Review: Raising the Home Duck Flock

(Photo from Thriftbooks) 

Next in the 'Modern Guide' saga, is 'Raising the Home Duck Flock' (1978). This book offers a good overview of raising ducks and presents ducks as an viable and easy alternative for the homestead. Ducks seem to have an easy place within a permaculture design as ducks can forage for insects while simultaneously controlling insects in the garden. Ducks require less infrastructure than chickens and can even be raised without a permanent shelter (given the correct conditions). 

This resource presents ducks as an easy and low-maintenance homestead animal and because of this, it feels like this resource is lacking details - especially in the area of problem solving. This could be a deficit in the resource or perhaps - ducks really are a unproblematic homestead resource!

Raising Poultry the Modern Way

Raising Rabbits the Modern Way

Review: Raising Poultry the Modern Way

The modern series released by Storey has a good reputation. I grew up with several of the series in our house as well as our neighbour's house and many seem to be classic tomes of agricultural knowledge. With that in mind I ordered a few on thriftbooks.

(Photo from Thriftbooks.)

Sadly this publication from 1983 does not hold up to the reputation of the series. It is a product of its time with the focus on 'bigger is better' through the imitation and replication of industrial agricultural's methods, motivations, and practices. 

The following are some bits of advice that I would never follow: 

Broody behaviour in poultry is uniformly viewed as negative and should be 'broken'.  

To avoid feather picking and cannibalism, chicken combs are cut off with manicure scissors. 

Washing eggs before incubation is advised as a blanket procedure.   

All poultry houses are to have indoor lighting. 

Some of the scientific information on capons, egg hatching, and butchering was acceptable and basic enough to withstand the change in agricultural management. 

The chapter on water fowl was a tiny bit interesting to me as this was the first time I have done any research on water fowl - but I suspect that after a few more resources I will feel the same way about the water fowl chapter as I did the rest of the book.