Vote Yes on 37!

...n 37. Proposition 37 will require genetically modified food products to be labelled. And that’s all–it’s not a ban on GMOs. If you like GMOs in your food you’ll still be able to get them in your hot Cheetos. All I’m asking is to be given a choice, through labeling, as to whether I wish to buy GMO products or not. I suspect it’s preaching to the choir to endorse 37 on Root Simple, but if you have relatives and friends in the Golden State that aren’...

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I’ve Flown the Coop

...I’m at a two day poultry seminar sponsored by the California Department of Food & Agriculture. The point of my attendance is to learn good husbandry practices and share them with you, our dear readers. I’ll break down the voluminous information into a series of future blog posts. The takeaways from yesterday’s session: Buy chickens that have been vaccinated for Marek’s disease. This is the most common problem with backyard chickens and it’s entire...

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Saturday Tweets: A Week of Strange Links

...tps://t.co/F68kuFjikj @NatGeoFood @hdbyrne pic.twitter.com/pZ9nPJ8xEc — UC Food Observer (@ucfoodobserver) March 30, 2016 Another cow caught stealing a bicycle…… pic.twitter.com/7gtONxicdn — classicretro (@classicretro) March 30, 2016 We love this idea: “A Car Free LA” by @Terenig https://t.co/jEorOnbUsU — Root Simple (@rootsimple) March 28, 2016 Turkeys attacking cops https://t.co/0ouEYPNdoi — Root Simple (@rootsimple) March 28, 2016 The Harvard...

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How to Rodent Proof a Chicken Coop

...be taken care of with simple sanitation. In my case that meant putting the food away at night and investing in rodent proof feed containers. Every night I put the entire feeder within the trash can you can see in the picture on the right (it has a much more secure lid than the larger can I used to keep the feed in). In the morning I put the food out again for our four hens. It means that I have to get up just a few minutes earlier than I usually d...

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076 Keeping Your Poultry Healthy with Dr. Maurice Pitesky

...is an Assistant Specialist in Cooperative Extension for Poultry Health and Food Safety Epidemiology at the University of California Davis where he researches disease surveillance, food safety management, and other topics related to poultry health. He also does education and outreach to backyard and commercial poultry owners. During the podcast he mentions the UC Davis poultry resource website, a backyard poultry census that you can take part in, a...

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