Jennifer Sartell

Ducks are not chickens.   This may seem like an obvious statement but if you’re a seasoned chicken keeper and want to get into to ducks, know that they have very different needs and present a unique set of obstacles.   I have a soft spot for ducks. I find them simply adorable. Not that […]

The Iron Oak Farm Year of the Chicken   It’s Spring! And for most, the chicken keeping year starts in the spring. Perhaps you’re bringing home your first chicks, or maybe last year’s pullets are beginning to lay. Maybe you’re collecting eggs for the incubator, or maybe you’re a seasoned chicken keeper who’s just thankful […]

I thought with the new chick season among us, some of you might be considering adding a few turkeys to the backyard flock. Our local feed store usually gets in a variety of fowl in addition to chickens; including ducks, guineas, turkeys and last year they even had quail and geese. One of the most […]

It’s that time of year again! We visited our local feed store to buy goat grain the other night, and as soon as the sliding doors parted we could hear the familiar “peep, peep, peeping” of all the new 2016 baby chicks. When I was a teenager, I remember there was only one store in […]

The chicken, of all the farm animals, has made our lives pretty easy as far as egg collection is concerned. Simply provide them a box, and they will deposit a neatly packaged protein source available for easy retrieval. It’s like a mailbox for breakfast. But being that the nesting box is what holds our “food […]

Winter can be a challenging month for chicken keepers. Each day we must brave the cold temperatures to care for our flocks. Paths must be shoveled to the coop, the hoses freeze so all water must be brought out in buckets, and it can be a challenge to keep the water we haul our from […]

It’s always been a goal of mine to take one of our chickens to a show to be judged. I love the idea of raising the perfect, gorgeous bird and bringing home the blue ribbon. Over the years, that goal has lingered in the back of my head while we dabbled with other venues of […]

The first of the year is approaching rapidly. Many times thoughts of healthy resolutions, eating better, exercising and overall wellness start to enter everyone’s thoughts. A fresh, new start to a promising year. I’ve found that it’s also a good time to think about re-examining the health of the animals on our farm. The goats […]

(Congratulations to Laura Williamson, the winner of the Sarah Rosedahl books, Illustrated Chicken Breeds A to Z, and the Coloring Book Companion.) When I wrap Christmas presents, I like the wrapping to say something about the interests of the person. My husband Zach is an outdoor-sy man so I often wrap his presents in simple […]

Winter is here. The days are getting shorter and as a result, the chickens need to be secured in their coop earlier and earlier to be safe from nocturnal predators. Chickens are all but blind at night so their ability to escape danger once the sun goes down is pretty much non-existent. One of the […]