Building a chicken coop is simple compared to building a house, but no less important to the chicken than your house is to you. Keeping this in mind, building plans for a chicken coop should take a few things into consideration. In fact, I’m going to lay out 8 categories for you to consider before … Read more
Along with keeping chickens warm in cold weather, it is important to know how to keep chickens cool in hot weather. Obviously, hot weather isn’t just a matter of the outside temperature. Other heat-related factors can come together to make conditions for chickens unbearable in the coop, and the run. And even free-range chickens aren’t … Read more
I had too many roosters, so I asked around to see if anybody wanted up to three of them. Sometimes you get lucky. It just so happened that there was a taker about five miles away. So, I went about the business of gathering the chickens and putting them in a cage for transport. Now, … Read more
Keeping chickens entertained in the coop is not a difficult task to accomplish, but it is a facet of raising chickens that not many are acquainted with. I mean, don’t they keep themselves entertained? Yes, they do… they peck each other, pull each other’s feathers, steal each other’s food, etc. Left to their own devices, … Read more
Chickens are very social animals. In my little herd (I know, I know) of beaked wonders, there are a few different breeds. They were all raised together from when they were chicks. Even so, as adults they tend to stick with their own kind… The Rhodies with the Rhodies, and the Brahmas with the Brahmas. … Read more
We just went through another lovely winter here in Upstate New York, and my chickens all survived. This isn’t Minnesota, but it gets pretty darned cold here, with temperatures dropping below zero Fahrenheit for days. So, I know a little about how much cold chickens tolerate in the winter, and it’s why I’m writing Keeping … Read more
I think most people don’t give much thought to the animal language around them. People are very busy creatures – always working, taking care of their families, taking care of their selves… Sometimes, it can seem like we humans are the only things that matter. But there is a world of wild and semi-wild creatures … Read more
There are few things that make your skin crawl more than the thought of lice. There are many types of lice and the ones we are going to discuss are the chicken-infecting kind. Don’t worry. If your chickens get lice, you are not going get them on you. Chicken lice like chickens, not people. That’s … Read more
I’m a live-and-let-live kind of guy. If I see something a little out of the ordinary, let’s say, and it isn’t hurting anybody, I tend to look the other way. Finding a few chickens tucked away in a basement where they can’t be seen by the public is not something that you see every day. … Read more
One late afternoon several years ago, I arrived at home to find that there had been a massacre of my flock. There were chickens everywhere – on the lawn, in the weeds, over the embankment. It was brutal. Many foxes live in my area, and when they have kits, they become killing machines. One lucky … Read more