Farmers who are considering starting or modifying poultry operations have a new resource available. Poultry Your Way is a free, 124-page book that profiles a variety of poultry systems suitable for the Upper Midwest. Producers and poultry experts from Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan contributed to the book, and each chapter profiles a different kind of poultry operation.

“”Part-time or full-time poultry enterprises can potentially add to a farm”s income,”” said Steve Stevenson, a researcher with the UW-Madison Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems who contributed to the book. “”We wrote this book so that people interested in poultry production—-at any scale —can make informed decisions about what kinds of management systems will work best for their families and farm operations.””

Poultry Your Way provides an overview of poultry production systems for meat and eggs, including breed selection, marketing and processing alternatives. It also describes the many management alternatives available to poultry producers: industrial, traditional and semi-confinement, day-range pasture, pasture using “daily move” pens, and organic.

Electronic copies are available on the CIAS web site.

The publication was produced using funds from the North Central Region SARE (Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education) Research and Outreach Program. It is published by the Minnesota Department of Agriculture with significant participation from the Minnesota Institute for Sustainable Agriculture at the University of Minnesota, the Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota, the Michigan Agricultural Stewardship Association, and the Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems.

Another title in the series, Hogs Your Way, is available from the University of Minnesota Extension Distribution Center by calling (800) 876-8636 or visiting www.extension.umn.edu (type “Hogs Your Way” into the search box). An additional title, Dairy Your Way, is available on this web site.

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