If you're interested in growing your own food, chances are you're interested in raising your own chickens - the two can't be separated in my book.
Chooks, as we call them here in the Antipodes, are such gentle, useful creatures. Even if you don't like, or use, eggs, they scratch up your weeds, fertilise your soil and generally make your garden look more authentic. I swear our garden looked ten times more beautiful when we introduced our chookies to it.
For many, the thought of getting chooks is overwhelming. What breed do I get? What do I feed them? How big should my coop be? How many nesting boxes do I need? We all know the internet has answers, but there's so many forums and websites - how do we know which one to read? Which one will give us the most accurate, clear and straightforward information?
I've been lucky enough to read @walkerland's 'The Homesteaders Handbook: Raising Chickens' today, and I'm so impressed. It's the book I wish I had when I first started keeping chickens. It's clear, concise and full of beautiful photographs, taken by Charlotte herself. She's one clever chookie!
If I'm going to trust any authority on chickens, it's definitely going to be @walkerland. Not only is she a loved Steemian, but an avid homesteader who really, really knows her stuff. She has a beautiful 90 acre homestead in Canada with her husband and runs a website where you can read all about it here.
In the book you'll find all sorts of information - which breeds to buy, how to tell if your chook is a rooster or a hen, what food to feed them and so on. It's all really beautifully laid out and well worth the mere 28 Steem/9 SBD (approx) she charges for such a well polished Ebook. Plus, being an ebook, you get it in a second! How cool is that!
The book is available here on Steem powered marketplace Homesteaders Co-Op - an ethical, free marketplace where vendors are empowered to keep ALL THE PROCEEDS. This ain't EBay or Etsy folks - this is a place where customers and vendors transact directly with each other. If you don't want to part with Steem, you can also pay in USD. @sagescrub has done a wonderful job setting it up and working hard to provide this wonderful addition to the Steem blockchain for us, especially for homesteaders, those interested in ethical products, natural medicines and so on. Go check it out!
All of the chicken photos in this post are mine - nowhere near as good as the quality of @walkerland's in her Ebook. All of them are now in Chook Heaven, due to various mishaps - foxes, mainly. I've now fox proofed the yard as best can!
Do you have chickens? Love your ladies? Post a photo below and I'll upvote it! Chookies always make me smile.
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There's foxes in oz? You're so very right; chickens do complete a garden.
Oh yeah some genius brought them in to hunt the rabbits some other genius brought in. One of the reasons this island is nutballs about border security.
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Hahahahaha freaking geniuses! Gotta love em. Why didn't he bring rabbits? They're super duper invasive critters...
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STOPTo support your work, I also upvoted your post!
This is a great review! Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this ebook and some of your experience with chickens :) There's a lot of info to digest for someone new to chickens and am glad to see this book is delivering on its promise!
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Thanks for the thoughtful review @riverflows - what a nice surprise! :)
You are so welcome!!!
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Yep. Chickens the gate way drug to Homesteading.