My Pet Chicken Blog

One of my must-have supplies for backyard homesteading is First Saturday lime. Garden lime (no, not the citrus plant!) is a rock powder that is widely used in organic gardening. Garden lime is alternately called limestone, agricultural lime, aglime, or just plain lime. It’s all-natural, safe for pets and kids, and it’s organic-compliant. (You can […]

Start the new year off right and keep your backyard chicken flock clean and organized with our January backyard chicken checklist. Learn about chicken care tips and must-have products to help your flock get through winter. 1. Give your flock outside access. Even if you think it’s too cold, give your chickens access to the […]

As a My Pet Chicken Customer Service Rep, I receive health-related questions from y’all almost daily. A common question is about what appears to be a pasty butt in older chickens. In my experience, this is usually a case of “vent gleet,” so I wanted to share what I know about it with you. A […]

Chicken Activist Sally Bird—or as she is affectionately known, “One-Eyed Sal”—is a Barred Plymouth Rock and an activist for change within chicken-kind, an outspoken critic of the pecking order as it now stands, and an influential member of her flock.  She granted us an exclusive interview from her coop and run on a lovely spring […]

It’s the Chicken Consultant again! You know me…chicken chatting is my profession. That in itself is difficult enough to explain to people when they run into me at the store, at a party or simply out and about in town.  It does for sure cause a hold up on my errand days though. My store trip can go […]

If you keep chickens and haven’t yet heard about the FDA’s recent rules and standards changes please take a moment to read them. In this post, we’ll provide some small flock guidelines and reminders to help you understand what this means for your pet chickens. New rules set in place for increased food safety and security have changed the […]

While most of the eggs your hens will lay are going to be  normal, to start off October on a Halloween-ey note, I thought we’d take a moment to discuss the lash egg, which is grossest egg you’ll ever see from your flock… if you enter the Twilight Zone! BWA-HAHAHAHA! (That was my evil laugh.) But the tale I’m […]

I’m a customer service rep here at My Pet Chicken, which means I’ve held the hands of countless beginners. I’ve laughed at your stories. I’ve helped you troubleshoot. I’ve placed hundreds of chick orders for you. I’ve assured you your breed selection is a good one. (You can hardly go wrong, after all!) And I’ve […]

Recently we’ve been asked about a pretty sensational story: whether the deaths of some chickens purportedly caused by necrotic enteritis (NE) were due to using feed or chicken feed supplements mixed at home. We think there must be some confusion somewhere in the chain of information, a misunderstanding that should be cleared up. Let’s get this out of […]

If you sell or give away your eggs, or have friends and neighbors over to visit your chickens — and you don’t have farm insurance — you could find yourself in hot water. (Hint: if you don’t know whether you have farm insurance, you don’t have it.) If you’re like most chicken keepers, you’re an unabashed […]