My Pet Chicken Blog

Now that fall has arrived, many of my hens are either molting or have just finished the process.  Some of my molting hens lose feathers very gradually and the only obvious sign that they are in a molt are lots of fallen feathers littering the run and yard.  Others lose many feathers all at once.  […]

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 […]

Every so often, I give in to one of my persistent broodies and let her raise chicks for me. I wasn’t planning to raise any more chicks this year, but couldn’t resist when my cute broody bantam hen became broody again.  Typically, my broody hens raise their babies outdoors, but I’ve found that my chicks raised outdoors, with less human interaction, tend to […]

The season is here; my girls have officially begun molting. The question now is: What to do with their fallen feathers? They’re so pretty, it seems like a waste to just let them blow away. When I first started keeping chickens years ago, I would spend fall days walking around the yard and plucking up […]

Chocolate egg layers are chocolate egg layers, right?  Wrong. Check out this photo: Clearly we have 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: