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

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