My Pet Chicken Blog

I’ve sort of hesitated writing about Hildy, my blind hen. Why? I get emotional about her. Of all the chickens I’ve had, she was one of my absolute favorites. She died a little more than a year ago. But I was looking through some old photographs, and I made it through without crying, so maybe [...]

At My Pet Chicken, we get lots of questions from folks who would like assistance with chicken breed identification. We can often help… but sometimes we just aren’t given enough information to provide an educated guess! So, be sure to provide details. A picture is always helpful, but keep in mind that it will have [...]

One of the mistakes I initially made years ago when choosing my chicken breeds was that I didn’t understand that there was a difference between cold hardy breeds and winter layers. To me, a breed that was described as cold hardy was bound to be a winter layer, too. But that’s not true. It’s just not the [...]

Bearded chickens. When it comes to choosing chicken breeds, I go for beards. Why do I love them so much? I’m not sure quite why, but bearded hens to me look especially lovely. Seems a beard might make a girl look masculine, but not in the case of chickens—at least not to me. The fancy [...]

Roosters can be a challenge sometimes. Don’t get me wrong–I love roosters! But they can be territorial and protective of what they regard as “their” hens. That’s part of their charm, of course, but when they compete with one another too much, they can hurt each other, or even hurt the hens! When you have multiple [...]

Chocolate egg layers are chocolate egg layers, right?  Wrong. Check out this photo: Clearly we have two different colors of chocolate, here! If you want to be more confident of the egg color you’ll have in the end, there are a five things you’ll want to keep in mind as you’re planning your flock:

In May, I posted a teaser about some new breeds we were starting, and asked you all which breeds YOU wanted most to see us carry. I’m so happy to announce that some of those breeds are now available! As hatching eggs, we have Cream Legbars, and as baby chicks we now offer Blue Ameraucanas [...]

If you keep a flock of pet chickens, you probably already know that Black Copper Marans are one of THE trendiest breeds right now. Everyone seems to want them. Aside from Penedesencas (which can be too flighty and nervous for the home flock), they lay the darkest brown eggs out there. The eggs are 80% [...]

Last week I told you about my Favaucanas. Favaucanas are half Salmon Faverolles and half Wheaten Ameraucana. We were a little surprised, to say the least, by the overwhelming positive reaction. There were lots of comments on that blog post and on Facebook requesting Favaucana eggs to hatch… and many emails requesting them, as well. [...]

Favaucanas. Boy, do I love them! … what, you’ve never heard of Favaucana chickens?!! I can’t believe it! Just kidding. I’m not really surprised–naturally, you wouldn’t have heard of Favaucanas. There is no such thing as a Favauacana, not really… at least, not officially. They exist only in my flock, and probably a few other LUCKY [...]