eating: you can give the breeders names, but DON'T name the meat birds, and don't let
them charm you too much. Keep it in mind what fate you have in store for them!

Children can accept this as long as you're completely honest and forthright about it right from the
start. Don't euphemize.

If you don't eat them they'll breed you out of house and home. If you can't stand the thought of
killing them, then don't let them breed, just take all the eggs. Or get someone else to do it for you.
You can learn slaughtering from a book, though it's better to get someone to show you.

Doing it
-- "Do you know how to kill a chicken?" Granny Choi asked. "Of course I do," Keith
replied. "You take it by the head and chop its body off."

Decapitation is probably the best way, especially for beginners. Cutting their throats works well,
and is probably just as instant. Reflex flapping makes both these ways messy. The non-messy
way is to wring (break) their necks, but it takes practise to get it right and it's rough on the birds
while you climb your learning curve. Maybe you know someone who can show you how.

Kill birds well away from the rest of the flock, take them away one at time -- don't make them
wait in line for what they know is going to happen.

Head
Use a cleaver, the heavier the better, and keep it sharp. Use a big, heavy piece of timber as a
chopping block. Hammer a nail into it near one end. Tie a short length of thin rope to the nail and
put a noose in the other end. Lay the bird down on its back on the block, put the noose round its
neck and tighten it -- not too tight. Hold the bird by the legs and pull it away from the nail so it
can't move but isn't stretched. If you stroke its chest a bit and make gentle, reassuring noises it'll
relax and probably close its eyes. Now's your chance. It needs a single, swift, well-aimed and
decisive blow. Keep hold of the legs, hold the bird away from you until the reflex flapping stops.

Throat
Use a sharp knife with a longish blade (not serrated). Take the bird by the feet and let it hang
upside down for awhile. It will soon calm down and relax. Then hang it from a pole or rail about

data:text/html;charset=utf-8,%3Ch1%20style%3D%22color%3A%20rgb(51%2C%200%2C%200)%3B%20font-family%3A%20'Times%20New%20Roman 8/10
20.01.2015 Poultry for small farmers: Journey to Forever

6ft from the ground. Tie a thin rope to the rail and loop it a few times round the bird's feet. You
can secure it with a short stick tied to the rope, tuck the stick between the legs. Take the head
firmly but gently in one hand and cut across the throat about an inch below the head with a single,
strong, sweeping cut. Step back and wait for it to stop flapping.

Plucking
Dip the carcase in hot water to loosen the feathers -- not too hot or you'll scald it and the skin will
tear. If there's down, pluck the bird on a table and collect the down with a vacuum cleaner.
Compost the feathers. Offal to the compost bin or the pig. Another option is to skin the bird,
feathers and all.

See also:
Processing Poultry at Home, Texas A&M University -- 12-page illustrated step-by-step
guide, facilities and equipment, New York dressing, evisceration, chilling and packing, skinning.
Download PDF:
http://gallus.tamu.edu/Extension%20publications/b-1383.pdf

Home Processing of Poultry, Melvin L. Hamre, University of Minnesota Extension

Illustrated olnline guide: selecting birds for slaughter, processing facilities and equipment, killing
and dressing, evisceration, chilling and packing, splitting broilers or fryers, cutting up whole
carcasses
http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/livestocksystems/DI0701.html

See Poultry resources

See also:
Pasture
Pigs for small farms
Farming with animals

Small farms
Small farm resources
Community-supported farms
Farming with trees
Farming with animals
Pasture
Pigs for small farms
Poultry for small farms
Aquaculture for small farms
Composting for small farms
Controlling weeds and pests

Small farms library

City farms

data:text/html;charset=utf-8,%3Ch1%20style%3D%22color%3A%20rgb(51%2C%200%2C%200)%3B%20font-family%3A%20'Times%20New%20Roman 9/10
20.01.2015 Poultry for small farmers: Journey to Forever

Organic gardening
Building a square foot garden
Plant spacing guides
No ground? Use containers
When to sow what
Seeds
Garden pond
Gardening resources

Composting
Making compost
Composting resources
Composting indoors
Vermicomposting
Humanure
Composting for small farms

data:text/html;charset=utf-8,%3Ch1%20style%3D%22color%3A%20rgb(51%2C%200%2C%200)%3B%20font-family%3A%20'Times%20New%20Roma 10/10