The following is a list of books we have found to be very helpful in our efforts. We tend to jump in with both feet, and it can be very useful to have a good reference handy.

Title	Description
Pastured Poultry Profits
	This was the first book we read, and we started dreaming. It's been a while since we read it, but it was very helpful to us that first year we had baby poultry. Especially when the feet started to curl. We quickly looked up the scenario in the book, and kelp was the answer! (Actually, the answer was vitamin B, but kelp is a preventative due to the vitamins it provides.) Now we always provide free-choice kelp for our poultry, and we have never had another problem with feet in our chickens. While we have our own design of a chicken tractor, this book first introduced us to the idea, and we have been raising poultry using variations of the tractor since. This book was also a big help when butchering time arrived. We had never butchered chickens before, and this book provided us with the information we needed. The only information we needed from another source was the age of the birds. Joel raises the cornish-cross, which are the popular meat birds used in the market. We had a variety of breeds, and discovered they mature much later and are not ready for butchering until they are older (about six months).
Salad Bar Beef
	Yes, another Salatin book. We like how he works the farm in a synergistic way. We like the idea of rotating pastures, etc. We are just starting to raise a couple head of beef this year. We have successfully raised a couple of pigs. We found this book a good read for beef, swine and all-around farm usage.
Chickens in Your Backyard: A Beginner's Guide
	This book has been a big help as we venture into egg-hatching. While Salatin is a good read for growing from chick to chicken on pasture, he doesn't bother with the hatching of eggs. With our conservancy efforts, we want to help promote the breeds, and want good-quality birds. We are also following conservation breeding ideas. But we needed a good reference for how to care for the eggs and have successful hatch rates. This book is easy to read and follow, and it's great because they tell of their trials and tribulations of going through the process themselves. We were very successful our first year of hatchlings following the ideas in this book. Especially the humidity control in the incubator. We have now had two successful years of hatching our own eggs: chicken, turkey and geese.
Chicken Tractor: The Permaculture Guide to Happy Hens and Healthy Soil
	Haven't read all of this one yet, but like the variety of ideas it gives for chicken tractors, alternative housing, and egg mobiles.

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