Tuesday, September 23, 2008

How to Raise Poultry

How to Raise Poultry has occupied my attention for the past year, absorbing me completely for the past month. The text is now written and the photos selected. Most of my work on it is done. It is on track to be available in April 2009.
The people at Voyageur Press have been wonderful to work with. The experience has been a wonderful journey.
The book is in the Future Farmers of America Livestock Series, along with How to Raise Chickens. The series also has similar books on rabbits, cattle, pigs, goats and horses. How to Raise Poultry includes chapters on ducks, geese, swans, turkeys, guineafowl, game birds and pigeons, ratites (ostriches, emus and rheas) and, of course, chickens.
When I first told a friend the list of birds to be included in this book, he said, "That's going to be a very big book!" It is the same size as the other books in the series, so it does not include as much detail as How to Raise Chickens does. My goal was to write a book that would help beginners decide on what kind of birds suit them and get started. For experienced breeders, it includes interesting historical and cultural information about their birds and advice that will help them as they seek other ideas for managing their birds. It has more than 200 beautiful color pictures.
Keeping and breeding poultry is constantly challenging. I'm grateful to be a part of such interesting work.

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