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The most comprehensive guide to date on raising all-natural poultry for the small-scale farmer, homesteader and professional grower, The Small-Scale Poultry Flock offers a practical and integrative model for working with chickens and other domestic fowl, based entirely on natural systems.

Readers will find information on growing (and sourcing) feed on a small scale, brooding (and breeding) at home, and using poultry as insect and weed managers in the garden and orchard. Harvey Ussery's model presents an entirely sustainable system that can be adapted and utilized in a variety of scales, and will prove invaluable for beginner homesteaders, growers looking to incorporate poultry into their farm, or poultry farmers seeking to close their loop. Ussery offers extensive information on:

• The definition of an integrated poultry flock (imitation of natural systems, integrating patterns, and closing the circle)
• Everything you need to know about your basic chicken (including distinctive points about anatomy and behavior that are critical to management)
• Extended information on poultry health and holistic health care, with a focus on prevention
• Planning your flock (flock size, choosing breeds, fowl useful for egg vs. meat production, sourcing stock)
• How to breed and brood the flock (including breeding for genetic conservation), including the most complete guide to working with broody hens available anywhere
• Making and mixing your own feed (with tips on equipment, storage, basic ingredients, technique, grinding and mixing)
• Providing more of the flock’s feed from sources grown or self-foraged on the homestead or farm, including production of live protein feeds using earthworms and soldier grubs
• Using poultry to increase soil fertility, control crop-damaging insects, and make compost — including systems for pasturing and for tillage of cover crops and weeds
• Recipes for great egg and poultry dishes (including Ussery's famous chicken stock!)
• And one of the best step-by-step poultry butchering guides available, complete with extensive illustrative photos

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Disasters often strike without warning and leave a trail of destruction in their wake. Yet armed with the right tools and information, survivors can fend for themselves and get through even the toughest circumstances. Matthew Stein's When Disaster Strikes provides a thorough, practical guide for how to prepare for and react in many of life's most unpredictable scenarios.

In this disaster-preparedness manual, he outlines the materials you'll need—from food and water, to shelter and energy, to first-aid and survival skills—to help you safely live through the worst. When Disaster Strikes covers how to find and store food, water, and clothing, as well as the basics of installing back-up power and lights. You’ll learn how to gather and sterilize water, build a fire, treat injuries in an emergency, and use alternative medical sources when conventional ones are unavailable.

Stein instructs you on the smartest responses to natural disasters—such as fires, earthquakes, hurricanes and floods—how to keep warm during winter storms, even how to protect yourself from attack or other dangerous situations. With this comprehensive guide in hand, you can be sure to respond quickly, correctly, and confidently when a crisis threatens.

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Malcolm Wells' fourth book about underground architecture will show you that building a house underground is not only possible but also a very good idea for those who want a friendly-with-the-earth life.

This book covers everything you need to know about underground building, from concept basics to house plans you can use for your own underground home.

An architect by trade, Wells lived in The Underground Art Gallery, in Brewster, Mass., and wrote several books about this subject, which he began promoting in 1964. A pioneer of underground building and natural design, he penned such best-selling books as Gentle Architecture and The Earth-Sheltered House. How to Build an Underground House is scanned from his own handwritten and illustrated pages and is self-published.

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Order your copy, signed by authors Oscar H. Will III and Karen K. Will, today! Fueled by a failing economy and a passionate desire for a return to simpler times, a new wave of homesteaders is seeking the good life, and the kind of true satisfaction that can only be built, not bought. Many of these modern pioneers are cash poor, but rich in energy and creativity. Plowing with Pigs and Other Creative, Low-Budget Homesteading Solutions offers them a set of fresh ideas for achieving independence through sweat equity and the use of unconventional resources.

This highly readable and entertaining guide brings together answers to common problems faced by homesteaders young and old, urban, suburban, and rural. Traditional knowledge is combined with MacGyver-style ingenuity to create projects that maximize available resources, including:

• Animal management strategies for the yard, garden, and field
• Pole building and construction techniques from woodlot materials
• Replacing farm machinery with homemade hand tools and implements
• Leveraging increased self-sufficiency into a home-based business

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The essential resource for modern homesteading, raising chickens, and growing and preserving foods, The Encyclopedia of Country Living covers how to cultivate a garden, buy land, bake bread, raise farm animals, make sausage, can peaches, milk a goat, grow herbs, churn butter, build a chicken coop, catch a pig, cook on a wood stove, and much, much more. This comprehensive resource is the most authoritative guide available to leading a sustainable lifestyle and living off of the land.

Carla Emery started writing The Encyclopedia of Country Living in 1969, during the back-to-the-land movement. She continued to add content and refine the information over the years, and the book went from a self-published mimeographed document to a book of 928 pages.

This 40th Anniversary Edition reflects the most up-to-date resource information and is the most personal version of the book that became Carla Emery's lifework. It remains the original manual of basic country skills that have proved essential and necessary for people living in the country, the city, and everywhere in between.