Chicken coops plans

A recent query from keeping chickens newsletter subscriber Staci : “Thanks for the newsletter. I have enjoyed it very much. I did a little searching through it, but have not seen mention of ‘winter mashes’. A friends’ mother told me she remembers that her father used to feed his hens a mash of some sort to keep them laying through the winter. If you have any recipes for such a thing …

Chickens very often don’t particularly enjoy the snow or rain, but they do need fresh air and exercise. Unless it is blowing up a storm, if given the choice, they will normally prefer to venture outside (even if for only a little while) rather than stay ‘cooped’ up inside for the whole day. In many respects you can for the most part trust your chickens to take care of themselves. Many a …

Chicks, no kidding, come in a box via the US Postal Service. This box held, with ample room, 26 chicks from the Murray McMurray Hatchery. You can also buy chicks from your local farm store, like Agway, but we’ve found that there is a limited selection there, and the chicks are expensive. However, the hatcheries …

Chickens have got to be the easiest, most forgiving, creatures for a small farm to manage. While any book you pick up on chickens would have you believe that they can suffer from any number of perfectly horrible parasites and problems, the fact is… there’s nothing to them. They’ll call the …

We have had week after week of near-zero temperatures during the day and considerably below-zero temperatures during the night. We have also had an unusually large number of snowstorms and the snow on the ground is very deep.

So it is incomprehensible to me that until one day last week, two families in this area were leaving their chickens outside in this cold and snow… day and night… …

Once a year I collaborate with a friend who owns a ranch to raise, butcher, process and then eat chickens. Well, if truth be told I help raise, process and eat them and my friend does the actual butchering part.

Raising chickens for the supper table is an eye opening experience into just how much work goes into food production. As Americans we are so used to going to the grocery store and …

Incubation

It is best to start raising chickens in the spring. This is the time in nature when the most eggs would be laid, and gives enough time for the chick to reach a level of maturity where it might stand a good chance of surviving the coming winter. It takes 21 days to hatch a chicken egg under the correct conditions of temperature. At a …

Have you ever thought of raising chickens as a way to supplement your family food? It’s a good idea for frugal living and it can work well for you in the country as well as the city.

If you like chicken meat, you’ll be able to raise some of the biggest and best you have ever had. If you like chicken eggs, then you’ll be even more pleased at the potential outcome of raising your own flock …

A basic guide to raising chickens organically where we will be discussing:

Housing for Chickens

What to Feed Chickens

How to Raise Chickens for Eggs

General Poultry Care

Raising organic poultry can be very satisfying, and you don’t have to live on a farm to be able to collect your own eggs every day. As long as your council allows the keeping of poultry, you can easily set up a …

Chick: A hatchling Capon: A castrated male used for meat. (How much could that yield?) Pullet: A female chicken under one year old. Hen: A female chicken over one year of age Rooster: A male chicken over one year of age.

Raising Chickens for the first time can be intimidating. When I first called the Feed Shop, I was trying to sound like a pro. I asked, “Do you sell pullets?” “Yes”, …