Grow Your Own Future: The Skills, Knowledge & Freedom of Farming

What if one of the most valuable investments you could make wasn't another financial account, but the knowledge to grow your own food, build practical systems with your own hands, and create a more resilient future for your family?

Foundations in Farming and Homesteading + Pastured Laying Hens is a practical nine-part series for anyone who wants to develop greater self-reliance, gain useful real-world skills, and begin turning the vision of a productive homestead or financially viable small farm into reality.

In a world where so much feels beyond our control, farming and homesteading offer something tangible: the ability to grow food, develop useful skills, build relationships, and create greater resilience for yourself, your family and your community.

This series goes beyond the idea of "living off the land." You'll learn practical systems designed to help you reduce vulnerabilities and build a can-do capacity to adapt, provide, and thrive – while exploring how farming can become a viable and profitable enterprise.

Build the Foundations of a Self-Reliant Life

Foundations in Farming and Homesteading by Joel Salatin, an award-winning farmer, gives you the knowledge and step-by-step guidance to begin building a productive farm or homestead while avoiding costly mistakes.

Then take the next step with Pastured Laying Hens, a comprehensive course built around one of farming's most practical cash-flow enterprises: egg production. Joel draws on more than 60 years of farming experience to walk you step by step through establishing and running a successful egg operation.

Whether you're starting with a backyard flock, dreaming of a homestead, or working toward a full-time farm enterprise, this series gives you practical knowledge to help turn that vision into action.

Build the skills. Create resilience. Grow something real.

Watch Free on BrightU

Foundations in Farming and Homesteading + Pastured Laying Hens will stream free on BrightU, beginning September 26 at 12 PM ET through October 4 at 12 PM ET, with a new chapter premiering each day. Each chapter will be available for 24 hours, allowing you to follow the course sequentially from beginning to end.

Replays will be on October 5 and 6, allowing you to revisit any chapters you missed or want to revisit. Then, on October 7, all chapters will be streamed for an extended viewing opportunity.

Streaming Schedule:

Foundations in Farming and Homesteading

• Sep 26: Building the Self-Reliant Homestead: From Dream to Design
• Sep 27: Designing the Homestead: Housing, Fencing, and Water
• Sep 28: Building Smarter: Planning, Avoiding Mistakes, and Making It Work
• Sep 29: The Mobile Homestead: Building Flexibility, Resilience, and Profitability

Pastured Laying Hens

• Sep 30: The Egg Opportunity: Building a Productive Pastured Laying Hen System
• Oct 01: Starting a Strong Laying Flock: Health, Breeds, and Productivity
• Oct 02: Mobile Egg Production: The Eggmobile, Feathernet, and Pasture Management
• Oct 03: Year-Round Egg Production: Winter Housing, Egg Quality, and Flock Protection
• Oct 04: How to Build a Profitable Pastured Egg Enterprise

Replay Schedule:

• Oct 05: Replay of Foundations in Farming and Homesteading
• Oct 06: Replay of Pastured Laying Hens
• Oct 07: Replay of both courses

Here's What You'll Learn by the End of the Course

• Learn how to design your homestead around the land, using water, sunlight, terrain, access, and natural patterns to reduce labor and improve productivity.

• Discover how to build smarter, more resilient systems, from housing, fencing, and water to mobile infrastructure that saves time, reduces costs, and adapts as your homestead grows.

• Explore how to make your homestead more productive and profitable by stacking enterprises, tracking profitability, using resources efficiently, and turning livestock into productive partners.

• Learn how to build a productive pastured laying-hen system, from choosing the right flock and housing to managing nutrition, ranging, sanitation, predators, and seasonal production.

• Discover how mobile and regenerative poultry systems can work year-round, using Eggmobiles, Feathernet, hoop houses, deep bedding, and natural chicken behaviors to improve egg quality, pasture health, and farm resilience.

9 Chapters to a More Resilient, Self-Reliant Homestead

Sep 26: Building the Self-Reliant Homestead: From Dream to Design

What if your greatest investment isn't something you can put in a bank – but something you can learn, build, grow, and share with others?

• Explore how practical skills, knowledge, and relationships can help reduce dependence and build greater resilience in food, energy, housing, health, and finances.

• Learn why relationships and shared expertise can be among your greatest assets – and how surrounding yourself with people who can grow, repair, and build creates a stronger community.

• Discover how living within your means, protecting your nest egg, and making strategic investments can create the financial breathing room needed to build a successful homestead.

• Understand the key factors behind finding the right place to live and farm, including relationships, markets, climate, regulations, taxes, available resources, and future opportunities.

• Learn to observe your landscape, understand water and natural patterns, plan access, and work with the characteristics of your property to create a more productive and resilient homestead.

Sep 27: Designing the Homestead: Housing, Fencing, and Water

Create a more efficient, productive, and resilient homestead by designing your home, land, water, and livestock systems to work together.

• Learn how central placement, proximity to gardens and daily-use areas, hillside construction, and southern exposure can reduce unnecessary work while making your home part of the farm's overall productivity.

• Discover how thoughtful access lanes, fencing, livestock areas, and field layouts can make moving animals and equipment easier while working with the natural terrain.

• Learn why fences and paddocks should follow the land's natural contours and how observing terrain, sun exposure, and moisture patterns can help create more productive and manageable fields.

• Explore practical ways to capture rainfall and surface runoff through ponds and cisterns, store water for dry periods, and use gravity to create efficient water distribution without constantly relying on pumps or hauling.

• Discover simple, practical approaches for tapping springs, transporting water through piping, and developing systems that increase your property's water resilience while reducing energy and labor.

Sep 28: Building Smarter: Planning, Avoiding Mistakes, and Making It Work

Build a thriving homestead by focusing on what matters most, taking practical steps, and doing the right things in the right order.

• Learn to start before you feel ready by taking action, embracing imperfect beginnings, and building your skills through experience.

• Discover how to avoid costly mistakes by minimizing unnecessary spending and making practical, strategic investments.

• Explore ways to protect your time and energy by reducing unnecessary trips, movement, and inefficient daily chores.

• Learn how to build stronger relationships by creating clear roles, respecting different personalities, and giving each person meaningful responsibility.

• Discover how to embrace the journey by accepting setbacks, appreciating incremental progress, working with others, and focusing on what truly works for your homestead.

Sep 29: The Mobile Homestead: Building Flexibility, Resilience, and Profitability

Use mobility to create more freedom, resilience, and opportunity on your homestead while growing your farm without unnecessary costs.

• Learn how mobile infrastructure creates flexibility by separating the farm from the land, lowering barriers to entry, and allowing you to scale gradually without tying up your capital.

• Discover how mobility can improve animal health and fertility by using movement, rest, and sunshine to support sanitation while distributing nutrients across the landscape.

• Explore the power of stacking multiple enterprises by rotating different species and activities through the same space to increase productivity, support cash flow, and make better use of your land.

• Learn how mobile systems build resilience by making infrastructure easier and cheaper to repair, adapt, relocate, and recover from unexpected challenges.

• Discover how tracking profitability can strengthen your homestead by separating income and expenses for each enterprise so you can identify what works, improve margins, and make smarter decisions about what to grow or reduce.

Sep 30: The Egg Opportunity: Building a Productive Pastured Laying Hen System

What if laying hens could become more than an egg-producing enterprise – providing reliable cash flow, food security, sanitation, and valuable work across the farm while turning the chicken's natural instincts into an advantage?

• Discover why eggs can be a powerful gateway product that creates steady cash flow and introduces customers to your broader farm offerings.

• Learn how laying hens can turn waste into value by using food scraps, sanitizing pastures, reducing insects, and cleaning up behind livestock.

• Explore the key challenges of raising laying hens, including predators, flock control, sanitation, housing, seasonal demand, and feed waste.

• Learn how "thinking like a chicken" improves farm design by working with their natural instincts, social behavior, and nesting preferences.

• Discover how to choose the right ranging system based on land, flock size, pasture layout, predators, labor, and sanitation needs.

Oct 01: Starting a Strong Laying Flock: Health, Breeds, and Productivity

Build a productive, resilient laying flock by creating the right winter environment and using your hens to generate value beyond egg production.

• Learn how to choose between starting with chicks or ready-to-lay pullets based on cost, timing, and convenience.

• Discover how strategic flock timing can support more consistent winter egg production naturally.

• Explore how managing daylight, maturity, and comfort can improve winter laying performance.

• Learn how proper housing, nesting areas, nutrition, water, and winter protection support flock health.

• Discover why hardy, dual-purpose breeds can be well suited to pasture-based egg production.

• Explore how hens can add value beyond eggs by helping manage pests, flies, nutrients, and fields.

Oct 02: Mobile Egg Production: The Eggmobile, Feathernet, and Pasture Management

Learn how mobile poultry systems evolved and uncover the practical lessons behind designing, moving, and managing Eggmobiles and the Millennium Feathernet for profitable pasture-based egg production.

• Learn how the Eggmobile evolved from a small experimental shelter into a mobile pasture-sanitation system that works with grazing livestock.

• Discover the key Eggmobile design principles including weight distribution, ventilation, slatted floors, chicken ladders, entrances, and trailer construction.

• Explore the logistics of profitable mobile egg production including feed, water, automated doors, modular units, and proper timing for moving birds.

• Uncover how frequent flock movement improves pasture hygiene by reducing concentrated manure areas and interrupting pest and sanitation problems.

• Discover how the Millennium Feathernet improves mobility and production with easier movement, lower predation risk, and better commercial-scale efficiency.

Oct 03: Year-Round Egg Production: Winter Housing, Egg Quality, and Flock Protection

Winter doesn't have to mean simply protecting chickens from the cold – it can become an opportunity to create a warm, productive, regenerative system where the birds, bedding, sunlight, and even the greenhouse itself work together.

• Learn how sunlight, composting bedding, and proper space help keep chickens warm and comfortable.

• Explore how wood chips, scratch grains, and natural chicken activity work together to keep bedding aerated and composting.

• Discover how high-quality hay gives chickens something to forage while helping to reduce bullying and support egg production.

• See how chickens can prepare the space for vegetable production by incorporating plant material and controlling insects.

• Learn how an affordable, semi-portable hoop house can support winter poultry housing and seasonal crop production.

Oct 04: How to Build a Profitable Pastured Egg Enterprise

Joel Salatin explains how to create a stronger, more profitable pastured egg operation by making the most of every bird and every egg. Discover how to market older laying hens as flavorful stewing hens, develop value-added products such as quiche and egg noodles, breed a healthier flock, calculate profitable prices, and build an egg enterprise that supports multiple streams of farm income.

• Turn older laying hens into valuable gourmet stewing hens instead of treating them as waste.

• Create additional income from eggs by producing value-added foods such as frozen quiche, egg noodles, and pound cake.

• Build a healthier, more productive flock by selecting breeding stock for longevity, resilience, and strong pasture performance.

• Calculate the true cost of producing eggs—including feed, labor, packaging, overhead, and unexpected expenses—to set profitable prices.

• Grow a resilient farm business by combining the egg enterprise with other complementary income streams and scalable poultry systems.

Build the Homestead You've Been Envisioning

Turn what you've learned into practical action. Design smarter systems, make better use of your land and resources, and build a homestead that is more productive, resilient, and self-reliant – one step at a time.