Every summer we sharpen up our knives and roll out the plucker in order to put the chickens in the freezer. (If you can't handle pictures of dead chickens then I suggest you don't continue to read this blog post.) The pictures that are posted aren't too graphic in my humble opinion, so if you want to learn how to process your own chicken, keep on reading. First you want to not feed your chickens for the last 12-24 hours because there is less mess when you are gutting them. Ma

On our farm we have decided that raising meat chickens to sell locally is a great way to get some cash flow and get our family to work together. One of our boys does a lot of the care for the birds in order to earn a commission on the sale of the birds. In other words if he forgets that he is the manager of these birds and they die, he will earn less money. He takes care of them in the morning, making sure they have plenty of water and feed for the day. He also needs to obser

Why would someone want to start a farm? We started our farm on accident. We just wanted a few fresh eggs from a handful of chickens living in the backyard. Nobody warned us that it is a slippery slope! Slippery Slope that we are still sliding down! We had no idea how empowering it is, to be able to control what is being put into our food. How crazy satisfying it is, to sit down to a delicious meal that we had a huge part in raising. Once you manage to keep a dozen chickens al

There are great ways to manage chickens and here are some pointers that our farm does in order to keep our birds occupied, to benefit our yard and to keep away predators. If you follow these pointers your chickens will really benefit long term. The first pointer is... 1. Clean out your hen house once a year. Yep, you heard right! There is no reason to do any more work then you need to! Because from now on, you are going to be using the Deep Litter System. Once a year, clean o

This last summer, we decided that it just wasn't fair for people in our community to not have the chance to buy homegrown, out on the pasture chicken. Why should their only option be flavorless chicken from the store? We already had plenty of experience raising chickens so we ordered 240 Freedom Ranger chicks. Our goal was to sell 200 of them and whatever was left, we would keep for our own freezer. Freedom Rangers are made to be able to forage and be slightly smarter than a

Seriously, can you find a more perfect food than Farm fresh eggs? I think not. Every morning, I have my favorite breakfast. Eggs!!! Eggs cooked perfectly. Eggs cooked just right. Not just any ol eggs from the store, but from the lovely hens we have on our farm! Totally excited still! Before having a farm fresh egg, I don't ever remember enjoying a fried egg. It all started when one of my friend's cooked me an egg that came from her backyard flock. I had no idea what was missi

I believe that one of the first steps for us on our homesteading journey was building our chicken coop. Actually maybe the first step was being at a friend's house and she cooked me a fresh egg. I could not believe it was an egg! Is this an egg? How can this be an egg? I felt cheated. I lived into my late 20's and had no idea that eggs were supposed to taste like this! Has anybody else had this experience, besides me? We built our chicken coop in 2008. Sometimes you just have

I really like the idea of a hen choosing to sit on a clutch of eggs to hatch into chicks. It took me a few years to get the right information in order to have a nest of chicks to hatch. Do you think it is weird for a species to not have the ability to reproduce? For decades, poultry producers have been working to breed out the broodiness of hens. One of the reasons; and it makes sense, if you are in it to make money off of eggs, once a hen goes broody, then she just sits the