Category Archives: Chickens

Meat Chickens

Posted on July 25, 2015 by jrh

Our first batch of 2015 broilers is ready for processing.  We raised Cornish Cross again this year, after experimenting in past years with both Rainbow Rangers and various heritage breeds.  All have their relative plusses and minuses, but for eating … Continue reading →

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Chickens to Pasture!

Posted on May 4, 2015 by jrh

Spring is decisively here, so we detached the mobile chicken coop from the winter hoop house and brought the birds up to their first pasture spot. I’m always amused by the sight of our small SUV (the closest we have … Continue reading →

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Standing guard

Posted on August 10, 2014 by jrh

Our chickens are temporarily free to range the entire property, rather than just their usual amply large run. These three hens have ventured quite far from the regular chicken area, and Bucky the rooster came with them for protection, I … Continue reading →

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Learning to chicken

Posted on May 8, 2014 by jrh

I see many advantages to natural chick brooding: no need for industrial-scale hatcheries, no energy use or fire risk from brooding lamps, and general DIY goodness. But perhaps the biggest advantage is big grown-up chickens getting to teach the babies … Continue reading →

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Hello, world!

Posted on May 7, 2014 by jrh

Four of the six eggs Buffy has been sitting in for the last three weeks have hatched! The other two appear to have developed embryos in them, so we’ll give it another day to see if they’re just late pippers. … Continue reading →

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Expecting

Posted on May 6, 2014 by jrh

We’ve had a lot going on, and are far behind on blogging about it.  Time flies, whether you’re busily using the first few warm weeks of spring or sitting on a half-dozen hopefully fertile eggs, as Buffy is. According to … Continue reading →

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Sprung!

Posted on April 21, 2014 by jrh

Wow, it seems like the few tantalizing bits of spring we had just last week all intensified almost overnight. We had planned to spend the weekend focused on building a treehouse in the woods, and were making progress until Saturday … Continue reading →

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Springing

Posted on April 17, 2014 by jrh

The typical phrase is “spring has sprung”, and while that may be meteorologically true (recent snow notwithstanding), we’ve got so much springtime stuff coming up in the next few weeks that the present progressive “springing” seems more apropos. Next week … Continue reading →

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Picking up after pruning

Posted on April 12, 2014 by jrh

We’re taking advantage of a non-cold non-rainy day to get the pruned branches out of the garden/orchard area before the April showers make the ground too soggy to drive on. With chicken helpers, of course.

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Catch-up Pruning

Posted on April 1, 2014 by jrh

When we arrived at this land it had twenty or so mature fruit trees, most of which appeared to have been trained and pruned at one point, but seemingly not since the 20th century.  We pruned a few last year, … Continue reading →

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