Preparing your chicken coop for fall is one of the best ways to keep your flock healthy as summer gives way to cooler weather. Rain grows more frequent, daylight hours shorten, chickens often begin molting, egg production tends to slow, and mice start hunting for reliable food and shelter. None of this requires an expensive…
Chicken moulting surprises almost every new chicken keeper. You walk into the coop expecting to collect eggs, only to find far fewer than usual. Then you notice feathers scattered everywhere. Soon, one of your hens looks like she’s having the worst hair day imaginable. It’s easy to assume something is seriously wrong. Fortunately, in most…
Choosing chicken breeds can feel overwhelming when you’re just getting started. One of the first surprises new chicken keepers discover is that there isn’t just one kind of chicken. There are hundreds of recognized breeds, each developed for different purposes over generations. Some lay baskets full of eggs. Some are raised primarily for meat. Others…
Few things test a chicken keeper’s management skills quite like a stretch of hot summer weather. Chickens tolerate cold far better than most beginners expect, but excessive heat is another matter entirely. Once temperatures climb into the upper 80s—and especially into the 90s—your flock begins working much harder to regulate its body temperature. Add high…
Common chicken predators are something every backyard chicken keeper eventually has to think about. One of the quickest ways to discover you own chickens is to notice that everything else seems to know it too. The day your hens begin laying eggs, you’ve unintentionally opened a small buffet for every hungry predator in the neighborhood….
One of the first questions people ask before bringing home backyard chickens is, “How much does it actually cost?” The answer is both simpler and more complicated than most people expect. You can spend a few hundred dollars getting started, or you can spend several thousand. Backyard chickens have become surprisingly trendy over the last…
One of the most exciting moments of keeping backyard chickens is collecting that first egg. So when the nesting boxes suddenly stay empty—or production slows to just one or two eggs a day—it’s easy to assume something is terribly wrong. Most of the time, it isn’t. Healthy hens stop or slow egg production for perfectly…
If you’re wondering what backyard chickens eat, you’re not alone. It’s one of the first questions nearly every new chicken keeper asks. The answer is both easier—and a little more complicated—than most people expect. Spend enough time online, and you’ll quickly discover there’s no shortage of opinions. One person insists chickens can thrive on little…
For generations, chickens were not kept for entertainment; they were kept because families depended on them. They provided fresh eggs, meat, fertilizer, pest control, and even income through the sale or trade of surplus eggs. A small flock in the backyard could help stretch a household budget and provide a reliable source of food during…
There’s nothing quite like the day you bring home your first box of peeping baby chicks. You walk into the local feed store, and it hits you: that unmistakable smell of pine shavings, fresh feed, and possibility. Everyone’s excited. On the drive home, you’re already imagining a simpler kind of life—one filled with fresh eggs,…
