Foraging for Free Chicken Feed Chickens love to forage for their own greens, insects, and worms but not everyone can allow their flock out to free-range. If you are short on pasture for your hens or the threat of predators is too great, you can gather food for them! Foraging…
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How to Choose the Best Heat Tolerant Chickens
Check out this handy guide to the 16 best heat tolerant chickens! Chicken breeds that tolerate hot weather! Plus tips to keep your flock cool!
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Getting Your Homestead Ready for Spring
Preparing for Spring on Your Homestead Depending on where you live, you might already be enjoying spring-like weather, or maybe you have several months of winter left to deal with. Here in northern Illinois, we have a couple months of cold weather left, but I’m still getting started on spring homesteading…
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Meet Pa Mac From The Farm Hand’s Companion Show!
The Farm Hand’s Companion Show & Pa Mac Every now then someone comes along and makes education fun and entertaining. That’s exactly what you get from Gary “Pa Mac” McWilliams and The Farm Hand’s Companion Show! Pa Mac created this series of short videos to show all manner of folks…
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Preparing for Spring on the Homestead
You might be interested in my article 20 Warning Signs You’re a Seed Junkie. Coming Soon ~Spring on The Homestead Spring seems so far away with all the snow and ice outside my window. It’s 16 F but the sun is shining and my flock is braving the cold to soak up…
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Giving Up On Goats?
No More Goats on My Homestead After one month of keeping goats, I decided to put them up for sale. A family came and purchased them yesterday and I’m sure that they will give the goats a good home. There were many reasons that I wanted goats and many reasons…
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The Green Homestead
Are You a Green Homesteader? By their very nature, most homesteaders believe in living a fairly ‘green,’ or earth friendly, lifestyle. We wish to become more self reliant for many reasons. The benefits include: reducing our expenses, providing healthier foods for our family, preventing cruelty to the animals we rely…
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Getting Ready for Spring!
Winter’s on the Way Out! Well, for some folks spring weather is already warming your faces and gardens. Spring bulbs are blooming and you’re out working in the garden. For northern Illinois, where I live, these are all daydreams and wishful thinking! But today is March 1st and we only…
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Confessions of a Former Rabbit Killer
Confessions of a Former Rabbit Killer Hi. My name is Lisa and I’m a former rabbit killer. For the record, I never enjoyed killing cute little bunnies, quite the opposite. I did it because I felt I needed to. It has been several years since I last killed rabbits. Why…
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What is Self Sufficiency?
“No man is an island, entire of itself.” John Donne What is Self Sufficiency? In the purest sense of the term, self sufficiency means the ability to survive on only that which you are able to gather, grow, make, or raise on your own. The thought of self sufficiency…
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Possum in the Hen House
Possums are Predators Every chicken enthusiast dreads the potential predator attack. Hawks and owls can pick off a chicken before you know it. Foxes, coyotes, neighborhood dogs, racoons, skunks, and even cats can be a threat to your poultry. I also knew that possums would steal eggs and eat young…
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Wanna Go Homesteady? Part 2
Making the Most of What You Have Moving Won’t Work for Everyone Last week, in part 1 of “Wanna Go Homesteady?”, I talked about how we moved from a suburban lot to our 1 acre property in the country. We are so happy that we moved here and I know…
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Wanna Go Homesteady? Part 1
Finding Our Homestead So many people are interested in the homesteading lifestyle, they’re everywhere! Urbanites, suburbanites, apartment and condo dwellers, 20-somethings, and old-timers too…from all walks of life there are folks who want to move out to the country and eat a lot of peaches. In other words, they all…