Butchering a Cornish Cross Hen I wouldn’t normally recommend keeping a Cornish X meat bird past the normal butcher age of 6 to 8 weeks. If you can believe it, the hen on the left was a runt and wasn’t large enough to butcher at that age. I kept her…
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Egg Production Slowing Down?
Fewer Eggs in Autumn? As the days get shorter you are likely to notice lower egg production in your laying hens. It’s one of those facts of life to take into account when deciding to keep chickens for eggs. Although we have bred chickens for larger size, increased egg size…
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‘Should I Keep Chickens?’
Do You Want to Keep Chickens? With urban chicken websites popping up online, new products for chickens going on the shelves at feed stores, and cute little coops all the rage on Pinterest, it’s obvious that a lot of people are interested in keeping a few backyard chickens. See also…
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Butchering in Subzero Temperatures
Check out my posts ‘How to Cull Your Old Laying Hens’ and ‘Butchering An Injured Hen’ for more of my thoughts on butchering. Extreme Butchering Butchering animals in subzero temperatures is not an ideal situation. However, life doesn’t always work out the way we plan. Sometimes an animal is injured in the…
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How to Get Eggs All Winter from Laying Hens
How to Get Eggs from Your Laying Hens All Winter With proper conditions, your hens are capable of laying eggs in the winter. There are a few things to take into consideration if you would like fresh eggs year-round. Chickens, like most birds, normally would not lay eggs all…
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Butcher Day with My Dad and Mom
For instructions on processing your birds, check out my post How to Butcher a Chicken. A Helping Hand My husband, son, and I live 600 miles from my parents. We visit them in New York every summer and they visit us in Illinois at least once a year,…
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How to Start a Chicken Co-op
For more information on processing chickens, check out my post How to Butcher a Chicken. What is a Chicken Co-op? A co-op is a group that works together to achieve a common goal. A chicken co-op is a group that either pools their buying power to receive better prices for…
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How to Cull Your Old Laying Hens
For detailed instructions, check out my article How to Butcher a Chicken. When to Cull Laying Hens It can be difficult to decide when to cull your older laying hens. Some people like to keep their hens for a few years before culling them from the flock. Other people choose…
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Spring Chores on the Homestead
Taking Care of My Spring Chores The rain has barely given us a break the last couple of weeks, so I’m having trouble getting out in the garden to do my spring clean up duties. Our soil is heavy clay and will turn into a brick if I mess with…
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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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The Chicken Chronicles – Chronic Respiratory Disease
Chronic Respiratory Disease In December of 2010 I purchased 12 chickens from a lady on Craigslist. She was a teacher and hatched the eggs for her classroom. When the chicks were no longer cute, she brought them home and kept them in a drafty little coop behind her rented farmhouse.…
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How to Butcher a Chicken on the Cheap
How to Butcher a Chicken Do you want to know how to butcher a chicken? I butcher my home-raised chickens so that my family has access to clean meat that was raised and slaughtered humanely. I’ve been doing this for years because my family is opposed to the inhumane treatment…
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Culling Old Hens from the Flock
Culling the Flock and Butchering Old Hens Monday morning I butchered some of my old hens. The oldest hen in my flock was one of the unlucky ones. She was an Ameraucana from my very first flock of 10 purchased the summer we moved here (2010). She was about 3…