By Krislee Johnson In this past year of caring for chickens, ducks and turkeys my days have been filled with many first-time experiences.  Over the past 5-7 years I’ve dreamed of raising chickens and have romanticized about gathering eggs each morning. After a full year of living ‘the dream’ let me share with you a […]

by Meredith Chilson It’s a sunny spring day.  The coop doors are open to the outside, and the hens are digging and scratching in the wet leaves.  It’s too early, yet, to do a thorough coop cleaning—there will still be a few days of sloppy snowflakes and nights when the temperatures fall below freezing.  It’s […]

by Jennifer Sartell Photos by author We gather a lot of eggs around here. We have 42 hens, and on a good day, it’s not out of the question to collect 42 eggs, but for the most part, our daily average is around 26. This number changes depending on many factors, including the number of […]

by Kimberly Furry Photos by author It was another exciting day for us! Our chicken, Sunshine, has just started laying eggs! With the unusually warm weather, she started laying this week. We weren’t expecting her to lay until spring, since we opted against supplemental lighting to get her to lay during winter. I was able […]

by Suzanne Roark Photos by author When we first began raising chickens it was strictly eggs we were interested in. Somehow after a few years of raising the egg-laying kind, we started to think about raising the meat kind. I searched the internet for answers on how to raise them. I knew vaguely that the […]

by Jennifer Durbin Last summer my boyfriend built my beautiful, beautiful coop using only the plans I had drawn on a piece of printer paper, with these simple instructions: “It’s gotta be cute … and safe … and warm.” And it is. There is 6 inches of foam insulation in the floor and ceiling — […]

Michelle Tullis Photos by author If you have chickens, you have a battle with poop. And if you’re getting chickens, you’ll soon find out. I found that out last year when we bought our first mature laying hens … The first thing they did when we got them into the kennel to take home was […]