FREE Download: Egg Cost Calculator and Hen Productivity Tracker

Have you ever wondered how much you’re spending on the eggs your hens lay?  Are you saving money by not buying from the store?  Here’s an easy to use, FREE calculator to figure out exactly how much you pay for a dozen of your own backyard eggs.   

Kale and Winter Squash Strata [recipe]

I am a huge fan of breakfast, I  wish we could have breakfast meals all day long!  It is one of the main reasons I wanted to get chickens, in order to have fresh eggs every day.

Healthy Winter Squash Muffins [recipe]

I don’t think there anything better than warm bread from the oven. Oh, maybe warm bread with a slab of butter melting on it after emerging from the oven, mmmmm and the crack of the crust, and teeth sinking into a soft crumb.   Ahhh.  But most days, I don’t want to wait for the sourdough starter, and then firm starter to rise, and then playing with the dough and waiting. The quicker path to satisfaction is a muffin. The texture is there and it takes under an hour from opening the recipe to having a warm muffin in hand. And what a great snack for a chilly winter day, sitting with a cup of tea or warm in your pocket as you wander in the snow onto the next adventure.

HAPPY CHALLAH-WEEN (Pumpkin Challah Bread recipe)

We picked up some amazing pumpkins at White Gates Farm and one is just aching to become our jack-o-lantern. The pie pumpkins have been our table centerpieces.  I love pumpkins in the fall and winter because they store well, they can be added to many dishes for a depth of flavor (and vitamins and nutrients).  They make great baby puree and blends.  But the desserts are really why we know and love pumpkins the most. 

Eggs and Coffee

At the sounds of the eldest stirring, I roll out of bed. The chickens are already making a racket.  I head to the wood stove and crush the newspaper and build the fire. I’m trying to beat my wife’s feet to the floor, but today I am going to be too slow.

Toys for Chickens to Reduce Pecking and Stress

It is very important to keep your chickens entertained, because, well, bored chickens can become all out blood-thirsty maniacs.  I mean it.

For chickens, the best entertainment is pecking any and everything around them, including each other.  Chicken on chicken violence really isn’t pretty and needs to be managed to reduce risk of injury.  And injuries can lead to death!  Emotional attachments aside, if one of our hens died prematurely we’d be losing a fairly significant investment.  We had to feed them for about 4-6 months before they started actually laying eggs, and 4-6 months of chicken feed isn’t cheap.

And even if a chicken doesn’t get ruthlessly murdered by its companions, all that pecking can be stressful, and a stressed out chicken isn’t a healthy chicken, and an unhealthy chicken doesn’t lay as well as a healthy chicken.  Thus happy chickens = plentiful fried egg breakfasts.

So the solution is obvious, they just need something more interesting to peck than each other.  Read on for some of our best ideas.