While you want to keep chickens, you might not want the rodents that sometimes are attracted to their feed. Read about Carrie Miller’s methods for dealing with rodent problems. Chickens have a dirty little secret that keepers would rather not talk about. Do you know what it is? They are notoriously messy eaters. Chickens tend […]

Community Chickens Editor, Carla Tilghman and author Carrie Miller team up with share information with you about rodent borne diseases and some basic techniques for safely cleaning up their messes. Companion piece to Carrie Miller’s Rodents and Your Coop. Why not just coexist? Because rodents can carry many diseases harmful to both birds and humans. […]

Need (or want) to add some new hens to your flock?  Elle Pugsley gives us some hints. When merging different flocks of chickens or introducing new flock members to an existing flock the transition needs to be done with care. Clean. Start with a deep clean of the run and coop before mixing the birds […]

New blogger Katherine Kretchmar comes to us from Minnesota. Happy spring! In my part of Minnesota that doesn’t mean green things yet, but it does mean that the snow is mostly gone (for now, though April can always bring more) and my chickens are venturing out of the coop. Variety of Chickens We have a […]

Want to know more about chicken breeds?  Enjoy this excerpt from The Backyard Field Guide to Chickens by Christine Heinrichs. Stay tuned for her June article Guineas Create a Sensation here at Community Chickens. The Mediterranean Breeds Mediterranean breeds are associated especially with Italy and Spain, warm climates with long histories of chicken breeding. They’re […]

Oh, Spring! The snow in melting, and the sun is shining- or maybe it’s raining and gloomy… or you just got dumped with another foot of snow. Well, the weather might not be cooperating yet, but there is one thing that unites the spring experience for all chicken lovers, and that’s the sound of peeping […]

Chickens Reimagined Chickens are egg-producing, garden-aerating, composting, fertilizing, little machines, i.e. the natural workhorses within a holistic system. Yet their multiple benefits for the homesteader are often overlooked. When designers plan an all-inclusive or permaculture property, they often “stack functions” by looking at… well… how to kill two birds with one stone.  Or how to […]

A blog post from new blogger Sandra Cryder Why am I obsessed with poultry? I’ve been thinking about this lately as I watch my flock gamble across the yard. My grandparents were farmers, but they raised hogs. My parents and I lived in town and our pets were dogs. The only time I encountered a […]

When you have given time, effort, sweat, and love to your urban homestead, how do you leave it? Rachel Cunning shares her story of building up her homestead, having to leave what she created, and planning for the next home. I am standing in the driveway of our suburban homestead. The wind blows lightly through 20 […]

Elle Pugsley is a new blogger for Community Chickens, and comes to us from southern England. Getting Started with Chickens My love of chickens started last year when I met my neighbour’s flock. Growing my own food was going so well, chickens seemed like the next obvious step.  I started with four bantams in an […]