Fall is coming; are you ready? It is officially that time of year again when we must begin to prepare for the colder months. The colder the climate you live in, the more preparation that will be needed. Where do we even start? There are so many loose ends to tie up before the snow […]

Over the years, I’ve raised Silkies on and off. Every once in a while, one of the feed stores will get in a batch and I just can’t say no. I think they’re absolutely adorable! As we expand our chicken coop, I’d like to designate a wing just to the Silkie breed. Another breed I’d […]

When I first saw this chicken breed it was on Facebook and I thought…”Oh boy…someone’s getting creative with Photoshop.” In other words, I thought it was fake. The photo of an all-black chicken that claimed even the meat and bones were black seemed a bit far-fetched. But since that first online encounter, I’ve had the […]

Did you catch the foreshadowing in my last post? Rose had been renamed Suzy.  If you are at all familiar with the Community Chickens podcast then you know that, to us, Suzy may be a cursed name! I should have known better. I should have seen the signs. Two days before it really hit me that […]

Our King Farm chicken adventure started out with a hatching at the Mother Earth News office. Fast-forward six months and we have 18 chickens and two ducks! As new homesteaders, we often think about cost and quality. When approached by Purina Animal Nutrition to try their organic layer feed with their Oyster Strong® System through […]

Sarah started with an old tuff shed a few ducks, some rabbits she had adopted, and her helpful friend, Carlos. Last month, Carlos agreed to help insulate Sarah’s old garden shed. But Sarah decided that she wanted more than that! “I want to do something fun with the inside of the shed.” So, after a […]

Lately I’ve been reading a lot about companion planting. It’s a gardening technique in which different species of vegetables and flowers are planted together and they work as a group to benefit each other. In the Mother Earth News article Companion Planting With Vegetables and Flowers, the author Barbara Pleasant gives an example of the […]

Our adventure in turkeys began with a simple phone call. Ten days ago, I received a phone call from a dear friend in a bit of a pickle. She had left a few days earlier on a road trip from Ohio to Colorado. She called from Topeka, Kansas, in need of a favor. The friend […]

We all know some of the problems associated with roosters when protecting your flock of hens: Noise Aggression Mounting your hens When we think of our roosters, we rarely think of them as a guardian, but that is their primary role when it comes to a small holding or farm. If not for egg fertilization, […]

I’ve been incubating my own eggs for about 10 years now. My advice to anyone starting out is to get the most foolproof incubator you can afford. I tend to be a minimalist at heart when it comes to projects. If there’s a simple tool that can do double duty, or if a task takes […]