The egg shortage of 2024 and 2025 sent more people to farm supply stores to buy chicks than any previous event in modern American history. Tractor Supply reported feed sales doubling. Local hatcheries
Chicken manure is one of the most nitrogen-rich organic fertilizers available to a homestead gardener. It contains roughly 1.1 percent nitrogen, 0.8 percent phosphorus, and 0.5 percent potassium, alon
The standard recommendation for backyard egg production has always been chickens. But in the past five years, Coturnix quail have developed a significant following among urban and small-space homestea
Chicken feed is not one thing. What you feed a three-week-old chick differs from what you feed a twelve-week pullet, which differs from what you feed a laying hen in full production. Getting this righ
The promise of automatic chicken waterers and feeders is reduced daily management time, cleaner food and water, and less waste. Most deliver on this promise. Some fail in predictable ways that reviews
The most common question in every backyard chicken group is some version of the same thing: my hens stopped laying, what did I do wrong?
Every fall, flock owners open the coop door to find what looks like a crime scene: feathers everywhere, hens looking patchy and uncomfortable, and egg production dropping off a cliff. If you did not k
The chicken coop market includes everything from a $50 flat-pack kit that falls apart in the second winter to hand-built structures that outlast the people who built them. Understanding what a coop ac
Losing hens to predators is one of the defining experiences of early flock keeping. Most new flock owners lose birds in the first year, almost always to a predator that could have been excluded with b
Choosing a chicken breed based only on egg count per year misses most of what actually matters for a backyard flock. A breed that lays 320 eggs annually but is flighty, struggles in your climate, or b