Animals Archives - Backwoods Home Magazine

How to butcher a chicken in 20 minutes or less

...while leaving the carcass and feathers intact! By Dr. Roger W. Grim, D.C. Issue #79 • January/February, 2003 Figure 1. With a trash bag properly fitted around the chicken, clean up will be easy. When I was 12...

Switch your family to goat’s milk

By Tanya Kelley Issue #128 • March/April, 2011 If you milk goats, there's no doubt you've heard it"Eww! Goat's milk! Gross!" To be perfectly honest, goat milk does taste different than cow milk. So? Different doesn't...

Finding the best dog for the country life

By Anita Evangelista Issue #63 • May/June, 2000 When you're looking for a dog to fit into your country life, there are few other topics as liable to get you into a fistfight. People get very...

Raising your own beef for your family

By Charles Sanders Issue #57 • May/June, 1999 For most homesteaders, the raising of livestock plays a crucial role in the home based economy. The types of livestock which you choose to include on your own...

Good-bye old friend

By Lucy Shober Issue #27 • May/June, 1994 Big Poney died today. He was 34 years old and had been going down pretty rapidly over this hot, dry summer. His bones seemed to poke out at...

Redworm farming

By Charles Sanders Issue #112 • July/August, 2008 If you are looking for a way to earn extra income, a retirement job, or even a new livelihood, then raising earthworms might just be the thing. This...

Keeping homestead animals healthy

By Jackie Clay-Atkinson Issue #169 • January/February, 2018 As a veterinary field technician for more than 20 years, I saw firsthand the frustration and heartbreak when animal owners called the veterinarian (or started treatment) too late...

Raising rabbits for profit

By Carrie Peterson Issue #106 • July/August, 2007 Whether or not you are fond of rabbit stew, raising rabbits for meat can be a great experience and can even help swell your pocketbook a little. The...

Broody biddies make sense on the homestead

By James Kash Issue #139 • January/February, 2013 Broodiness is an avian behavior that is frowned upon in the world of agriculture. All industrial agriculturalists cull broody birds because the behavior inhibits production. But to frugal...

Slaughtering and Butchering

By Dynah Geissal Issue #23 • September/October, 1993 Fall is butchering time, a period of joy in the harvest of the year's work and of sadness that the lives of your beautiful, healthy animals have come...

Broody biddies make sense on the homestead

By James Kash Issue #139 • January/February, 2013 Broodiness is an avian behavior that is frowned upon in the world of agriculture. All industrial agriculturalists cull broody birds because the behavior inhibits production. But to frugal...

Where our farm animals come from

Issue #105 • May/June, 2007 We don't know how far back the domestication of animals goes. But we do know it is a process, rather than a single...

Animal disease traceability

By Patrice Lewis Issue #137 • September/October, 2012 In 2009, small farmers and ranchers breathed a sigh of relief. So did people worried about another curtailment of individual liberty and those whose religious principles oppose microchipping. They...