Chickens

Poultry Predators – How to Keep Your Chickens Safe

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It’s something out of a horror movie. You come home from a fun, barn dance/Halloween party with your young family to find your livestock slaughtered in their pen, blood spattered everywhere, corpses ripped to shreds.  A gory end to a family’s pets – and food supply. This happened to my son’s teacher recently, and it [...]

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What Chickens Need – The Ethics of Chicken-Keeping (Part I)

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JANUARY 2012 UPDATE:  We’ve just hit our ’8 month’ anniversary of getting our first chickens, and I have to add that we lost one of our girls to a coyote while they were free-ranging one day last fall.  She was a free spirit and used to wander WAY away from the rest of the flock [...]

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Hey Chickie, Wanna Buy Some Scratch?

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I have a confession to make. I am a dealer of avian contraband.  Or a chicken’s version of an Apple Store.   Or some sort of poultry pop star. At least that’s what it looks like. I walk outside, and within seconds I have 15 fluffy, preening little pre-teens following me.  And not just following, but [...]

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Backyard Chicken Facts – 5 Things No One Told Us

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Our backyard chickens are now 12 weeks old and are well on their way to being full fledged layers.  We’re still a ways from collecting fresh eggs every morning, but they look happy and healthy and, well, just ‘right’ wandering around the yard.  Now it feels like a real homestead! But there have been a [...]

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Be Bear Aware: 10 Tips for Black Bear Safety on Your Rural Property

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I’d say I’m pretty bear aware.  Black bears were a pretty everyday sight growing up on the West Coast of British Columbia. In fact, as kids, we used to go watch them at the dump as an after dinner adventure (back when we had open garbage dumps). Not too smart, but hey, it was the [...]

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How to Raise Baby Chicks: Week 1 – Things No One Told Us

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Our 15 little girls just had their first week birthday. Little did we know when they arrived on May 31 how much our lives would change over the next seven days – nor did we realize how much our books didn’t tell us about raising baby chickens. I’ve wanted chickens for a very long time. [...]

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Are You Ready for Chickens? Chickens 101

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Chickens – they’re one of the main reasons I wanted to move to a rural property – so I could raise chickens and for my son to be able to collect fresh eggs.  Seems odd that so many of us relate to this seemingly simple act, but ask most people about their rural living dream [...]

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