Create More Food Security and Integrate Your Flock into Your Homestead

Raising your own egg-laying chickens gives you the peace of mind that comes from creating your own food supply. 

You know your family will eat healthy and tasty eggs at breakfast, regardless of rising food costs. 

Not only that, in this class, you’ll discover how to integrate your flock into your homestead so they actually help with some of the real-world work — tilling cover crops or opening up new garden ground, for example! 

You’ll know how to care for chicks that have just hatched in a brooder, even if you’ve never raised chickens before. 

By the end of the class, you’ll learn how to responsibly care for and manage a robust flock of layer hens that provide a year-long supply of eggs AND are valued partners in your homestead! 

Let’s get started!

Your Skill Instructor: Harvey Ussery

Hi! I’m Harvey Ussery and I’ve been a proud homesteader since 1984. I live in northern Virginia with my wife Ellen on our modern homestead — Boxwood. 

Our family moved from a Washington DC suburb to three good acres in the northern Virginia countryside. I was deeply influenced by the work of Wendell Berry, poet and prophet, and his critique of modern agriculture and its damaging effects on our culture and on natural systems. 

During our first year as homesteaders, my daughter asked to start a flock of chickens. And that started a never-ending learning adventure. 

Soon I was known as “The Chicken Man” and folks started coming to see how we raise chickens and ask questions about keeping a flock of their own. 

Later I set up a website — The Modern Homestead and published articles in Backyard Poultry, Mother Earth News, and Grit! 
And in 2011, I published The Smart-Scale Poultry Flock.