Waterfowl: Ducks, Geese and Swans

Waterfowl are different from their land-based relatives, the chickens and other gallinaceous birds such as quail and pheasants. Their plumage is oiled to resist water and their meat is all dark. They carry a layer of fat under their skin, an adaptation that helps them stay warm in cold water. All those...

Icons of the Farm: Rhode Island Red and White Chickens

The Rhode Island Red chicken is the iconic Red Rooster and Little Red Hen of folk tales. In the American Poultry Advocate of May 1912, poultry judge and breeder W. H. Card described the breed as so impressive “that the State of Rhode Island is obscured and almost hidden behind the glow, glint and glamour...

Exploring the Link Between Antibiotic Use on Farms and Antibiotic Resistance Disease in Humans

Most Purely Poultry customers are small flock owners, raising poultry in the back yard, or on a small family farm. The reasons that people decide to raise poultry are varied, but for the majority the decision is in some way related to food. It could be that you want to be closer to the source of your food,...

How Many Wings Does a Chicken Have, Anyway?

As surprising as it may seem, wings are currently the most valuable part of a chicken to the commercial poultry industry. Large scale chicken producers are able to sell wings for even more per pound than boneless, skinless breasts. Apparently, demand for chicken wings is perpetually higher than supply....

Consequences of Industrial agriculture on poultry

There are many negative consequences of our industrial agriculture system. The poultry industry relies on monocultures of monotypic birds which push the other breeds into a downward spiral of lower numbers, lower meat and egg production, inbreeding, and finally extinction. Even those that are produced are...