Poultrykeeping Resources
Chicken Jokes
Our own collection of chicken jokes, most of which are actually funny!
Internet Resources
American Pastured Poultry Producers' Association (APPPA).
An organization of folks who are raising pastured broilers and eggs. Most are serious about the
money-making side of this; all are delighted by the quality of the meat and eggs. There's
some good stuff on the site, and if you join, your membership will include a subscription
to APPPA Grit, which has all sorts of fascinating articles written by the members. Highly
recommended.
YahooGroups
Pastured Poultry Discussion Forum. An excellent e-mail discussion forum
about pastured broilers and free-range eggs.
ATTRA Poultry
Pages: Lots of practical information about pastured poultry.
Feathersite:
A poultry site with a lot of stuff on it, including vast numbers of links
to other poultry sites.
Recommended Hatcheries and Suppliers
We've purchased chicks or supplies from all of these vendors, and we recommend
them.
Egg Washers
National Poultry Equipment Company. Makers
of the Sani-Touch (Aquamagic) egg cleaner. Great machine; great folks.
Hatcheries
Privett Hatchery. An excellent
hatchery with a great selection of breeds, including a wonderful selection
of rare breeds, high-producing brown-egg and white-egg birds, and
slower-growing Cornish Cross broilers that don't have the health problems
of the current commercial birds.
McMurray Hatchery. Another fine hatchery, this one with
an emphasis on standard breeds rather than commercial ones. They have an large, free color catalog that
is an education in itself.
Stromberg's. A hatchery and mail-order
poultry supply source. Stromberg's also has an extensive collection of books for sale,
some of which aren't available elsewhere.
Poultry Supplies
Kuhl Corporation makes a wide
variety of poultry products, from feeders to high-volume egg-washing machines.
NASCO Farm and Ranch has a general
farm catalog with a good poultry section.
GQF Manufacturing. Suppliers of
incubators, brooders, and accessories.
Little Giant (Miller Manufacturing).
Feeders, waterers, and small incubators.
Egg Cartons. See my egg carton page.
You Can Find Anything on eBay
Really! Anything! If I can't find it locally, I can find it on eBay, at least once in a while. And
you find the most amazing bargains!
For example, it's hard to find old AquaMagic
egg washers. In the almost ten years I've been paying attention, I've seen more of them for
sale on eBay than in our regional farm paper. Yes, many were too far away from us, but you get
the idea. And although AquaMagics are hard to find, sometimes people get them on eBay
for really low prices (say, around $1,000, which is plenty cheap for such a fancy machine).
Anyway, the lists below ought to give you an idea of the kinds of poultry stuff you can find
on eBay.
Egg Washers
There are many different kinds of egg-washing tools: automatic egg cleaners, manual egg brushes, immersion washers, etc.
Quality and general utility varies. I like the AquaMagic
automatic egg washer, but this is suitable only for folks with commercial flocks.
General Poultry Equipment
Feeders, waterers, brooder, scalders, pickers, and other poultry equipment are in this category.
Egg Cartons
I have never bought egg cartons on eBay, but if you want to buy cartons less than a "bundle" of 200 at a time, eBay might be
your best source.
Incubators
The incubator market is very competitive, and all the popular models are plentiful on eBay. We've used both the
cheap GQF styrofoam incubators and the much larger GQF "Sportsman" incubators. The styrofaom incubators are how
everyone starts, but they're hard to clean and aren't suitable if you do a lot of incubation. As far as I can tell,
everyone uses the GQF Sportsman incubators unless they move up to much larger commercial models.
Hatching Eggs
Hatching eggs are almost unbelievably popular on eBay, allowing hobbyists to buy exactly the breed they want, even if
none of the major hatcheries stock it. It's practically the only way of getting exotic or semi-exotic stock like
Muscovy ducks, which for some reason the hatcheries avoid carrying.
Hatching eggs can be shipped through the mail or by other carriers. The hatching rate with eggs that have been
shipped isn't as good as local eggs, but a lot of people find that it suits their needs.
Links to Other Farms' Web Pages
The old-fashioned chicken farming business has as many variations as it has farmers. My
Web site features my farm and my methods, of course, but the diversity of methods out there
is enormous. The thing we seem to have in common is that grass-fed eggs and broilers always
taste a lot better than the confinement-reared stuff, and of course an old-fashioned farm
is 'way more photogenic than a modern confinement operation!
(I haven't actually visited the farms in this list -- except for mine -- or tasted their products.
I farm. That means I don't get out much!)
Norton Creek Farm. My farm.(Blodgett, Oregon.)
Peaceful Pastures. Live in an urban area?
Want to buy free-range chicken (or other pastured products) anyway? It can be shipped to you in
coolers! (Hickman, Tennessee).
Oaklyn Plantation.
Another farm that can ship product to you in coolers, if you aren't local. (Darlington, South Carolina)
Other Links
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http://www.tracker-outdoors.com
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My farm blog is full of poultry tips, news about our farm, and news about our publishing efforts at Norton Creek Press.
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