Hobby Farm Animals: A Comprehensive Guide to Raising Chickens, Ducks, Rabbits, Goats, Pigs, Sheep, and Cattle

· Fox Chapel Publishing
Ebook
384
Pages
Eligible

About this ebook

Eggs, meat, milk, wool, fur, feathers, and some priceless bucolic bliss. No hobby farm is complete without critters...possibly a small herd peppering the field or a microflock flapping around the hen house or pond. A single information-packed volume with everything a hobby farmer needs to know about farm animals, this new comprehensive manual to selecting, caring for, and breeding livestock brings forth the expertise of five hobby farmers, each of whom has real-life on-the-farm experience with the animals she discusses. Whether you’re contemplating adding a small herd of sheep or goats to your existing hobby farm or you’ve always wondered about the benefits of raising angora rabbits or Muscovy ducks, Livestock for Your Hobby Farm provides the kind of guidance you need to begin a herd or flock and expand your pens and fencing. With exhaustive detail, the authors offer complete coverage of chickens, ducks, goats, sheep, cattle, pigs, and rabbits, including the housing, health-care, special needs, advantages and challenges of each.

-Extensive sections devoted to the seven major farm animals, including profiles of the most popular breeds and varieties

-Detailed how-to chapters on the care, handling, feeding, health, and safety of each animal

-Special chapters devoted to the breeding and raising of young animals

-Recommendations for ways of capitalizing on your livestock’s output, from selling eggs, milk, fiber, and so forth

-Tips for troubleshooting potential problems and warding off diseases, parasites, and predators

About the author

Sue Weaver has written hundreds of articles and ten books about livestock and poultry. She is a contributing editor of Hobby Farms magazine and writes the “Poultry Profiles” column for Chickens magazine. Sue lives on a small farm in Arkansas, which she shares with her husband, a flock of Classic Cheviot sheep and a mixed herd of goats, horses large and small, a donkey who thinks she’s a horse, two llamas, a riding steer, a water buffalo, a pet razorback pig, guinea fowl, and Buckeye chickens.

Ann Larkin Hansen is the author of The Backyard Homestead Seasonal Planner, The Organic Farming Manual, The Electric Fencing Handbook, Finding Good Farmland, and Making Hay; coauthor of A Landowner’s Guide to Managing Your Woods with consulting forester Dennis Waterman and master logger Mike Severson; and coauthor with her husband, Steve, of Maintaining Small-Farm Equipment. She has been a journalist for more than 30 years, specializing in organic agriculture and sustainable forestry. A homesteader and a small-scale organic farmer, she lives with her family on a farm in northern Wisconsin.

Cherie Langlois is a professional writer and photographer as well as a trained zoologist. She enjoys the country life, tending to the care and needs of her ducks (Muscovy ducks, mostly), chickens, goats, sheep, horses, dog, cats, bunny, and cockatiel on her hobby farm, nestled in the foothills beneath the magnificent slopes of Washington state's Mt. Rainier.

Arie McFarlen, PhD, as the co-owner of Maveric Heritage Ranch Co. in South Dakota, works toward the saving and promoting of endangered livestock breeds. She is the author of several articles about these breeds featured in Hobby Farms magazine, Rare Breeds Journal, and Small Farm Journal.

Chris McLaughlin is a master gardener with specialty certificates in wildlife, children's, and vegetable gardening. She is the author of six gardening books and one livestock book. Her work can be found in Fine Gardening Magazine, Hobby Farm Home Magazine, Urban Farm Magazine, The Heirloom Gardener Magazine, and Mother Earth Living. Online, she's a staff blogger for Finegardening.com and has written for a variety of sites including Vegetable Gardener.com, About.com, Fix.com, and From Scratch Magazine. Chris and her family live on a flower and fiber farm in the Northern California foothills where they grow flowers, food, and Angora goats.

Rate this ebook

Tell us what you think.

Reading information

Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.