Male Chicks by Sue Norris
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HOPE FOR MALE America's Favorite Poultry Magazine CHICKS JUNE/JULY 2021 • VOLUME 16, NUMBER 3 WAYS TO INVOLVE YOUTH IN AGRICULTURE USPS HONORS HERITAGE BREEDS BEST DUCKS FOR MEAT AND EGGS PLUS WEIRD THINGS FOUND IN EGGS $5.99 US backyardpoultry.iamcountryside.com 6 Chick Minimum Free Shipping Hatching Smiles for Generations. For over a century, McMurray Hatchery has been a trusted, family-owned company dedicated to providing generations of customers with the highest quality poultry. Are you looking for a rainbow of fresh eggs, meat birds to feed your family, or just a few chickens for your backyard? Visit our website for the widest selection of rare and Heritage breeds, low minimums, and the supplies you need. ORDER ONLINE OR REQUEST A FREE CATALOG | MCMURRAYHATCHERY.COM | 800.456.3280 Depend on us when they start laying for maximum egg production . 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ADM Pen Pals Poultry BackyardPoultryNutition.com contents june/july 2021 08 Editor’s Letter 09 Photo Essay: Hansens Farm 12 Something to Crow About 16 Flocks to Follow 18 Ask the Expert Ron Kean and Marissa Ames answer reader questions about their flocks. 24 All Cooped Up: Candidiasis Lacey Hughett profiles flock diseases, prevention, and treatment. 26 Flock Photos The best of the best submissions via snail mail and our social sites. 28 Chicken Cutlets Florentine and Marmalade By Rita Heikenfeld 30 BBQ Chicken Tortilla Trend By Hannah McClure 33 31 Egg Casserole By Rita Heikenfeld 33 Emma Weeks, Chicken Girl By Emma Weeks 36 Hank's Homestead By Tove Danovich 38 8 Ways to Engage Youth in Ag By Kenny Coogan 41 Games for Kids and Chickens By Jenny Rose Ryan 45 44 Flock Files: Disqualifications in Show-Quality Chickens By Jeremy Chartier 45 USPS Honors Heritage Breeds By Christine Heinrichs 48 Lay a Little Egg for Me By Sherri Talbot 50 Our Henhouse was Gone With the Wind By Dorothy Rieke 38 48 NEW natural products FOR HEALTH & VITALITY Daily snack for digestive Daily snack for health and immunity quality eggs Promote digestive health and support immunity with essential oils and prebiotics for backyard flocks Learn more at GetStrongAnimals.com contents june/july 2021 52 Covid Coops By Patrice Lewis 56 Hope for Male Chicks By Sue Norris 58 Pasturing a Flock By Jaclyn Krymowski 62 Feeding Corn and Scratch Grains By Ann Accetta-Scott 65 Weird Things Found in Eggs By Jeremy Chartier 67 Self Colors: Extended Black By Craig Bordeleau 69 Raising Ducks for Meat By Ann Accetta-Scott 72 Best Ducks for Eggs By Ann Accetta-Scott 74 Flock Files: Duck Raising Questions Answered By Alina Jumabhoy 52 75 Secret Life of Poultry: Sammi the Adventurer By Lacey Hughett 78 Breed Profile: Runner Ducks By Tamsin Cooper 82 Coop Inspiration: Stonewind Acres By Melissa Stone 86 Backyard Poultry Bookstore 90 Marketplace 91 Coming Events 94 Breeders Directory 69 95 Classifieds 78 96 Just for Fun Can You Or mail your entry to Find the Roo? P.O. Box 566, Medford, WI 54451. He looks just like this Roo. We’ll pick one random winner to If you find him, visit receive a Backyard Poultry mug. backyardpoultry. Enter by 6/7/21. iamcountryside.com/giveaways/ These adorable mugs are new to find-roo and let us know where you the Backyard Poultry store. Our April/May winner is Jerry Greene, Massachusetts. see him! iamcountryside.com/shop/byp-mug Do it Right with DR® Great Gardens Start with DR® Rototillers! • Bust sod and churn through the most compacted ground • Prepare seedbeds or till garden waste back into your soil • Full line includes walk-behinds, tow-behinds, and cultivators DRrototiller.com Trim and Mow the EASY Way! • TRIM fencelines & perimeters • MOW waist-high grass and weeds • 5X the power of hand- held trimmers • Self-propelled models • Gas- or battery- powered USA ENGINEERED AND BUILT Assembled in the USA using domestic and foreign parts. DRtrimmer.com Including FREE EASY GoDRpower.com SALE!SHIPPING FINANCING Request your FREE PRODUCT CATALOG Some limitations apply. Go online or call for details. Online or Toll-Free at 877-201-6996 from the editor backyardpoultry.iamcountryside.com EDITORIAL Marissa Ames, Editor [email protected] They’re around 1,000 SCI goats in the world, Steph Merkle, Content Director a Rare they deserve an honored place. Will [email protected] anybody else be buying a book JUST Breed ... Editorial Assistants for keeping on display and another for They’re here! Samantha Ingersoll, Ann Tom sending cards and letters? You can read After 18 about the stamps on page 45. Publication Designer months (way Poultry featured on the stamp series Traci Laurie Marissa Ames too long!) I have include the Wyandotte chicken, Nar- egg layers again. ADVERTISING Editor ragansett turkey, Cotton Patch goose, Fresh out of the and Cayuga duck. I’m happy to say eggs themselves, they will mature at Alicia Soper, Advertising Director I’ve owned all but the goose, with the [email protected] least six months before laying. I should Narragansetts as my favorite. Such an 715-829-7330 have eggs in time for holiday custards intelligent, inquisitive, and affectionate and nogs. Kelly Weiler animal! I have a passion for rare breeds, so [email protected] If you’re more of a duck person than when I learned that Murray McMurray 715-965-1234 a chicken or turkey person, this issue hatchery carried some of the rarest in is for you. Tamsin Cooper provides the U.S., I breathed a sigh of relief. a Breed Profile of the Runner duck, Backyard Poultry’s Main Coop Now I wouldn’t have to drive halfway Backyard Poultry Ann Accetta-Scott talks about the best across the country for my Crèvecœurs P.O. Box 566, Medford, WI 54451 breeds for meat and eggs, and Craig or risk a 50% hatch rate (or lower) with backyardpoultry.iamcountryside.com Bordeleau returns to Backyard Poultry shipped eggs. I received six Crèvecœur with an explanation of how “extended pullets and six White Faced Black black” works as a dominant duck feath- Subscriptions (U.S. funds): Spanish pullets, both listed “critical” on $29.97 for six print issues er color. (P.S. … the same color rules The Livestock Conservancy’s Conser- $29.97 for digital only apply with other poultry.) vation Priority List. And three Dela- $39.97 for all-access (print + digital) And, of course, we can’t forget the backyardpoultry.iamcountryside.com/ ware pullets, because Delawares are my youth. June and July mean kids are out all-membership all-time favorite chicken, even though of school, raising their livestock and they’re only listed as “watch.” Or mail to: poultry, and showing them at county The chickens will join my San Cle- Backyard Poultry Subscriptions and state fairs. Don’t miss our stories mente Island goats and rare-vegetable P.O. Box 1690, Greeley, CO 80632 about two stellar youth entrepreneurs 970-392-4419 garden at our happy heritage farm. — Emma Weeks and Hank Driskill — Obviously, I’m excited about the rare and their chicken-themed businesses. Printed in the U.S.A. breeds stamps available at the USPS May your water be fresh, your shade starting May 17th. Though my chick- Backyard Poultry (ISSN 1559-2251, USPS 023-374) is published cool, and your eggs plentiful. bi-monthly by Countryside Publications, at P.O. Box 566, ens aren’t featured, my San Clemente Medford, WI 54451. Periodicals postage paid at Medford, WI and additional mailing offices. ©2021 Countryside Island goats share a spot. With only Publications. Countryside Publications is owned and operated by Fence Post Co. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of the editor or publisher. All contents of this issue of Backyard Poultry are copyrighted by Countryside Publications, 2021. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part is prohibited except by permission of the publisher. On The Cover POSTMASTER: Send all UAA to CFS. (See DMM 707.4.12.5); In addition to keeping chickens, Kevin is also a pretty handy NON-POSTAL AND MILITARY FACILITIES: Send woodworker and makes these beautiful custom wooden flags. address corrections to Backyard Poultry Subscriptions, See the Hansens Farm photo essay on page 9! P.O. Box 1690, Greeley, CO 80632 8 JUNE/JULY 2021 | BACKYARD POULTRY flock community Our original coop that we bought from a big box store to house our first set of chicks. Even though our flock has Hansens Farm outgrown it, we repurposed it to serve as a rabbit hutch. BY SAVANNA AND KEVIN HANSEN Our first Bantam hen. It is always so much fun to see her mini fairy One of the features of our custom-built coop is this separated eggs. She may not be the most productive egg layer, but it is so “clean” side. Here, we can collect eggs and store feed without much fun to experience all of the different chicken breeds. having to walk into the chickens’ free roam areas. BACKYARDPOULTRY.IAMCOUNTRYSIDE.COM 9 flock community E HAVE ALWAYS DREAMT ABOUT owning a farm. It was something we had Wto keep a dream until we had the proper place to start one. We never thought our little lake forest house in Orange County, California would be the start. But if you’re reading this magazine, you probably know how this goes. It all started with two chickens ... and then there were eight.