health
Chick Nutrition – Start to Finish
Add to Favorites Knowing what to feed baby chicks is a critical first step to giving them a fighting chance. Precocial as they may be, chicks are still vulnerable to …
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Buying and Saving with Friends — End-of-Day Hatchery Specials
Add to Favorites By Doug Ottinger – Buying leftover, bargain-chick assortments from your favorite chicken hatchery is one of the most fun-filled adventures that any poultry keeper or group of …
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Chicken Feather & Skin Development
Add to Favorites By Doug Ottinger – Most of us as children probably enjoyed picking up feathers when we were outdoors playing or walking home from school. It seems that …
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Getting Ready for Spring Chicks
Add to Favorites If you have your heart set on a particular breed or variety of poultry, the best time to place your order is in early January, or as …
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Chicken Treats – How to Raise Mealworms and Superworms
Add to Favorites In my middle school classroom, my students have learned how to raise mealworms, superworms, and Dubia cockroaches for years to be fed to our pet bearded dragon: …
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Alternatives to Culling Chickens
My oldest chicken is eight years old. She still manages to pop out a handful of eggs a year, but they’re usually wrinkled and a bit misshapen with thin shells. She certainly isn’t winning any awards for egg production and we can’t rely on her for breakfast any longer!
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Six Winter Keeping Tips for Backyard Chickens
Many people ask: Do chickens need heat in winter? The answer is backyard chickens are far more cold-hardy than you may imagine. Courtesy of fall molting, chickens should have a full set of new fluffy feathers for winter that will keep them perfectly comfortable in temperatures down to 40 degrees and just fine well below freezing, assuming they are in good health.
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Chicken Soup is Good Medicine
Chicken soup not only is warming and good for the soul, but also offers relief for the sniffles that ride in on winter weather.
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Toxins in the Environment
Poisoning is relatively unusual in backyard poultry, especially if you use common sense in keeping your flock away from pesticides, herbicides, rodenticides, fungicide-treated seed (intended for planting), wood preservatives, rock salt, and antifreeze.
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What Can You Feed Chickens?
What can you feed chickens? is a common question and many beginning chicken keepers wind up on the wrong foot with their bird’s nutrition.
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