My Chirpy Chicken Coop

       5 Tips For Safer Free Ranging June 27, 2021 (A snap of Eliza roaming the garden!) The sad fact of the matter is that free ranging your chickens and ducks always carries risks with it and eventually is probably going to end badly (more than likely very badly) if you raise them long enough. As someone once said, "you only have to lose once... and the predator only has to win once". The odds are definitely stacked against the chickens and ducks. So, here are my 5 tips for safer free ranging: 1. Supervise, Supervise, Supervise Obviously one of the easiest things you can do is stay outside with your chickens and watch them while they free range. Having a dog outside with you is a huge benefit also. Not only is even a pet dog's scent a big deterrent to predators, dogs senses are so much more attuned to potential threats than ours are and even our corgi could be at the treeline chasing off a fox before I likely even realized it was there. Raising other livestock on y...

  Beat The Heat June 20, 2021 (A shot of Hamilton taking a peck at the ice treats!) Fresh clean water is the most important thing you can provide your flock - especially in the summer. Eggs contain mostly water and keeping your chickens hydrated not only is crucial to their health but assures good egg production. But why not get creative and make some ice cube treats for your flock? Mint, an anti-inflammatory, has natural cooling properties and acts to lower the body temperature of humans and animals by drawing body heat to the skin surface and also inducing perspiration when rubbed on the skin. When you eat or drink something with mint in it, you immediately feel cooler. That's due to the menthol in members of the mint family. Keeping that in mind, I created these fun frozen ice pops for the chickens to enjoy in the heat of the summer.  Even if the chickens don't "get the sensation" of the mint, it's also calming, and staying calm when it's hot can help them ...

       The Egg Float Test June 13, 2021 (A really old store-bought egg vs a really fresh backyard egg in the Egg Float Test!) In a perfect world, your chickens would lay eggs in their nesting boxes each morning, you would collect them, bring them into the house and prepare them to eat. Mmmm, fresh eggs every day like clockwork. Of course, real life doesn't work quite like that. It seems it's either feast or famine around here - too many eggs or not enough. When you have extra eggs and they start to pile up, unless you mark or otherwise keep track of how old the eggs are, it's easy to lose track. If you let your chickens free range, you might stumble across a nest of eggs that a sneaky broody hen has hidden and have no idea when they were laid. These are affectionately called 'yard eggs' and normally perfectly fine to eat as long as they aren't cracked. (Of course if you have a rooster, they could be fertile and if the hen has been consistently sitting on them, ...

      HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY!!! June 6, 2021 (A collage of the chickens' special day!) This day one year ago...four tiny beaks pushed their way out into a world of warmth. One beak belonged to a French Copper Maran, two beaks belonged to two Buff Orpingtons, and another belonged to a bantam Rhode Island Red. They took their first breath of air and studied the world around them. And ever since then, they have been living happily ever after... Sound familiar?... HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY, DEAR FLOCK!!! Happy birthday to Lafayette, happy birthday to Hamilton, happy birthday to Angelica, and happy birthday to Eliza!!! We spoiled our flock quite a bit on this special day. We baked them a cake, (chicken-style), sang "Happy Birthday" to them, and threw quite the party for our dear chickens! (Although it took them a few minutes to gather up their courage and venture into the cake!) In case you wanted to try this chicken-birthday-cake-recipe for your own flock's birthday, (I highly sugge...

      Fresh Egg Anatomy May 30, 2021 (Hamilton's fresh egg cracked open into a bowl!) In my last post, I reviewed the basic anatomy of an egg. We all know that an egg is comprised of a shell, and then inside there's the yolk and the white. But an egg is actually oh-so-much-more than that! The anatomy of a fresh egg is pretty fascinating. Do you know that an egg has every nutrient needed to for life except  Vitamin C? Do you know that the white takes up about two-thirds of the volume of the contents of the eggshell and the yolk takes up the remaining one-third? And the yolk contains about half of the protein in an egg, the majority of nutrients, but also most of the fat. Do you know what the thin twisted strands are that you sometimes find in an egg? Or why the "white" is  sometimes clear and sometimes cloudy? Or how about the blood spot you sometimes find on the yolk? Albumen (Egg White) An egg white contains protein, as well as niacin, riboflavin, magnesium, p...

      Egg Anatomy May 23, 2021   (An egg laid by Angelica!) Most of you probably eat eggs regularly. They are nutritious and an inexpensive, versatile protein source. You probably crack the shell and let the insides plop into your fry pan or mixing bowl without a second thought. But did you ever wonder what exactly is inside that eggshell? Or sometimes see red spots or squiggly white strands inside and wonder what they are? Well, wonder no more.  An egg is comprised of several components including: the bloom, the shell, the membrane, the white, and the yolk. It's pretty amazing that a chicken manages to lay an egg roughly every 26 hours and within each egg is a self-contained beginning of new life, if the egg is fertile (more on that later), that contains every nutrient necessary for life except Vitamin C. Commercially sold eggs are candled before heading to grocery stores, they're generally not all that fresh, and they aren't fertilized, so you might never see ...

      All About Eggs May 16, 2021 (A carton of 24 of our hens' fresh eggs!) In this post, I'm going to share everything you ever would want or need to know about eggs. Myths such as believing that a blood spot on the yolk of an egg indicates fertility, that chickens need a rooster present in order to lay eggs, or that feeding a chicken garlic will make hers egg taste like garlic will be busted. Read on for more facts and fiction about eggs! The color of an eggshell is dictated by a hen's breed and genes (not by the color of her earlobes!). A hen lays the same color egg her whole life.  The color of the yolk is dictated by a hen's diet. Foods containing xanthophyll such as corn, marigolds and alfalfa help make egg yolks a vibrant orange color. The white of a fresh egg will be thick and gloopy.  As the egg ages, the white will start to get runny and thin. The number on a carton of eggs indicates the date the egg was packaged (i.e. 306 stamped on the carton means t...

     Common Herbs & Their Health Benefits May 9, 2021 (A pic of our herbal thyme shrub!) Culinary herbs are easy to grow and have amazing health benefits for both you and your chickens. Herbs and edible flowers look pretty and smell nice. They can help keep bugs and rodents out of your coop, aid in poultry overall health and well-being, providing essential vitamins and minerals, and also work to support the respiratory, digestive and circulatory systems. All of the culinary herbs are perfectly safe to use around the chickens, so there's no worry about any being toxic or harmful to them. (CAUTION: I would add a note of caution when using essential oils because they are extremely concentrated and can actually be harmful if you don't use them correctly.)  Stick with fresh herbs as much as possible, used dried when you don't have fresh, and toss a variety of herbs into your coop and nesting boxes any time you trim your herb plants. Here is a quick reference of some o...

     The Health Benefits Of Herbs For Chickens May 2, 2021 (An overhead pic of our herb garden!) Almost every culinary herb (plus spices and many common flowers such as roses, nasturtium, bee balm, etc.) has amazing health benefits for both humans and animals. You can grow a wide assortment of herbs to use in cooking and also in conjunction with raising your chickens. Many are perennials, such as lavender, mint, thyme and pineapple sage, or reseed themselves like dill, parsley and cilantro, so you can just add a few more annuals, such as basil, marjoram and sage each spring to achieve a varied selection of herbs. You can put fresh herbs in the nesting boxes to calm laying hens, repel insects and rodents and add an aromatic scent to the chicken coop. You can brew herbal tea for our chicks and ducklings to give them a good start in life and also for our laying hens - warm in the winter, iced in the summer. You can put fresh herbs in chick brooders for the newly hatched litt...

Crack The Egg Carton Code ~ Pt. 2 April 25, 2021 (A snapshot of the label on our store-bought egg carton!) Most likely when you hear someone talking about free-range chickens, you picture a flock of hens happily roaming a grassy pasture searching for bugs and weeds. You might even refer to your own chickens as 'free-range' even though they are confined inside your fenced-in backyard. Either way, those are some happy chickens! But when it comes to egg carton labeling, the array of terms can make your head spin. "Free-Ranging", "Cage-free", "Pasture-Raised" and then there's "Organic", "Vegetarian-Fed" and "Hormone-Free". Hopefully you don't have to rely on store bought eggs, but in case you do, let me help you decode exactly what each term means on that egg carton you see in the display case. All Natural : What You Probably Think It Means: You're likely picturing a flock of happy chickens who are fed a diet ...