Why I’m Totally Into Chicks

The hens in our charter flock turned me from chicken agnostic to borderline obsessed. The Girls, as we call them, have officially achieved family status.

6 Ways to Banish Rodents from the Coop

Have you ever found little mouse droppings peppered throughout your coop bedding—black oval pellets about the size of a grain of rice? Evidence of rodents in your chicken coop can be unnerving, but it’s important to recognize that winter is a hungry time for wild animals. The reward of a warm bed and a full […]

5 Cheap Coop-Maintenance Materials

Keeping chickens doesn’t have to be costly. From building the coop to keeping it clean, these inexpensive materials will help make your hens feel like queens.

How to Handle Egg Overload

Modern chickens have been bred to ovulate like gangbusters. On average, an egg is produced every 26 hours when a hen is in her prime. When day-old chicks arrive, not much bigger than eggs, it’s hard to imagine that they’ll ever produce more food than you can eat, but they do! The amount my hens […]

6 Reasons to Keep Urban Chickens

City peeps raise chickens for many reasons that can vary from one backyard coop to the next. If you’re thinking about taking on a flock of your own, give serious consideration to the benefits it will bring you and your homestead. Here are the reasons I think chicken keeping is so great.  1. A Taste […]

Two Flocks, One Coop

When the overnight temperatures began plunging into the 40s this past week, I decided to eliminate the temporary housing the pullets have been living in. Just after dusk, when everyone was having trouble seeing, I scooped up the young girls and popped them into the coop with hens. Forcing territory into a community space was […]

6 Ways to Safely Free-Range your Flock

I believe chickens deserve the freedom to satisfy as many of their natural behaviors as possible. We all take risks in life to enjoy our own human lives, so why should the chickens be any different? Free-ranging, at least part time, is the only way to allow chickens the freedom to enjoy their lives to […]

When Pecking Orders Collide

The chicks are almost 6 weeks old. They don’t know much more than how to eat, drink, forage and fly, and they approach mere acquaintances with too much familiarity. They lack social graces and respect for their elders, which the older hens won’t hesitate to teach. The chicks are still not allowed to free-range like […]

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