Animal Adventures Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Our Homestead Adventures

Restoring Order in the Chicken Coop

Order in the Coop Last October we hatched our first chicks in the coop, “Thursday” and “Friday”. It was extraordinary to watch our little chickens grow-up. We discovered at about 4 months of age that our distinctive young chickens were roosters. We knew we would not be able to keep them, especially since we still…

Turkeys are here, don’t get attached

Turkeys have arrived! After weeks of waiting and preparing, our turkey’s have finally arrived at the homestead. The pair of Bronze turkeys are just less than 8 weeks old and getting along just fine. Chris built a temporary house for the birds out of reclaimed materials. The project took only a few days and our…

Perspective: Every day something dies so you may live

Where our food comes from has new perspective after butchering our first chicken. We rose well before the sun. It was raining, we couldn’t see the orange glow had we gotten a later start anyhow. But as we prepared to butcher a chicken for the first time, we were met with a range of thoughts…

Introducing New Chickens to Your Flock

Sometimes “Soon” is “Too Soon” We’ve heard a lot of advice about when to introduce new chickens to your flock. Until now, we’d had great success. Typically, we’re told, you want the new chickens to be about 3 months old before adding them to your flock. A group of Barred Rock and Silver Laced Wyandottes…

Thanksgiving turkey, Raise or Hunt?

Homegrown Thanksgiving challenge update, Turkey edition “What if our Thanksgiving dinner included only the things that we provided for ourselves?” That question triggered the first Inspired to Try challenge, now we had a big decision to make. The turkey is usually the star of the show so do we hunt a turkey or raise a…

When a Chicken Passes

When Chickens Expire, What Do You Do? Our neighbor wanted to retire from chickens and gave us our starting flock. He gave us a few black Australorps, a couple Buff Orpingtons, & a few Rhode Island Reds. Within that flock was a favorite hen, her name, Stevie, a stand-out Rhode Island Red. She had moves…

Shouldn’t we all want to “be a chicken”?

Chicken demonstrates unconditional love to her unique babies In late summer we noticed that our beautiful BuffOrpington chicken, “Blondie”, was the last bird in the coop for the night. Every night she wandered about the chicken run until well after dark. As summer gave way to fall, Blondie was hardly seen. Our 12 year old…

When Your Chicken Gets Frostbite

Roostavo the magnificent Rhode Island Red Chicken had a rough winter. Roostavo, Roostavo… you have filled our mornings with the trill of your Rhode Island Red cocka-doodle-do for a month in the back room of our home. You crazy chicken! Amy has turned into a morning ninja, creeping across the kitchen floor in the dark…