"A well-kept flock is the most productive single animal on the homestead. Eggs, meat, pest control, fertilizer, companionship, and teaching — all from the same bird."
Why Chickens First
Chickens are the gateway animal for most homesteads — and they remain the most productive per square foot, per dollar, and per hour of labour of almost anything you can raise. One small flock of six to twelve hens will keep a family in eggs through most of the year, turn kitchen scraps into nitrogen-rich fertilizer, scratch pests out of garden beds, clean up orchard drops, and train you in the daily rhythms of animal husbandry that translate directly to every other livestock decision you will make later.
This course is seven parts, written from a Salmon Arm, BC homestead. It covers every stage of the chicken life cycle: hatching chicks yourself or through a broody hen, choosing breeds that actually perform in the BC Interior, building housing that keeps them alive through winter, spotting and treating common ailments, cooking the birds that don't make it to retirement, and the advanced management topics (egg biology, rooster handling, moulting, culling decisions) that separate a flock that just exists from a flock that's genuinely productive.
Core Principle: Observe before you intervene. Chickens tell you what they need — through behaviour, comb colour, droppings, egg count, feather condition, and weight. Learn to read them, and most of the "problems" people run into never happen.
What You'll Learn
This free course is eight parts, each a self-contained guide you can read in order or jump into when you need it. Start with Part 1 if you're new to chickens — everything else builds from there.
Hatching & the Brooder
Incubator hatching vs buying day-olds vs started pullets, plus everything you need to know about the first six weeks in the brooder — the most critical phase in a chicken's life.
Read Part 1 → 2Broody Hens: The Natural Way
Reading the signs of a committed broody, selecting the right hens, setting a hen step by step, protecting chicks after hatch, breaking a broody when you need to, and keeping retired layers as permanent broodies.
Read Part 2 → 3Choosing Breeds for BC
A comparison of the most practical heritage and production breeds — Rhode Island Red, Orpington, Chantecler, Silkie, and more — with specific notes on what performs well through a Salmon Arm winter.
Read Part 3 → 4Housing & Management
Coop fundamentals — space, ventilation, roosts, nest boxes, predator-proofing, winter management — plus optimal management for egg layers and for meat birds. Ventilation is the #1 priority, every time.
Read Part 4 → 5Health & First-Aid Kit
The most common ailments by life stage, a field-tested first-aid kit, and the biosecurity basics that prevent 80% of flock health problems before they start.
Read Part 5 → 6Classic & Practical Recipes
Whole roasted chicken, coq au vin for old birds, the most important thing you'll ever make — bone stock with feet — braised thighs with root vegetables, chicken soup with homemade noodles, and rendered schmaltz.
Read Part 6 → 7Advanced Topics
Egg production cycle and biology, rooster management, moulting, the deep-litter self-composting coop, the flock as a permaculture tool, record keeping, and an honest discussion of when to cull — without the commercial calendar.
Read Part 7 → 8Egg Storage & Preservation
From the bloom and the float test to the modern freezer method, the 120-year-old farm practice of water glassing with pickling lime, mineral oil coating, dehydrating to powder, salt-cured yolks, and the real food-safety truth about old eggs.
Read Part 8 →Processing: See the Butchering Course
This course does not cover the physical act of slaughter, plucking, scalding, and evisceration. That content already lives — in more detail than we'd reproduce here — in our existing Butchering Course. When you're ready to process a bird, jump over there.
→ Butchering Course → Poultry covers ethical harvest, mental preparation, equipment, humane dispatch methods, scalding temperatures and technique, hand and mechanical plucking, pin feathers, evisceration, inspection, chilling, and yield calculations.
Written for the BC Interior
This course is written from a Salmon Arm, BC homestead. The breed recommendations, winter management advice, predator lists, and feed strategies are anchored in the BC Interior — winters that drop below -10°C regularly, summers that can push into heat-stress territory, and a wildlife community that includes raptors, corvids, weasels, mink, foxes, coyotes, raccoons, and occasional snakes large enough to take a day-old chick whole.
Most of the fundamentals apply anywhere. The specific breed picks (cold-hardy, small-comb) and the predator-proofing detail are where the regional focus shows most clearly. If you keep chickens somewhere warmer, use these as a baseline and adjust for your conditions.
Ready to Begin?
Part 1 covers your two starting paths — incubator hatching or buying day-olds — and the critical first six weeks in the brooder. Start there, or use the sidebar to jump to whatever you need today.
The Whole Flock
A flock is not a resource to extract from. It is a small ecosystem you invite into your daily life. The birds feed you, teach you, amuse you, grieve you, and outlive your first year of questions. Start small, observe more than you intervene, and let the flock show you how it wants to be kept.
A New Earth Fellowship