When you purchase chicks, you usually receive a cardboard box full of tiny fluffy chicks – without any mother hen to keep them warm. As a result, farmers have to find a way to mimic that heat. Especially during the night and in the winter season, heat is essential for young chicks. Heat lamps are…
It seems like hens would naturally protect their eggs and their young, and that eating their own eggs would be the last thing they’d want to do. While, depending on breed, many chickens are quite protective of their chicks and the eggs they’re trying to hatch, hens will sometimes eat their own eggs. Egg-eating is…
Your chickens have to eat – but sometimes mealtime in the coop can be a struggle. Even the best open feeder designs tend to waste a lot of feed as chickens seem to believe that food is for playing with as well as eating. And, if you’re anything like most small farm owners and homesteaders,…
If you own chickens, you’re going to see a lot of feathers, whether they’re in the coop, in the nest boxes, in the feed, or floating through the air. It’s normal for chickens to lose feathers, especially in the fall. That’s when they go through the molting process in which they lose old feathers so…
I’ve owned roosters who were more or less punctual about crowing on time. Like many other birds, roosters typically sing at sunrise with a familiar cock-a-doodle-doo sound. But sometimes you’ll get one that crows randomly at night. That should sound a little wrong, even to those who don’t own a rooster. Whether or not you’re…
If you live in an area that has a lot of mosquitoes, you’re well-acquainted with how annoying they are. Mosquitoes are, in my opinion, the worst insects of all time – and I also happen to believe that strong bug repellent and mosquito netting might be some of the best inventions ever made. Mosquitoes can…
Chicken fences come in a range of heights from 2-foot-tall rolls of plastic poultry mesh to rolls of welded wire 6 feet or more in height. How do you choose the right fence, at the right height, for your flock? Below you can learn the “easy answer” as well as the 7 factors you should…
Blue is the world’s favorite color, but besides the sky and the ocean, it isn’t a color you often see in nature. That’s probably why blue chicken poop is such as shock – the first time I saw blue chicken poop, I definitely did a double-take. Blue poop might look concerning, but it’s not always…
I’ve only ever met one person who liked the smell of poop – specifically horse poop. For the average homesteader, myself included, examining any sort of manure really isn’t the most enjoyable part of farming. But it’s quite an important one. Of course, poop naturally comes along with every type of farm animal, including chickens….
I love the way baby chicks smell, and I’ve always thought that adult chickens have a nice barnyard-y scent to them. But have you ever had the experience of walking past a chicken coop and nearly gagging on the horrible stink? I certainly have, and so have many other chicken owners. For a while, I…