10 Creative Protein Sources for Chickens to Help You Save Money on Chicken Feed

Don’t be fooled, “creative” is just a code word for weird. We’re about to dive into some really odd stuff here. It might make your stomach crawl, but your chickens will love it! Plus, these ideas really can help you save money on chicken feed. We wanted our meat birds and egg-layers to be of the highest quality, raised in the best conditions, living healthy and …

The Single, Most Important Thing You Can Do to Prepare for Chicken Emergencies!

This isn’t a post about what to keep in your chicken first aid box or how to treat bumble foot, gape worm or mean roosters. But it is about one powerful tool, the one thing that has the most potential to help you in a chicken-crisis or poultry-emergency. It is something I was reminded of just last week when we lost one of our hens; one …

A Chicken Story: Transitioning from House to Coop

I posted last month, my confession that we had two chickens living in our house. I really enjoyed having them around, but with fall approaching (which means winter is soon to follow) I knew they had to transition to sleeping outside with the rest of the flock. They slept in a sturdy, but slowly deteriorating cardboard box in our foyer. During the daytime they would …

Homestead Confession: We Have Two Chickens Living In Our House

If you’ve followed my chicken journal you know that this past spring we got 20 Red Rangers to raise as meat birds. A handful of them developed leg problems when they were younger, and right about when we moved them from the house brooder into their outside coop, two of them developed a substantial limp. They could barely walk. Being hurt, they were low on the totem pole …

Use Vanilla to Protect Your Chickens from Gnats, Biting Flies, and Biting Midges

Biting flies, biting midges and gnats… I think those are all the same thing, or at least similar. Similar in that they are annoying little things that bite and can drive you crazy! Our chicken coop is at the back of our lush yard, just nestled under the towering cherry and oak trees. Its southern exposure picks up the first rays of the sun, and …