This book will help you get off on the right foot in establishing a small-scale farm of chickens. You will learn how to prepare for and choose healthy chickens before you bring them home to your farm. Once you have your livestock, you will learn how to recognize the signs of an ill animal and how to treat them. In order to properly use your investment, you will learn how to harvest, market your livestock, and butcher your own meat. In a nutshell, you will learn the ins and outs of livestock farming from experts and pros in the business. But as with most things, you will learn best by doing. Most likely, you will experience a few setbacks your first year or two. With practice, research, and determination, your foray into small-scale farming with chickens will be a fun and rewarding experience for you and your family.
Before you embark on a small-scale enterprise, do your research. Research the breeds available, the equipment needed, the physical labor requirements, and — equally important — the markets available to sell the products your livestock produce. You will have to ask yourself some tough questions. To begin, do you have the resources to finance a livestock enterprise? Can you physically handle the species you would like to raise? Is there a reliable source of feed near your farm? Is there an available, nearby market for your product, or do you have to create a market? This little book can help answer these questions and more. These are just a few of the many questions you need to seriously contemplate before you make a single purchase related to small-scale farming. Instead of jumping into a larger-scale operation, you might want to start small to make sure you enjoy working with the chickens. Do not invest a lot of money until you are absolutely certain this is something you would like to do as a business or to provide your family.
However, do not let these precautions dissuade you from attempting to raise chickens on your farm. As long as you go in clear-eyed and levelheaded with reasonable expectations, you just might find raising chickens will suit you just fine. As you will see from some of the case studies in this book, farming is a family affair, and children can become just as invested as adults in rearing animals.
If you are interested in small-scale farming with other types of livestock, be sure to check out the other books in this series:
• The Art of Small Scale Farming with Ducks and Geese: A Little Book Full of All the Information You Need
• The Art of Small Scale Farming with Turkeys and Game Birds: A Little Book Full of All the Information You Need
• The Art of Small Scale Farming with Rabbits: A Little Book Full of All the Information You Need
• The Art of Small Scale Farming with Goats: A Little Book Full of All the Information You Need
• The Art of Small Scale Farming with Sheep: A Little Book Full of All the Information You Need
• The Art of Small Scale Farming with Pigs: A Little Book Full of All the Information You Need
• The Art of Small Scale Farming with Beef Cattle: A Little Book Full of All the Information You Need
• The Art of Small Scale Farming with Dairy Cattle: A Little Book Full of All the Information You Need