by Rebecca Nickols Photos by author Some chickens are just meaner than others … I was hoping that my Buff Orpingtons would welcome my new chicks without too much of a fuss. Actually, one of my two older hens, Henrietta, is the perfect example of a courteous, well-behaved chicken. The other one, however, is just […]

by Meredith Chilson Photos by author I’ve been in the chicken business for three years now. This is not my first experience with raising chickens, though. When I was young, my mother had a flock of 500 White Leghorns, and when my children were young, we had an assortment of fowl. My mother’s chickens went […]

by Jennifer Burcke Photos by author Our hens have lived at 1840 Farm since last September. They made their long transition from day-old chicks to egg-laying hens over the course of their first five months living here. They endured an extremely harsh winter in New England and emerged relatively unscathed. Within minutes of emerging from […]

by Karla T. Q.  We have 4 Rhode Island Reds in their 3rd laying year. Last year and this the shells are getting progressively thinner, such that sometimes they break in the nest. We have 2 Buff hens in their second year with no problems. We feed Layena crumbles, scratch feed, calcium (oyster shell) supplement with […]

by Jennifer Sartell Photos by author A little over a month ago, one of our Lavender Orpington hens decided she wanted to become a mother. She plucked herself a nice broody patch and set up camp in our barn. A quaint little corner between the rabbit cages and where we store the bales of hay […]

by Kimberly Furry Photos by author I had to chuckle when Nora and I were watching the Cat in the Hat on PBS one morning. The Cat and the children were talking about bird nests and wanted to build one on their own. The fish smugly commented, “You don’t know how to build a nest!” […]

by Jennifer Burcke Photos by author Chickens are a lot more like toddlers than I could have ever imagined. They like shiny objects and can be distracted by a meager peace offering of dry cereal. They like to play and sometimes even fight with each other. If left alone too long without something to keep […]

By Eric Guel Photos by author What’s a bantam, you ask? It’s a miniature chicken, of course! Bantams are small. They’re usually about half the size (or less) of their full-size brethren and, consequently, they do everything on a tiny scale: tiny eggs, tiny eating habits, and in the case of the roosters, tiny attitudes. […]

by Rebecca Nickols Photos by author On my last update, I shared with you that I had lost one of my four beloved Buff Orpingtons. Since then, tragedy has once again visited my coop and “Lil Comb,” my smallest Buff, also died. She developed loose droppings on a Sunday afternoon, but during the day she […]

by Meredith Chilson Photos by author It has seemed like spring would never arrive. The winter dragged on with snow and ice and zero temperatures. March came in like a lion with blowing snow and went right on out with blowing rain; in fact, April weather was a lot like that in March. Those welcome […]