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How to a gorgerous garden with chickens free ranging
10 Tips for Gardening with Backyard Chickens

10 Tips for Gardening with Backyard Chickens

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Having a nice yard and garden as well as eating fresh homegrown produce is something many of us enjoy, including backyard chickens. Here are some of my favorite gardening practices for keeping happy free range chickens and still having a productive garden for the family. Don’t keep more chickens than you really need.  The more chickens you have, the more damage you get.  I can’t stress this one enough. Fence off the vegetable garden area with permanent fencing.  Picket fences…

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Weird Egg

Weird Egg

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Have you ever gotten a weird egg? The first time we got one, it sure seemed bizarre.  If you keep chickens long enough, you are bound to eventually get one, too.   My neighbor came over and asked me last week “Why is her Easter Egger laying shell less eggs?”  She is not the crazy chicken lady that I am, and has yet to read every chicken book she could get her hands on.  This was her first chicken to…

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pretty chicken coop in the garden
A Clever Automatic Coop Door – No Electricity or Battery Needed

A Clever Automatic Coop Door – No Electricity or Battery Needed

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I feel a automatic coop door opener is a must have for every urban chicken keeper, especially if your spouse, like mine, is not too keen about being woken up at dawn everyday by hens anxious about getting on with their business for the day. However, getting power to a coop can be a challenge and some of the battery powered or solar powered automatic door openers can be very expensive. I stumbled on to this nifty automatic coop door…

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Is sand okay for bedding in a chicken coop
A bad experience with sand in the chicken run

A bad experience with sand in the chicken run

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Sand vs. Shavings is one of those things, each chicken keeper has their own personal preference, based on their run situation and location of their coop. In 2008 when I was in the planning stages of building my chicken coop, a few individuals in the online chicken community were heavily promoting the use of sand in a chicken run. They made it sound like the best thing since sliced bread. None of my chicken keeping resource books mentioned using it as…

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Joint Custody

Joint Custody

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My two broody hens stared at each other in their separate nests for the last 4 weeks, on fake eggs and then on the fertile Cochin eggs I bought on ebay.  I had been thinking about the possibility of letting them sit with their chicks together, too.  However, most of the expert chicken sources recommend separating broody hens from the rest of the flock and from each other.  I have read a few horror stories on backyardchickens.com where two broody…

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Loud Ducks

Loud Ducks

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How loud are ducks? At 6AM, when I am trying to enjoy a few extra minutes of sleep, they seem really loud. The quaking started shortly after dawn this morning.  At first is was a soft quacking. Then all 3 joined in. The snails and slugs are in plague like proportions right now and at one point, the ducks must have been celebrating when they discovered the bounty within the agapanthus. As a urban homesteader, this would not be that…

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Not Breaking My Broody Hen

Not Breaking My Broody Hen

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Just recently my buff bantam Cochin, Daisy, decided it was time try to start another brood of chicks.  Crazy moody hen!  Her chicks from the last batch are only 11 weeks old this week.  She had only been back to laying for about 3 weeks when she started talking broody and staked out her territory in the nest area again.  Lucky for her, my son’s white Cochin, THX1138, also went broody within a day or two of her.  The poor…

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Chickens Anonymous

Chickens Anonymous

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As many urban chicken keepers will attest, backyard chickens can be addictive.  And for flock owners, like myself, who often have non chicken keeping friends’ eyes glaze over at the mere mention of chickens, there is help out there.  It is in a social network at MeetUp: Los Angeles Urban Chicken Enthusiasts (although I have over heard a few members jokingly call Chicken Addiction Anonymous.) When I first joined in April of 2010,  Los Angeles Urban Chicken Enthusiasts, or LAUCE…

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pullet easter egger hatchery
Old Wives Tales of Chick Sexing

Old Wives Tales of Chick Sexing

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This year my daughter, B, wanted to come up with a chicken science project.  Why?  Because it was a great excuse to get a whole bunch of baby chicks.  She really didn’t have to twist my arm too hard.  I love having chicks around, and we had a broody hen, so I agreed to let her do it.  She came up with the idea to test out a bunch of the old wives tales on sexing the chicks at day old. …

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The Furry Freeway

The Furry Freeway

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There are regular sightings of opossums, squirrels, and rats in our neighborhood; and the majority of these sightings are along the Furry Freeway, as my husband calls it.  It is the system of the power and utility lines that run overhead between the park and the houses.  The connecting lines are a safe expressway where they are able to by-pass the dogs and cats below on the ground, confined in fenced backyards. The power poles down into the yards are…

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