Raising Chickens

Raising chickens is one of the easiest ways to start your homestead journey. Whether you’re keeping hens for eggs, meat birds for the freezer, or just love their quirky personalities, these tips will help you do it right.

Chick with spraddle leg lying on a wooden surface, legs splayed out to the sides.

Homestead Animals

When Is It Too Late to Fix Spraddle Leg in Chicks?

A young Barred Rock pullet standing alert in a clean indoor chicken coop with natural bedding.

Homestead Animals

Started Pullets: How to Get Eggs Sooner Without Raising Chicks

Chicken egg and guinea fowl egg side by side on a wooden board showing size and shell texture differences.

Homestead Animals

Guinea Eggs vs Chicken Eggs: Which Fits Your Homestead?

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

Homestead Animals

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

Chicken seed blocks curing on parchment paper.

Homestead Animals

An Easy DIY Seed Block Your Chickens Will Love

A freshly hatched chicken chick in a styrofoam incubator.

Homestead Animals

Perfecting Your Chick Brooder Setup and Lockdown Process

Feeding chickens food scraps from a metal bowl.

Homestead Animals

11 Genius Ways to Save Money on Chicken Feed

Chickens exploring the snow just outside their coop.

Homestead Animals

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

A little girl with a chicken chick on her shoulder.

Homestead Animals

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

A dark red elevated chicken coop with attached run.

Homestead Animals

Roost to Run: The Elements of Perfect Chicken Coop Design

A monther hen with her freshly hatched chicks.

Homestead Animals

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

A sick baby chicken.

Homestead Animals

A Guide to Preparing Homemade Electrolytes for Chickens

A mother hen and her young chicks.

Homestead Animals

How to Introduce Chicks to a Broody Hen Seamlessly

A cochin frizzled chicken looking at the camera.

Homestead Animals

Fluffy Magic: The Adorable World of Frizzle Chickens

The Big List of Chicken-Safe Plants for Your Flock

Homestead Animals

The Big List of Chicken-Safe Plants for Your Flock

Easily Fix Spraddle Leg/Splayed Legs with a Drinking Glass

Homestead Animals

Easily Fix Spraddle Leg/Splayed Legs with a Drinking Glass

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

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

Homestead Animals

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

Egg Anatomy: What Makes the Eggshells Different Colors

Homestead Animals

Egg Anatomy: What Makes the Eggshells Different Colors

A chicken sitting in a nest box.

Homestead Animals

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

Backyard chickens enjoying produce scraps in the yard.

Homestead Animals

Ruffling Feathers: Celebrating the Diverse Ways to Raise Chickens

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

Homestead Animals

Help Livestock Deal with Summer Heat on the Homestead

Chickens in a fenced-in run with sand bedding.

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

Homestead Animals

How to Protect Your Backyard Chickens from Predators

A black Polish chicken out in the yard.

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.

Homestead Animals

Using Herbs & Essential Oils with Your Backyard Chickens

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.

Homestead Animals

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

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

Homestead Animals

Can Chickens Catch Colds? Chicken Respiratory Health

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

Homestead Animals

How & Why to Properly Quarantine Chickens to Protect Your Flock

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

Homestead Animals

Where to Free Range Chickens in Winter: Dealing with Snow

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

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.

Homestead Animals

A Non-Aggressive Approach to Aggressive Roosters

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

Homestead Animals

How to Prepare Your Chicken House & Barn for Winter

A carton filled with farm fresh eggs of varying colors, with one cracked open showing a deep orange yolk.

Homestead Animals

Everything You Need to Know About Farm Fresh Eggs

A bunch of chicken eggs in different colors.

Homestead Animals

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

A chicken flying in the backyard.

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.

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.

Homestead Animals

How Much Noise Do Hens Make? The Egg Song