Chicken Archives - Our Homestead Adventures

This is why you don’t name your chickens

Chickens can be a great addition to your farm, family or homestead. But there’s an old rule about keeping a chicken… don’t name it

Bone Broth Basics

Making bone broth from scratch was much easier than we ever imagined. We’ve been easing into homesteading with the mindset of using what we have on hand and trying new-to-us things as we are ready. We harvested a half-dozen of our first meat birds over the summer. I saved the bones after meals and simply…

Beauty in the Fade, Fall on the Homestead

Finding meaning in fall. The leaves swirled down from our persimmon tree with a wind rushing up our hill. The chickens have lost quite a few feathers, as a palette of various shades have been wind-blown lining the sides of the chicken run like a tossed feathered boa. Our majestic sunflowers with multiple heads of…

Our First Predator Encounter

Not a single predator… until now. A predator is going to come hunting for dinner when you have a farm, it’s just a fact of nature. We’ve taken every precaution to protect our chickens and have been very fortunate… until now. When Chris designed the chicken coop and chicken run, he designed the fence to…

Why We Candle Chicken Eggs

What’s going on inside your chicken eggs? We never needed to know what is going on with the chicken eggs we bring indoors to consume, until recently. In fact, we thought we had it all down-pat. I guess when you have more than a handful of chickens, there is a lot more chicken behavior to…

Count ‘Em? Never Before They Hatch

And now we know why you never count your chickens before they hatch. For the past few weeks we’ve anxiously awaiting the arrival of chicks. We’ve counted down… and kept counting… and counting. Nothin’. Nada. Zip. It’s been a bit frustrating and worrisome. The Black Australorp hen began sitting on eggs more than a month…

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…

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…

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…