Barn/ Garage/ Chicken Coop Our ‘barn’ is actually a garage and chicken coop all rolled into one. We keep our lawn mowers, shovels, rakes, and implements of destruction, some hand tools, tarps, chicken feed, hay, and our poultry all in the same building. It’s not an ideal situation, but…
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Are Hatcheries Humane?
Raising Humanely Treated Poultry One of the main reasons I started raising my own poultry for meat and eggs is because I care about the humane treatment of animals. It may seem strange to hear that, as an animal lover, I raise and butcher my own birds. It isn’t an…
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How to Prepare for Fall Butchering
For Full Instructions on Dressing Your Bird, Visit My Post ‘How to Butcher a Chicken.’ Fall Butchering Season Will be Here Soon Fall is traditionally the time of year when extra livestock on a farm or homestead is butchered. The simple fact of the matter is this…farm animals are…
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Switching to Organic Chicken Feed
Feeding Your Chickens Organic Feed When I began raising chickens again three years ago, I was struck by how much even conventionally grown feed cost. Of course prices have gone up a considerable amount since then. With drought becoming more common, there is less feed and the price is higher.…
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How to Get More Eggs from Your Laying Hens
Get More Eggs from Your Hens! Keeping a backyard chicken flock productive is important to most chicken owners. Get the best ‘bang for your cluck’ by following my suggestions for how to get more eggs from your laying hens! Some folks don’t care how many eggs their hens are laying…
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The Chicken Chronicles: The World’s Dumbest Chicken
Entertaining, Yes. Smart, No I know a lot of folks love their chickens and think they’re smarter than we give them credit for. Sure, they’re entertaining creatures and I get kick out of watching them run raptor-style across the pasture, scratch contentedly in the compost, and chase butterflies in the…
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Ducklings
First Day Outside Some of the ducklings went out for the first time the other day. They were very nervous at first, but they soon settled down and seemed to enjoy the grass and pan of water. A Sick Duckling Yesterday I noticed that one of the ducklings had some…
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Treating a Rooster with an Eye Injury
Treating a Rooster With an Eye Injury My rooster sustained an eye injury that needed treatment. I used a simple homemade remedy to cleanse the eye and speed the healing process. You can make this remedy with inexpensive ingredients you have in your kitchen cupboard. Roosters Will Fight I…
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A Tale of Two Roosters
Replacing My Rooster Earlier this year my rooster, Del the Delaware, fell ill. It was obvious he would not survive much longer, so I put him down. Since then there has been no one to serenade us in the morning and I’ve really missed hearing the cock-a-doodle-doo of a rooster.…
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Raising Ducks for Meat
Ducks are a fine source of meat for the small farm or homestead. They are fairly disease resistant, easy to care for, and fun to raise. Large breeds of ducks are a more sustainable source of meat for the small homesteader than hybrid broiler chickens.
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The Skunk In My Tool Shed
An Uninvited Guest It was a wonderfully warm January day. The sun was out and the chickens were scratching happily in the muddy pasture. I had been hoping to burn off the weedy patch that I call a garden and get rid of my stash of boxes in the old…
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How to Raise the Best Chickens for Meat
How to raise meat chickens for your table. Should you raise heritage breeds or Cornish cross? Get started on your own source of meat from the homestead!
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What Are Easter Egger Chickens?
Easter Eggers, Ameraucanas, and Araucanas are chicken breeds that lay eggs with colorful shells. Gather Easter Eggs right from the nest when you raise them!
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The Chicken Chronicles: Livestock or Pets?
Chickens as Livestock? Or Chickens as Pets? Earlier this week I discussed my chickens as livestock. You can read about it in “Butchering an Injured Chicken.” Keeping chickens for pets is a relatively new pastime. With the switch from an agrarian culture to a predominantly urban and suburban culture, most…
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The Chicken Chronicles – Butchering an Injured Chicken
Butchering An Injured Hen One afternoon I went out to the chicken coop to lock up the hens, give them fresh water and feed, and collect the eggs. I noticed one of my older White Leghorns had blood on her feathers. I inspected her carefully for signs of vent picking.…
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The Chicken Chronicles – Marek’s Disease
Marek’s Disease We moved to this homestead in 2010 and I jumped headfirst into the chicken raising project. We had chickens when I was a kid and they free ranged around our yard and garden…no big deal, right? So how much trouble can chickens really be? I started out…