A lot of good info there, even if some of it seems like it might be a little too "new agey" for me. I read that article on raising chickens, since I raised them when I was a kid and know a little about them. (Actually, I know enough about them that, if given a choice between raising chickens again and burning my eyes out with a hot poker, I'd have to think about it.)
Anyway, it looked pretty good. The author mentions that he tried to capture predators (in his case, raccoons) raiding his chickens in a cage trap. I doubt he had much success getting a raccoon or any other critter to walk into a cage trap anywhere in the vicinity of a chicken house or any other major food source. I'm sure the transplanted hippies won't like it, but you really need body-grip or leg-hold traps.
Still, it was a good article, and he's right about the cost of chicken feed. We usually had to buy feed for ours during the winter months, which was a major expense for us back in those days. And I really do think that adding bugs to a chicken's diet is both more natural, and healthier for the chickens.
I just saw that video on rendering lard. Maybe these folks aren't as the irritating hippies I thought they were.
Onward and upward,
airforce