Fresh Eggs Daily® with Lisa Steele

Chicken coops can be expensive to buy, but if you have an old playhouse, you can easily convert it into a chicken coop. When you get started with a backyard flock of chickens, your largest expense by far will be their coop. But if you're somewhat handy, you can save a lot of money by converting a playhouse, garden shed or even a barn stall into a chicken coop.

As more and more chickens are being kept as family pets instead of food, caring for them in their twilight years has become an important consideration. My grandparents raised chickens. They were legit chicken farmers, raising their flock for both eggs and meat that they used in their restaurant, fed their family, and also sold in the community.

Here's your ultimate winter chicken care guide! As a general rule, chickens handle cold far better than heat , but in the winter they still will appreciate being provided a draft-free, dry coop, a sunny area in the yard out of the wind, fresh water and some treats that provide extra energy and warming properties. Boredom is also a worry in the winter, so keeping them busy can help alleviate pecking and other issues. I've put together my best advice to help your chickens through the winter.

Freeze leftover eggs when you have an excess to use later in the winter when egg production slows down. When you raise chickens, you know that it's either feast or famine. Too many eggs during the warmer, longer summer days and fewer or no eggs in the winter. 

Studies have shown that honey can help alleviate heat stress in chickens. Heat is very hard on poultry, chickens especially, so it's important to do what you can to help alleviate the stress on their bodies when the temperatures rise.

Raising a flock of backyard chickens isn't difficult as long as you avoid these common pitfalls that can kill your chickens. My grandmother raised chickens almost her entire life and she always used to say that if a chicken could get stuck in it or under it or drown in it, they would. And also, everything wants to eat chicken. While it's true that it's important to ensure your chicken area is free from hazards, it's not hard to keep your chickens alive as long as you avoid these common ways to accidentally kill your chickens

Everything a mother hen needs in this functional and roomy chick brooder box built from just one sheet of plywood. Spring is just around the corner, and that means chick season is almost upon us!  Your new baby chicks will need a nice safe, secure place to spend the first few weeks of their life, and I've got the plans for this super economical Brooder Box designed by Kelsey from Green Willow Homestead .

Thinking about getting started with a small flock of backyard chickens? Here's how much you can expect to spend. You might be considering getting started with backyard chickens and wonder exactly how much it will cost you to get started.  In the past, I've talked about whether raising your own chickens for eggs is economical or not, but today I thought I would outline the typical start-up costs for a small backyard flock of 5 or 6 chickens.

When grass is scarce, backyard geese need alternative food sources to thrive. As long as geese are given access to fresh grass , they can live very happily on all the grass and weeds they can eat.  But what happens when snow covers the ground or all the grass is dead?

Each fall, chickens lose their feathers during an annual molt and grow in new ones. If you're new to chicken keeping, you might not realize that each fall, starting when they're around 18 months old (assuming they hatched in the spring), chickens will start to lose their feathers.

There are many reasons why I truly believe that ducks are better than chickens. Ssssh.... don't tell my chickens, but if I had it to do all over again, I would raise just ducks instead of chickens and ducks. Having raised both chickens and ducks together for more than 15 years, I can unequivocally say that I not only find ducks easier to raise , I actually prefer raising them.