Raising Chickens for Eggs, Meat, and Companionship

From eggs to meat, discover everything about raising chickens. Find guides on housing, feeding, and keeping your flock healthy.

Goats, horses, and sheep standing in the snow next to a stock tank.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

How Do I Keep My Livestock’s Water from Freezing?

Chicken seed blocks curing on parchment paper.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

An Easy DIY Seed Block Your Chickens Will Love

A freshly hatched chicken chick in a styrofoam incubator.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

Perfecting Your Chick Brooder Setup and Lockdown Process

Feeding chickens food scraps from a metal bowl.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

11 Genius Ways to Save Money on Chicken Feed

Chickens exploring the snow just outside their coop.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

Chickens In Winter: What Do They Need to Stay Warm?

A little girl with a chicken chick on her shoulder.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

A Kid’s Guide to Bringing Baby Chicks into the World

A dark red elevated chicken coop with attached run.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

Roost to Run: The Elements of Perfect Chicken Coop Design

A monther hen with her freshly hatched chicks.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

Hatching Chicks with a Broody Hen or Incubator: Which is Better?

A sick chicken being fed homemade electrolytes in a syringe.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

A Guide to Preparing Homemade Electrolytes for Chickens

A mother hen and her young chicks.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

How to Introduce Chicks to a Broody Hen Seamlessly

A cochin frizzled chicken looking at the camera.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

Fluffy Magic: The Adorable World of Frizzle Chickens

The Big List of Chicken-Safe Plants for Your Flock

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

The Big List of Chicken-Safe Plants for Your Flock

Easily Fix Spraddle Leg/Splayed Legs with a Drinking Glass

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

Easily Fix Spraddle Leg/Splayed Legs with a Drinking Glass

A baby chick and its broken egg laid out on straw.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

Hatch Day for Chicks: What to Expect and How to Troubleshoot

What is Fodder? Is it Right for Me? Sprouted Barley for Livestock

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

What is Fodder? Is it Right for Me? Sprouted Barley for Livestock

Egg Anatomy: What Makes the Eggshells Different Colors

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

Egg Anatomy: What Makes the Eggshells Different Colors

A chicken sitting in a nest box.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

11 Low & No Cost Chicken Nest Boxes (+ Nesting Box Tips)

Backyard chickens enjoying produce scraps in the yard.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

Ruffling Feathers: Celebrating the Diverse Ways to Raise Chickens

Sunflowers in a tin pail sitting on a table on the porch.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

Help Livestock Deal with Summer Heat on the Homestead

Chickens in a fenced-in run with sand bedding.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

Why Sand Is the Best Bedding for Your Chicken Coop + Run

How To Care For Laying Hens: A Beginner’s Guide to Everything

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

How To Care For Laying Hens: A Beginner’s Guide to Everything

Animal enrichment is activities that create a more stimulating environment for the animals and elicit some of their natural behaviors.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

What is Enrichment? How It’s Important for Livestock

Mason jar feeders and waterers are great, but they can be hard to hang. Here is an easy crochet holder that will keep your feeder and waterer off the ground.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

DIY Poultry Feed & Water Hanger

Like peas and carrots, chickens and gardens belong together (though not occupying the same space). Chickens want to work. Why not harness that natural instinct?

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

Let Your Chickens Do Your Composting

Depending on where you live, any number of these predators may pose a problem for your flock. However, there are a number of ways to protect your chickens from the creatures.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

How to Protect Your Backyard Chickens from Predators

A black Polish chicken out in the yard.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

How to Find Out What Breed Your New Chicken Is: Combs + Feather Patterns

What my chickens consume, my family consumes. That's why I prefer to try herbals, essential oils, and natural remedies before bringing out the big guns.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

Using Herbs & Essential Oils with Your Backyard Chickens

A white pulled perched on a garden planter.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

Adding Started Pullets to Your Flock

Covering everything from choosing an incubator or broody, what's going on in the egg, tricks to make things run smoothly, hatch day and then caring for your new fluffy friends.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

How to Prepare to Hatch: Broody Hens, Incubators and Eggs

The homesteader, the chicken, and the Jehovah's Witness. A funny homesteading story, because you can't make this stuff up.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

The Homesteader, The Chicken & The Jehovah’s Witness

A close-up of a barred rock chicken in a shaded grassy area.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

Can Chickens Catch Colds? Chicken Respiratory Health

A group of chickens roaming freely near an electric netted fence in a grassy field.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

How & Why to Properly Quarantine Chickens to Protect Your Flock

Two chickens walking down a path that was shoveled off from snow.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

Where to Free Range Chickens in Winter: Dealing with Snow

Why Have My Laying Hens Stopped Laying Eggs? Learn Why It Happens

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

Why Have My Laying Hens Stopped Laying Eggs? Learn Why It Happens

Roosters show aggression for a variety of reasons. They perceive you as a threat or they want to dominate you. Occasionally, your rooster will just be a jerk.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

A Non-Aggressive Approach to Aggressive Roosters

A lean-to style chicken coop with a red door in a snowy backyard.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

How to Prepare Your Chicken House & Barn for Winter

Discover the answers to farm fresh eggs frequently asked questions.Why farm yolks are so dark? Does a blood spot mean it's fertile? Does the color change the flavor?

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

What You Need to Know About Farm Fresh Eggs

A bunch of chicken eggs in different colors.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

An Egg In Every Hue: The Secret to Getting Various Egg Colors

With people's desire to eat local and know where their food is coming from, farms are popping up all over. Kathy Mormino is making headlines in her battle to keep chickens.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

Chicken Outlaws: Changing Ordinances

A chicken flying in the backyard.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

How to Clip Chicken Wings and Keep Your Flock Safe

You might be wondering when is the right time to switch to the next stage of feed. Timelines for those using commercial feed. Plus, feeding roosters, drakes, toms.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

When to Switch Your Poultry’s Feed

Why a hen sings after laying an egg and what the Egg Song sounds like. It will be music to your ears when you get your first chickens.

Raising Healthy and Happy Homestead Animals

How Much Noise Do Hens Make? The Egg Song