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A Delicious Cooked, Nonalcoholic Eggnog Recipe
Fans of eggnog cheer when they see it decorating the dairy case during the last few months of the year. But after December it disappears again. Though we love the smooth, custardy sweetness, we may...
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Hatching Duck Eggs: When Fertile Eggs Don’t Hatch
I recently ventured into hatching duck eggs, an area that I had previously avoided ever since we started keeping ducks. Not only am I allowing Margarita our broody duck to sit on fertile eggs, I am...
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5 Homestead Animals for Self-Sufficiency — From Cow Farming to Chicken Keeping
If your aim is self-sufficiency and you’re not a vegan, you will need a supply of milk, eggs and meat for self-sufficiency. From cow farming to chicken keeping, the peace of mind and satisfaction you...
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16 Fascinating Egg Facts
No matter how you cook them—scrambled, poached, fried or baked—eggs are chock full of healthy nutrients. Even if you eat eggs all the time, there may be some things you don’t know about them. Check out...
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Hatching Duck Eggs
Hatching duck eggs is an awe-inspiring experience. Since domestic duck breeds rarely go broody (i.e. sit on fertile eggs until they hatch), using an incubator is generally your best bet. Various types...
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Tips for Raising Runner Ducks
Keeping Runner ducks combines the benefits of raising poultry with the entertainment of watching penguin-like bowling pins forage around the yard. After dabbling in call ducks, I increased my flock to...
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Candling Eggs and Advanced Techniques for Artificial Incubation & Hatching
By Rob Banks, England – Candling eggs is an age-old technique that has modern applications in incubating and hatching poultry. After studying the incubation of many species and breeds it became clear...
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A Beginner’s Guide to Keeping Ducks in Suburbia
Ducks can be charming companions in suburban backyards. As someone who never raised so much as a parakeet on her own, the idea that I could look out the window and watch our five full-grown,...
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10 Facts About Ducks: Are Ducks the New Chickens?
Over the last few years, keeping backyard chickens has become all the rage. Whether it’s wanting to know where their food is coming from, a desire to be more self-sufficient or merely wanting to go...
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A Guide to Different Colored Chicken Eggs
With Easter fast approaching, many of you will be turning your attention to dyeing eggs with your kids. But instead, what about raising a flock of backyard chickens that lay colored eggs for you — no...
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Muscovy Duck Breed Spotlight
By Dr. Dennis P. Smith – During the more than 40 years that we have been in business, I must confess that we have hatched and raised several duck breeds. However, absolutely none can compare with the...
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10 Homesteading Blogs That Inspire and Educate
Are you on the hunt for helpful homesteading blogs? You’re in luck. The Countryside Network features some of the most influential homesteading bloggers today. You’ll hear from these knowledgeable...
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How to Raise Ducks in Your Backyard
By Dave Holderread – If you want an economical and steady supply of homegrown eggs that are nutritious and tasty, you’ll need a flock of backyard chickens, right? Well, not necessarily. You might want...
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What Do Ducks Eat?
The number one question I always get from backyard chicken keepers thinking about adding some domestic duck breeds to their flock is “What do ducks eat?” Fortunately, ducks can do quite well on chicken...
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Duck Eggs Vs. Chicken Eggs
Today I want to compare duck eggs vs. chicken eggs. How does a duck egg measure up compared to a chicken egg? How do duck eggs taste? Are duck eggs better for pastries? How much protein is in a duck...
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Alternatives to Culling Chickens
My oldest chicken is eight years old. She still manages to pop out a handful of eggs a year, but they’re usually wrinkled and a bit misshapen with thin shells. She certainly isn’t winning any awards...
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How Genetics Determine Duck Egg Color
Leghorns lay white eggs and Marans lay dark brown eggs. But duck egg color doesn’t follow these specific rules. Why can some ducks, of the same breed, lay blue eggs while the others lay white? It’s not...
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Cayuga Duck Breed Spotlight
By Holly Fuller – Cayuga ducks are a threatened breed. These beautiful, iridescent, green feathered ducks are great for their flavorful meat, egg production, show quality, and their ability to make...
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Poultry Talk – December 2017/January 2018
Sick Chicken One of my older chickens keeps shaking her head back and forth and then going around in a circle and losing her balance and falling down. Yesterday her eyes were kind of black on the edges...
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How to Make Tempera Paint with Egg Yolk
Artist Tinúviel Sampson gladly shares her secrets behind how to make tempera paint using backyard chicken and duck eggs. But first, she says, prepare the right ground. By “ground,” she refers to the...
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Wilders Homestead Photo Essay
By Emily Popa – Our experience with backyard poultry began a little unconventionally in 2014. A month after our wedding, my husband and I purchased a small brown house on two and a half acres in...
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How to Raise Ducklings
Did you know that duck eggs are not only larger than chicken eggs, they’re also higher in fat, which means that your baked goods will raise higher and taste richer. If you’re thinking of adding a few...
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Top 10 Duck Raising Questions Answered
By Alina Jumabhoy from New Life on a Homestead – While ducks are relatively easy poultry to raise and care for, they do still have specific requirements that need to be met. Whether you are a...
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To Refrigerate or Not!
Susie Kearley – In the United Kingdom and Europe, many people keep their eggs at room temperature. The supermarkets sell unrefrigerated eggs, and it’s thought that refrigerating eggs in shops is bad...
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The Secrets To Perfect Fluffy Scrambled Eggs
When we were kids, Mom would sometimes fix us perfect fluffy scrambled eggs. I can still see her working her way through two large cast iron skillets filled with moist scrambled eggs for our family of...
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How to Keep Ducks and Chickens in the Same Coop
If you’re considering adding some ducks to your flock, you may be wondering how well keeping ducks and chickens in the same coop works. What needs do they have that are similar? How are they different?...
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Will a Broody Hen Adopt Ducklings?
By Susie Kearley – When Helen Redfern moved from the city to the countryside, she started keeping ducks, then chickens. The ducks insisted on sleeping outdoors rather than in a coop and were taken by...
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Raising Critical Breeds: Dutch Hookbill and Aylesbury Ducks
Just like wildlife, domestic livestock can become endangered and extinct. The Dutch Hookbill and Aylesbury ducks are both currently listed as critical by The Livestock Conservancy. Consider adding...
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Use Your Eggs to Make Homemade Mayonnaise
Homemade mayonnaise is easy to whip up and rich with flavor. If you have a backyard flock you’ve probably got extra eggs, and the rest of the ingredients are most likely already in your pantry. Be...
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From the Editor — Egg Recipes e-edition
Superior Eggs for Superior Dishes Eggs are the crown jewels of backyard poultry keeping. From duck eggs to quail and chicken eggs, there’s nothing like getting a fresh egg from the coop and eating it...
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A Golden Find — Goose Egg Recipes
Photos and Story By Janice Cole, Minnesota Goose eggs are precious. It turns out that finding goose eggs can almost be as hard as finding a golden egg. The reason? Geese lay eggs seasonally starting...
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A Guide to Duck Shelters for Winter
With their double coat of waterproof feathers over thick, warm fluffy down and a layer of body fat, ducks (regardless of duck breeds) are exceedingly cold-hardy. They love being outdoors year-round in...
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Exploring How Feed Affects Egg Yolk Color
By Doug Ottinger – Many chicken owners know that egg yolk color is heavily influenced by the feed their birds eat. But do they really understand how interior egg quality can be impacted by the feeds...
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Everything Worth Knowing About Chicken Eggs
“It was a brave man who first ate an oyster,” Jonathon Swift said, but the first person to eat an egg must have been even braver. Or very, very hungry. Imagine breaking open an egg, not knowing what...
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Poultry Talk — 12/1
Shade for Chickens? I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoy your magazine. My mother-in-law gets it, gives it to me, and I pass it on to another friend who has chickens. We all enjoy it. I’m...
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Hatching Duck Eggs
Hatching duck eggs is fun, and nothing beats the thrill of opening the incubator to find it full of bright eyed, curious, energetic creatures eager to get on with the business of life. Successfully...
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Do You Have Something To Crow About — April/May 2017
Backyard Poultry Writer in Zambia “While on a long Sunday drive out to a Zambian village, we passed this little girl, who was selling a chicken. We asked how much, and she said, ‘Two kwacha’...
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Types of Ducks For Eggs, Meat and Pest Control
I’ve been raising various types of ducks alongside our chickens for years and have had ample opportunity to observe not only the interaction between the chickens and ducks, but also the differences...
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Silver Appleyard Duck Breed Spotlight
By Harvey Ussery – I’ve tried a number of duck breeds over the years, including Silver Appleyard ducks. I was always looking for my “true love” duck, sometimes keeping several breeds in a given season....
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Facts About Ducks: How Much Does a Duck Need?
Facts about ducks and duck information, in general, can be difficult to find online because backyard ducks aren’t nearly as popular (yet) as backyard chickens, but I am hoping to change that by...
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How to Successfully Incubate Peahen Eggs
By Craig Hopkins – Indiana, United Peafowl Association. People who raise peafowl have several options to choose from when it comes to the incubation of peahen eggs. The peahen eggs can be incubated...
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Do You Have Something To Crow About — June/July 2017
Making Copies I enjoy the magazine but on finding this chicken to color, I made copies for family and friends and sat down and colored straight away. Great fun. I think I’ll make more copies to tuck in...
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Frittatas 101 – Start Basic Then Make it Fancy
When I learned to make frittatas, I knew I had a dish simple enough for a family supper yet fancy enough for entertaining. Frittata, which translates to “fried” in Italian, is an egg-based classic...
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Chicken Chat — Late Summer e-edition
Chicken Chat! Q: What’s the weirdest question you’ve ever been asked about raising chickens? • Why do you need so many chickens? — AnnaMarie Seward • Are the brown eggs dirty? — Bonny...
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Urban Chicken Keeping: Legalizing Backyard Chickens, Simple Boredom Busters,...
In case you haven’t heard, we’ve got exciting news for all you Backyard Poultry readers out there! If you have a Web-Only or All-Access Backyard Poultry membership, you now get four EXTRA e-editions a...
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Incubating Duck Eggs with Chicken Eggs
If you have already tried incubating chicken eggs, you know how addicting it can be. Have you tried incubating duck eggs? And can you incubate duck eggs with chicken eggs, conserving space while only...
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Saxony Duck Breed Profile
The most often-recognized backyard duck breed is probably the snow-white Pekin duck, closely followed by the domestic mallard, which is mottled brown with blue wing tips. However, domestic ducks come...
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Khaki Campbell Duck Breed Spotlight
By Emma Paunil – Khaki Campbell ducks were bred in the early 1900s by Mrs. Adele Campbell, Uley, Gloucestershire, England. Mrs. Campbell created the Khaki Campbell duck with the intention to produce a...
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Do You Have Something To Crow About? — 11/2
A Full-Feathered Smile This is a photograph of our mother, Martha Rudolph. Martha is 89 years old and has been blind for over 25 years. As a child, Martha was raised on a farm with chickens in...
View ArticleCountry Conversation & Feedback — 100/3
Responses to a Cranberry Chutney Request In a recent issue, Dee Martin from Brooklyn Park, Maryland, submit-ted a Countryside Cookbook (see new recipes on page 42) recipe and a request: does anyone...
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