Chicken Whisperer's Guide to Keeping Chickens - Couverture souple

Schneider, Andy; McCrea, Brigid

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1592537286 ISBN 13 : 9781592537280

Editeur : Quarry Books, 2011

Synopsis

Are you looking for a great way to reconnect with the earth, the community, and your food sources? Keeping backyard chickens is a fun, simple way to start making this happen, even with limited space in your backyard. Let the Chicken Whisperer (poultry personality Andy Schneider) teach you everything he knows…and everything you need to know…about raising a backyard flock! Ditch the super-technical manuals and enjoy Andy's unique, common-sense perspective in The Chicken Whisperer's Guide to Keeping Chickens. This fun, comprehensive guide is a perfect fit for your busy lifestyle.

Inside, you’ll learn:

—The Benefits of a Backyard Chicken Flock

—So You're Eggspecting: The Art of Incubation

— The Art of Brooding

—Home Sweet Home: Coops & Runs

—Nutrition, Health, and Wellness

…and much more!

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Andy Schneider, better known as the Chicken Whisperer, has become the go-to guy for anything chickens. Over the years, he has helped a countless number of people start their very own backyard flocks. He is not only a well-known radio personality, as host of the “Backyard Poultry with the Chicken Whisperer” radio show, but also a contributor for Mother Earth News, Grit Magazine, and Farmers’ Almanac. He is the national spokesperson for the USDA-APHIS Bio-Security for Birds Program. He is the Founder/Organizer of the Atlanta Backyard Poultry Meetup Group and many other Meetup Groups around the United States. He has been featured on CNN, HLN, Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR, as well as in The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, The Economist, USA Today, New Life Journal, and other local and national publications. Andy has also been traveling around the U.S. on the Chicken Whisperer Tour, educating people about the many benefits of keeping a small backyard flock of chickens. Andy and his wife Jen keep 35 chickens on their property just north of Atlanta, Georgia. Visit him online at http://www.chickenwhisperer.com.

Dr. Brigid McCrea, Ph.D, began her lifelong love of chickens quite by accident, and she attributes it all to her involvement in 4-H. With the help of the family mechanic, who was also a show chicken breeder and a 4-H poultry leader, she began to raise and show chickens. The poultry community is full of kind people willing to share their knowledge with fellow poultry enthusiasts, and it was this camaraderie that spurred her on to study poultry and birds in college. She received her B.S. and M.S. in Avian Sciences from the University of California, Davis, and then received her Ph.D. in Poultry Science from Auburn University. Brigid is pleased to share her poultry knowledge with everyone who is interested in learning how best to start or serve their flock.

Extrait. © Reproduit sur autorisation. Tous droits réservés.

How a Chicken Makes an Egg

You reach into the nest box and wrap your fingers around a warm, just-laid egg. You pick it up, feel its warmth against your cheek, and then pop it into in your pocket. Back in the house, you heat up the fry pan and crack open your egg, staring at all of its curious parts and poking at the yolk with a spatula. This egg came from your happy hens; unhappy hens do not lay eggs so you must be doing something right. The yolk breaks open from the spatula’s weight and spreads into the egg white. As it cooks, you wait patiently. When it is ready, you put it on a plate and serve yourself a fresh, egg-a-licious breakfast. The taste, well, those words are best left to your own imagination. But what about the journey that wonderful egg took to get to your breakfast?

The egg starts with the yolk. It begins small and is surrounded by a follicle necessary to transport the nutrients and pigments needed. Once ready—filled with sufficient nutrients and genetic material—the yolk descends into the oviduct, traveling first through a funnel-like section called the infundibulum. This is where it gets fertilized by sperm, if any has been stored. Next it ends up in the largest oviduct section called the magnum, where the yolk connects to the white, also called the albumen.

The next stop on the yolk’s journey is the short, narrow isthmus, where the inner and outer shell membranes are added, the latter of which provides the foundation upon which the shell is built. The yolk and albumen spend seventy-five minutes in the isthmus. Once surrounded by the inner and outer shell membranes, the group continues on to the shell gland, where the shell gets added, hardens, and changes pigment color and where the albumen’s four layers unfold. The egg spends more than twenty-four hours in the shell gland. Finally, the last layer, a thin protein mucus called the cuticle or bloom, seals the egg’s pores to prevent invasion by bacteria. Now the egg is ready to be laid.

The egg is formed inside the hen with the small end facing downward. It flips around just before it is laid so that it leaves the hen large end first. The egg passes through the vagina and out through the cloaca or vent. If needed, a hen can hold onto an egg until a favorable place or situation to lay it. This is key for a wild hen avoiding a predator. In this rare circumstance, it is possible that a hen will lay two eggs within a twenty-four hour period. Whew! It takes all that to lay an egg. To all the hens in your coop: Take a bow. They have earned it!

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Quarry Books
• Date d'édition: 2011
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1592537286
• ISBN 13: 9781592537280
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 176
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible