My Pet Chicken Blog

Before I got chickens, I pictured them as rather easily spooked, nervous, flighty. But nothing seems further from the truth. When I walk outside, they don’t scatter and run away. Instead, I am the target of a chicken stampede. If you keep chickens, you know what I mean. Wherever they are in the yard, they [...]

I wrote a post a while ago, entitled “three ways chickens will freak you out.” A recent comment by a reader reminded me of another way chickens can freak you out, and it inspired me to share the story of how I almost gave our chicken sitter a heart attack! Poor John. He didn’t take his “chicken sitter” duties [...]

Glamping: have you heard of it? It’s “glamorous camping.” Glamping in Vintage Trailers is now A Thing. In fact, not too long ago, I got  an old vintage Shasta that I plan to restore. West Virginia is a fabulous place for camping, and a vintage trailer to glamp with is just what I needed!  I [...]

My friend Jesse, owner/instructor at the Hot Tomato Pinup Academy,  recently shared a story with me about a battle she once had with an aggressive rooster belonging to her family. This is one reason I love my job so much: I get to hear the best, most entertaining stories about chickens, not to mention that [...]

If you haven’t read the previous stories about Hildy, let me introduce her to you. She was our blind hen, and one of our favorites. She lost her sight when she was young, and had only very limited vision throughout the rest of her life. From what we could tell, she seemed to be able to [...]

Can you save money on chickens? You bet! Keeping chickens is inexpensive and rewarding… and everyone seems to want to keep chickens these days. After all, chicken feed is synonymous with cheap, and you also get the benefit of beautiful, healthy eggs and fun pets. There is an upfront cost to get started, though, and that [...]

How can you teach a blind hen to forage if she can’t see what’s on the ground? That was the problem that presented itself to us when Hildy learned to go outside. When our blind hen learned to use the coop door to come outside, we were thrilled—but also frightened and worried for her.

One of our biggest worries relating to Hildy our blind hen was that, while she had learned to leave the coop, she hadn’t learned how to go back in. This made a certain amount of sense, given her disability. After all, when leaving the coop in the morning, she was going toward a bright patch [...]

I recently taught my first backyard chicken class–what a blast! Over the years, I’ve answered a lot of chicken-related questions, but I find that hands-on demonstrations really help with in-depth understanding. This was the first official chicken class I’ve taught… but honestly I’ve taught “unofficially” for years. For instance, we’ve had guests and friends to [...]

For the first few years, our blind hen Hildy didn’t ever leave the coop on her own. This was something of a relief. After she recovered from her injury and learned to find the feeder on her own, it gave her unmolested time to eat and drink from the feeders and waterers, since the rest [...]