Chickens Won’t Eat Everything …

Last weekend, my husband and I finally finished cleaning out the old shed for what we’re dubbing a “Barn Razing.” It’s been a year in the making, so the event of destroying the old structure deserved a quality name. Among things that needed to be thrown away: a nearly empty bag of old straw bedding […]

Gardening with Chickens

  Gardening with chickens can be a lot of fun. They’re often underfoot (and under shovel) doing some of the grunt work, like removing weedy sprouts and wriggling ground pests. The problem is that chickens don’t know when to stop helping. Growing food in small spaces is challenging enough on its own, but add a […]

5 Ways to Spruce Up an Aging Coop

  The charm of a small yard with a flock of hens is indisputable, but raising chickens in the city can present some aesthetic challenges. If your coop is stationary, you probably have a uniform plot of brown underneath the run. If you have a mobile coop, maybe you have some circles worn into the […]

Save Money On Chicken Feed This Spring

  My chickens love the explosion of insect life in the spring—and so do I, but it wasn’t always that way. In my life before chickens, my Kentucky backyard was unusable for several months of the year, simply because of blood-sucking insects. Because my chickens devour a majority of the bugs that bug me most, […]

A walking laced red Wyandotte chicken

4 Ways to Beat Mites Naturally

Mites can make your chickens uncomfortable and ill, and they can even lead to death. Learn four ways to treat your birds with natural products.

Give Your Flock Space to Bathe

  Chickens are good at finding places to dust bathe. They will snuggle up between the roots of old trees, lie down in the garden, and fluff their feathers in decomposing mulch. Dust bathing absorbs oil from their skin, and wood ash coats the skin to become a barrier protecting from mite infestations. As a […]

hard-boiled eggs

Easy-to-Peel Fresh Hard-Boiled Eggs

Tired of struggling to unpeel a hard-boiled egg at Easter? We’ve got a technique that will leave your shells easy to peel and your yolks a beautiful yellow.

4 Tips For Selling Backyard Eggs

Every year I look forward to my local newspaper’s holiday haiku contest. Its many ‘winners’ see their poems published in the Christmas edition of the Courier-Journal. In 2014, a sign nailed to a mailbox post stating “Fresh Eggs” inspired me to submit this: ”Fresh Eggs!” shingles read. Yoking to activism, Metro Cluckers flock. When we […]

6 Things Everyone Should Know About Chickens

When I started raising my first flock of chickens, I would sometimes start a conversation with something like, “So sorry I’m late! I had to chase a chicken.” It was always true, of course, but it was a great conversation starter about my favorite hobby. Now that I’m more seasoned, I’ve noticed a pattern when […]