Chickens

I recently posted about butchering our pet chickens. In my previous post, I focused on nut-and-bolts mechanics of killing them and preparing them to be eaten. In this post want to explore why I killed them and what the experience was like emotionally. For years I thought it was important that people who eat meat […]

Today’s post will be discussing butchering our three chickens. While there shouldn’t be anything too graphic, I will be discussing the process in detail.  I would recommend skipping this post for readers who will find this disturbing. Butchering Your Backyard Chicken Chickens are considered one of the easiest animals to “dress” – clean the carcass […]

We’re on our third bag of feed since we got our chickens in May this year.  This is pretty good, considering that each bag is 50 lbs, we feed them kitchen scraps and we bought them a 50 lbs bag of scratch as well.  We’d been really happy with the pellets we got the first […]

One of the things that surprised me when my wife and I first started learning about chickens is that they can survive in the winter in cold climates.  I had assumed that chickens were only in warmer climates year-round.  Instead, I learned, as long as a few basics are ensured, they can thrive throughout the […]

Last week I wrote about the deep litter method to manage your coop’s bedding.  Another popular way to try to minimize the work involved in keeping the coop clean is the droppings board.  Also known as a “chicken poop board”, the idea behind this is to put a removable tray underneath the chickens’ roost in their coop.  […]

I’ve previously written about the different materials you can use as bedding in your chicken coop.  Beyond what material you provide for bedding, one option is to use the deep litter approach. Using a bit of strategic laziness, the idea behind deep litter is that rather than cleaning out the coop and providing fresh bedding, you […]

Diatomaceous earth is one of the recommended items for when you get chickens.  I kept calling it dichotomous earth (which would be earth that isn’t earth, I guess) until my wife got my pronunciation fixed. How Do You Use Diatomaceous Earth With Chickens? For chickens, you should only ever use FOOD GRADE diatomaceous earth (DE).  It’s possible […]

Molting is a natural part of chicken biology where they lose feathers and start to grow new ones.  Colder temperatures and shorter days trigger this – usually in late Summer or Early Autumn. Both hens and roosters molt.  Young chickens will go through a couple of juvenile molts.  Their first adult molt will occur at […]

In our “introduction to raising chickens” class my wife and I attended at the local extension school, the presenter discussed chickens’ need for calcium and that providing oyster shells is necessary.  One of the audience members asked about feeding the chickens’ eggshells back to them.  The presenter thought this was a bad idea, that oyster […]

I’ve been feeling somewhat smug that we hadn’t had a single issue with any predators and our chickens.  Over labor day weekend I was awakened shortly before dawn by frantic clucking.  I stuck my head out the window and saw a small raccoon investigating our coop.  I yelled at him, and as soon as he […]