Want to raise your own chickens for meat? Here’s a FREE chapter on determining how many chicks to order from our new book “Dinner From Scratch: How To Raise Meat Chickens”

If you’ve ever wondered how satisfying it might be to raise your own meat, we’ve got a new book for you to check out.  It’s called “Dinner From Scratch: How to Raise Meat Chickens“.  And it has everything you need to know, from detailed materials lists, to step by step guidance for every phase, to checklists you can use daily to ensure everything is moving along smoothly.  Plus some personal reflection thrown in to keep us grounded.

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.   

Trending: Ducks are not chickens

Did you spot our new ducklings on Instagram last week?  We now have 10 pekin ducklings that we are going to raise for meat.  And after raising hundreds of chickens, we are learning that ducks are a very different bird.  We have a ways to go before we feel more confident about ducks, but here are our initial impressions.

Putting the broilers out to pasture and building a bigger coop

Let’s get right to it. We’ve been busy lately.  The garden is mostly planted. The broilers are now outside. The new chicken coop is about 80% finished.  But boy has it been a lot of work to get to this point!  

Broiler update and our first harvest for a seasonal pie

What a lovely weekend that was!  Forget the ticks and black flies… and mosquitoes… it was a wonderful weekend for some work and play.  

Farm letter: Welcome baby chicks

After much thought, calculation, and preparation, the broiler chicks have arrived. They are a feisty bunch,  with some being so bold that they charge and peck at our fingers.  This is what we want, though. Active birds.  Broilers have a reputation of being lazy and prone to health issues, so we do a lot to encourage activity in our birds.

Why Pastured Chicken is Better than Organic [updated]

All natural. Cage free. Hormone free. Free range. No antibiotics. Organic. All these terms and more clutter the labeling for “healthy” chicken and eggs throughout the stores and markets. But what do they really mean? I’ve discussed “organic” meat already (see post here), and discovered that just because something is organic doesn’t necessarily make it perfect. In the end it comes down to the farmers themselves and how they treat their animals. It turns out that some practices are more valuable than others, too.

Why is Raising Chickens Like Swimming in the Ocean?

When we decided we were farmers, something changed in my brain, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. The first step was when we took control of a fraction of our food. Eggs. Suddenly there was one less item on the shopping list. I felt lighter, happier, just thinking of these eggs as they started appearing in our coop. Something we didn’t have to depend on others for. A drop in the bucket, maybe. But it felt like so much more. 

The Truth About Chickens Wearing Sweaters

During our first winter with chickens, I regularly took readings outside on the coldest days. One morning it was -27° F! Concerned for our hens, I trotted through the icy air to their unheated, uninsulated coop and took a reading inside. -20° F!  I was scared for our hens’ safety.

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.