By Eric Guel Photos by author For the past week a flock of peafowl has been running wild in my neighborhood — and they’re LOUD. At times they sound like a pride of kittens* meowing their heads off, at other times they sound like a dozen little kids screaming bloody murder. Here’s a pic. Sorry […]

By Eric Guel Photos by author My family has been homesteading for three years. Like most Western homesteaders, we’re hobby farmers … We don’t do this to stay alive, though we feel most alive when we’re doing it. 🙂 Through each passing season we’ve learned about gardening and animal husbandry through reading, asking our neighbors, […]

By Eric Guel Photos by author After a bantam hen and random pullet went broody a few weeks ago, our little farm had another round of chicks hatch last week. The foster moms did famously, sitting on their respective clutches with religious devotion, despite the string of 100+ degree afternoons we’ve recently had (welcome to […]

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 Eric Guel Shortly after my wife Brandi and I got our first flock of chickens (circa July ’09) we obtained a few Muscovy ducks as well. We had heard that Muscovy hens are good mothers and they have no problem going broody—we were not disappointed. As soon as spring hit this year, our Muscovy […]

by Eric Guel A couple of years ago I would have never guessed that I’d be a chicken farmer. Alright, maybe dubbing myself a “farmer” is a bit of a stretch, but my wife, Brandi, and I got our first flock of 10 birds in July 2009, and we haven’t looked back! Our first flock […]