Last week my husband went out to the coop to collect eggs, and he was met with a surprise: a shell-less egg. It looked just like all of the other eggs, so he didn’t notice anything was off, until he picked it up and it felt rubbery. We had our very first shell-less egg, courtesy of one of our Buff Orpingtons.

This is Bets. She’s the newest addition to our flock. She came to live with us last Saturday.

We have things we do to get our chickens ready for winter, and so do they.

Now that the days are getting shorter, they’re busy molting, so they’ll have a fresh set of feathers to help them stay warm. A couple weeks back their feathers started to fall out. Notice how thinned out this hen’s feathers look. You can clearly see the white down underlayer that’s usually completely hidden from view. It isn’t pretty, but it’s a lot prettier than the next step …

Last week a dog tried to dig under our chicken run to get at our hens, but he didn’t succeed. Why? Because we built our coop to keep predators out, and so far it’s worked. Here’s a look at the measures we have in place:

Our chickens are almost a year old now, so we don’t have any problem getting them to go into their coop at night, but that wasn’t always the case. When we first put them outside, they would just stand around in their run long after dark. And if we put them in their coop, they would just hurry right back out the door. So, how did we get them to go into their coop at night and stay there until morning?

The hormones have hit the hen house, folks. Last week, when we went out to collect eggs, we were met by a broody hen. See the crazy stand-up feathers? That’s her puffing up to protect the eggs that she’s sitting on. That lovely look also came with a not-so-lovely screech.

Upon closer inspection, we discovered that she’d also been pulling out feathers to feather her nest for the chicks that she thought she was going to have. Quite the optimist, considering that she’s never so much as laid eyes on a rooster.

Since this was our first broody, I did some research to decide how we wanted to handle the situation.

Easter egg hunts are fun, but you probably don’t want to hunt for eggs every day. Show your hens that you want them to lay in their nest boxes by sticking a fake egg in each nest box.

Egg cartons sell for $.49 each at my local Tractor Supply. The ones my neighbors save for me are free. But is it safe to reuse egg cartons?

Egg cleaning is one of the most hotly debated topics among chicken keepers. Some people are against it; some people are for it; some people favor one method over another. With so many opinions out there, it can be difficult to decide what to do. Let’s run through all the options, so you can form your own opinion.

So, our chickens have been outside for about six weeks, and you know how many times we’ve cleaned out their coop? Zero. That’s because we decided to use the deep litter system. If all goes well, we’ll only clean out their coop once a year. Here’s how it works:

When you buy eggs from the grocery store, you probably just stick the carton in the fridge and call it good, but what about when you’re dealing with eggs from your own chickens? Is there anything special that you need to do to store them properly?

A few things. But it’s all easy. Here’s the deal.

Pellets or crumbles should make up the bulk of your chickens’ diet – they provide the calcium and protein that your flock needs to stay healthy and to lay well – but it’s perfectly okay to give them kitchen scraps, too. And you’ll be wildly popular, if you do. Here’s a list of the things that you can feed your chickens:

Chickens will eat just about anything you give them, but there are some things that aren’t good for them. Here’s a list of things that you shouldn’t feed your chickens:

New to chicken keeping? Use this diagram to familiarize yourself with all of their parts.

This is our first winter with chickens, so we’ve been busy making preparations to ensure our girls will be comfortable all season long. Here’s a look at what we’ve done:

I’m reposting this so you can see all of the improvements that we’ve made since we built our coop. Hopefully this will give you some ideas for your own coop.

Our girls are 10 days shy of five months. Check out those wattles and that comb. Very fancy. It won’t be long until they start laying!

I haven’t shared any pictures of our chickens since they were a month old, so I thought I’d snap a few today. They’re now 3.5 months old, and as mischievous as ever. I’ve had to take several breaks from writing this to steer them away from my pumpkin and tomato vines – apparently they’re today’s special. Usually they’re content to munch on my weeds, but you do have to keep an eye on them.