Teaching Young Guineas to Range — But Not Too Far! Audrey Stallsmith shares stories and tips for keeping your free-range loving guineas closer to home. Time for a New Flock Many years have elapsed since my elderly parents and I hatched 20 guinea eggs in a homemade incubator constructed from a Styrofoam cooler. Most of […]

Want to own backyard birds, but don’t have the room or time for chickens? Alexandra Douglas shows you how to acquire, hatch, and brood tiny, beautiful Coturnix quail. Intriguing Alternative to Chickens With the popularity of raising your own birds for meat and eggs, Coturnix quail are becoming the alternative to chickens and other fowl […]

No matter the age of the student, there is something to learn in witnessing the hatching process. Whether it’s a toddler in preschool or a senior in High School, the miracle of birth is always a fascinating moment. Heck! I’m 37 and I’ve hatched hundreds of chicks, and I’m still learning and seeing new things […]

I’ve been incubating my own eggs for about 10 years now. My advice to anyone starting out is to get the most foolproof incubator you can afford. I tend to be a minimalist at heart when it comes to projects. If there’s a simple tool that can do double duty, or if a task takes […]

A few weeks ago I started the evening chores like every other night. I grabbed the wire egg basket from the front porch and headed to the chicken coop. I collected eggs from our Buff Orpington pen, our Leghorn pen, and our Araucana and Olive Egger pen. When I went into the French Black Copper […]

I originally bought this small manufactured cool to be our Silkie pen. But after seeing how handy it is with our teenage chickens I may decide to buy another one for next year’s teens. Grow-out Pens A holding place for chickens after they’ve left the brooder but before they’re old enough to enter the adult […]

I just came in from our coops with a basket of eggs. These eggs will not be eaten. Instead, they will be going into my incubator. I mark the breed and the date with a pencil and set them in a labeled egg carton until I have enough to fill the incubator. This is one […]

In this series, I’m going to break down the five most important parts to setting up a quality brooder for chicks. The brooder, heat supply, bedding material, food/water containers, and all the extras. With so many great options out in the stores today it can feel pretty overwhelming picking out the supplies needed to create […]

The time to set up your brooder?  Well before you walk into the local feed store and hear peeping, or drool over the latest hatchery catalog.  Give yourself time to do it right. If you go the mother nature route and plan on one of your mama hens doing all the work, it still may […]

In this incubation guide, I will take you through the common terms, temperatures, times, and humidity levels for common, assorted backyard poultry. Often times, when people new to hatching are researching how to carry out the process, seasoned breeders will throw out terms that perhaps not everyone is familiar with. Hopefully, this will act as […]