How to Raise Free-Range Chickens

About Me and My Farm

Brought to you by Robert Plamondon, robert@plamondon.com. Our farm is in Oregon's Coast Range, which has a mild climate that allows our free-range hens to maintain an outdoor lifestyle year-round, even during rare winter snow, as shown in the photo. We have a flock of about 500 chickens in our free-range egg operation, and around 1500 pastured broilers during the six-month broiler season. We also raise a batch of turkeys for Thanksgiving. We've been raising free-range eggs and pastured broilers since the mid-Nineties We've been rediscovering the old-time American free-range poultry methods developed during poultrykeeping's Golden Age between 1900 and 1960. We read pretty much the entire collection of ancient poultry books and magazines in Oregon State University's Valley Library, and tried or adapted as many of these as possible. We've put our findings up on this site.

One of the things we learned is that pasture-raised chickens product better-tasting eggs and meat, and are a lot more fun to deal with than confined chickens. We also discovered many cases where simpler, more inexpensive methods worked as well as complex and expensive ones, and often better.
 

Build Chicken Coops

Chicken coops are the most popular topic on the site.

Build a Healthy Traditional Chicken Coops! You need your chicken coop to promote health and happiness in your chickens. Let's face it: Chickens aren't really suited to confinement. They're outdoor creatures, and need a airy, light-filled coop. Tragically, most chicken coop plans are for dank and stuffy chicken dungeons. Chickens are like miners' canaries: suffering in an airless, confined environment. Instead, you need to read Fresh-Air Poultry Houses, the bible of healthy chicken coops for all climates. This book is an oldie but a goodie, going into every detail and answering every question. The author describes his own chicken coops thoroughly, with sketch plans and photos, and describes other designs by many other people. In addition to housing, it contains many nuggets of poultrykeeping information. Fresh-Air Poultry Houses has been greeted with great enthusiasm by readers like you, instantly becoming Norton Creek Press' best-selling book. People like you care deeply about chickens and know that housing them in a healthy environment is essential. But until now, the best methods of doing this have been forgotten. When you buy Fresh-Air Poultry Houses, you'll be on the fast track to success!

 

Build Baby Chick Brooders

Lots of information on building your own brooder boxes, especially easy-to-build insulated brooders that brood more chicks, more comfortably, on less heat!

Read My Book on Baby Chick Care! This is a good place to recommend that you buy my book, Success With Baby Chicks (Norton Creek Press, $15.95). Don't suffer the heartbreak of failure with baby chicks! My book is based on years of research and experience, and shows you have to have success time after time. Thousands of readers have been pleased by the results they get after reading this book, and you will be pleased, too! You've probably seen, by now, that this site has lots of information on chickens, but my book has much more, and it's better organized, so you will find what you need, when you need it. Buy a copy today so you'll be ready the next time you get some adorable but helpless baby chicks!

 

Frequently Asked Questions About Chickens

Norton Creek Press

Suppliers and Resources

A wide variety of folks we've done business with and recommend highly.
 

Presentation: Profitable Free-Range Eggs

Recommended Reading

Press Coverage of Our Farm and Methods

Mid-Valley Sunday (August, 2001)
 

Our Farm's Web Page

Chicken Jokes

Our own collection of chicken jokes, most of which are actually funny!

Practical advice on various topics.

I Have Five Web Sites, How About You?

Ever think about having your own Web site? It's easy! I tell you how it's done in a brief online article.
 

Buy My Books!
Fresh-Air Poultry Houses More Information	We Wanted a Farm M. G. Kains More Information	Success With Baby Chicks Robert Plamondon More Information	Genetics of the Fowl F. B. Hutt More Information	Ten Acres Enough Edmund Morris More Information	Feeding Poultry G.F. Heuser More Information

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