Self Reliance On A Small Homestead
Best Winter Treats to Boost Egg Production in Laying Hens We all love to give our chickens treats to keep them happy and train them to come running when we call. They enjoy a wide variety of goodies and supplemental feed but it’s important to choose the best ones. In…
How to Treat Hens that Lay Eggs with Thin Eggshells It’s so frustrating to reach into a nestbox and find a gooey egg broken open because your hens are laying eggs with thin eggshells. There are many reasons that fresh eggs may have thin or soft shells. You may need…
How to Save Money on Eggs With prices on the rise, you might be wondering how to save money on eggs. You might even be wondering if it’s worthwhile to get laying hens for your own farm-fresh eggs. For some people, a few chickens might be a great way to…
Grow Your Own Chicken Treats Who knew those little fluff balls could cost an arm and a leg to feed when they grew up?! With so many new chicken keepers bringing home their first flock there are bound to be questions about how to save money by raising some feed…
Pick the best chicken breeds for your homestead!
What’s The Best Way To Prepare Stewing Hens? Old stewing hens are pretty tough birds. I have found that the following methods are the best ways to prepare them: pressure cooking pressure canning in broth boning and grinding the meat (raw or cooked) These methods work very well for making old chickens…
Do You Have Too Many Chickens? Almost anyone who keeps chickens will tell you that they can be addicting. You start off with a half dozen hens for fresh eggs and before you know it, you’ve got 50+ chickens, ducks, turkeys, and guinea fowl roaming your backyard. Do you have…
Are My Hens Laying Eggs? One of the most common questions from chicken newbies is ‘How can I tell if my hens are laying eggs?’ You might have noticed that there are fewer eggs in the nest boxes and, naturally, you’d like to know who is slacking off! Before you…
How to Feed Your Laying Hens for Best Egg Production Your backyard hens need the proper nutrition to fuel egg production! I’ve experimented with different feeding regimens and supplements. In the process, I’ve learned a lot about feeding my flock to get the most eggs. Back in Great Grandma’s day,…
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…
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…
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.…
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…
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.…
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…
How to Find Free Chickens Are you interested in getting some free chickens? In addition to hatching out your own chicks from fertile eggs, you might be able to find unwanted chickens in your area. ‘Used’, or ‘pre-owned’ chickens, might not be as hard to find as you might think.…
