Life on the Farm
Eggs laid on the coop floor, appropriately called “floor eggs,” easily get dirty or cracked. They are unsanitary to eat and unsuitable for hatching. Plus a cracked egg is likely to get broken, making a mess. Hens will sample the...
Sweet potatoes were considered to be a winter holiday treat in my family, until we moved to Tennessee. Now they have become a basic staple. The main reason we learned how to grow sweet potatoes is that regular potatoes don’t...
Taste buds determine what chickens can and can’t taste, which in turn determines what a chicken prefers to eat. Taste buds therefore have an important impact on a chicken’s health and productivity. Until 1904, researchers believed birds didn’t have any...
The cecum is a blind pouch that branches off the juncture of the small and large intestine. Humans have only one, but chickens have two. A chicken’s cecal droppings differ from regular intestinal droppings. The word cecum comes from the...
Like most newbie goat owners, I started out with the notion that bottle feeding and weaning dairy goat kids is mandatory. After several years of keeping Nubian dairy goats it dawned on me that I wasn’t doing my goats or...
What to do when you wake up in the morning to below freezing temperatures and the power out? For me, first thing I want is a cup of hot coffee to jump-start my brain. But with the power out, my...
The best cornmeal I ever tasted came from a fellow I met in Georgia while attending a Mule Day event some years ago. He had grown and milled the corn himself, using mules, of course. That cornmeal I brought home...
A rule of thumb is a general guideline that offers a starting place, but does not strictly apply in every specific circumstance. Adjustments may be necessary when a rule of thumb doesn’t exactly fit your situation. Chicken keeping rules of...
Treading, or the rapid movements of a rooster’s feet while mating, can result in feather loss and deep wounds on a hen’s back and shoulders. To prevent such injuries, and to protect deplumed areas while feathers grow back, hens may...
That chicken soup is magic medicine was known as far back as the 12th century, when it was extolled for its ability to relieve respiratory symptoms caused by the common cold. More recently Stephen Rennard, MD, proved that chicken soup...
