7 Culprits of Weak-Shelled Eggs

Today, I’m sitting on nine dozen eggs. I wash them after collecting them to store in the refrigerator. This way, they’re ready to go if I get the chance to sell or gift them. Unfortunately, we’re having a problem. One hen’s brown eggs are so delicate that when I wash them, they crumble to pieces […]

Gardening with Chickens

  Gardening with chickens can be a lot of fun. They’re often underfoot (and under shovel) doing some of the grunt work, like removing weedy sprouts and wriggling ground pests. The problem is that chickens don’t know when to stop helping. Growing food in small spaces is challenging enough on its own, but add a […]

3 Reasons to Stop Using Chicken Wire

  Some chicken coop designs are inspired by imagination, and others by practicality. I never get bored of seeing the creativity and hard work people put into building their coops. Thanks to social media and chicken keepers who like to show off their innovations, we can all be inspired to build our own coops for […]

5 Ways to Spruce Up an Aging Coop

  The charm of a small yard with a flock of hens is indisputable, but raising chickens in the city can present some aesthetic challenges. If your coop is stationary, you probably have a uniform plot of brown underneath the run. If you have a mobile coop, maybe you have some circles worn into the […]

Save Money On Chicken Feed This Spring

  My chickens love the explosion of insect life in the spring—and so do I, but it wasn’t always that way. In my life before chickens, my Kentucky backyard was unusable for several months of the year, simply because of blood-sucking insects. Because my chickens devour a majority of the bugs that bug me most, […]

A walking laced red Wyandotte chicken

4 Ways to Beat Mites Naturally

Mites can make your chickens uncomfortable and ill, and they can even lead to death. Learn four ways to treat your birds with natural products.

Give Your Flock Space to Bathe

Chickens are good at finding places to dust bathe. They will snuggle up between the roots of old trees, lie down in the garden, and fluff their feathers in decomposing mulch. Dust bathing absorbs oil from their skin, and wood ash coats the skin to become a barrier protecting from mite infestations. As a preventive […]