Chicken coops plans

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 …

So, you need info on starting to raise chickens. And you have the roost all set up and ready for the new inhabitants to move on in. You want to be totally sure that everything is ready when they arrive otherwise there could be utter chaos as you try and get them organized and situated.

Once the baby chickens arrive you will want to examine them extremely well. If they arrive diseased or in …

Backyard chicken raising need not be a backbreaking and arduous activity if done with a good plan at hand. If you have a ready budget, it doesn’t cost too much to purchase a ready-made coop for your little feathered friends. If you don’t have the budget but have enough time, then you can build your own coop with a little help from a DIY handbook.

But even before you purchase the first yard …

Aug 13, 2009Healey Lockett

Chicken raising has come off the farm and into the city. Now more than ever, people are raising chickens in their backyard for eggs and meat. Some may hesitate to attempt keeping chickens, believing them difficult to care for. Nothing could be further from the truth! A little common sense, research and planning before you bring home that first cute, fluffy baby …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Raising chickens in your backyard farm is the fastest way to a healthy organic garden, and a delightful way to make your homesteading more self-sufficient.In the thirties, during the Great Depression, horror stories abounded about soup lines and folks facing starvation. But those who owned their own land along with a dozen or more hens and roosters never went hungry.

That’s because in a bad …

In the spring we ordered a box of unsexed chicks from Murry McMurray Hatchery. It is now fall, and we’ve had a couple of good frosts. The air, this morning, is hovering around 34 degrees, and we’re going to cull most of the roosters and put them in the freezer.

By this time of the year the chickens are having a hard time …