My Pet Chicken Blog

It’s time to clean the chicken coop again and we have 4 compost methods for using chicken manure in your garden. While coop cleaning is not the best part of owning chickens, it’s definitely necessary. You are left with a pile of bedding and droppings, also known as the second-best thing a chicken can give […]

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 […]

Spring has almost arrived! March 20th, 2020 is the spring equinox and we will all soon be enjoying more sunlight hours, with earlier dawns and later sunsets. (Thank goodness….) Here’s my March backyard chicken checklist to help you prepare for spring with chickens. 1.Incorporate chickens into your garden plans Gardening is the whole reason I […]

Welcome to winter! Are your girls being stingy with their eggs like mine are? I live in New England, and it is bitter cold. The wind makes it just plain ole raw. My girls are also getting older. Right now, I am getting barely any eggs, and when I can trudge through the weather into […]

I will admit this up-front: I want my garden to be great.  Not just okay, but great.  But here’s the problem: I don’t want to work hard. Here’s how I trick my chickens into growing my garden. Yes, I’m a lazy gardener. Thankfully, chickens are NOT lazy. They love to forage, and that can help make […]

Gardening with chickens: You may have visions of living the good life, the agricultural life, and being more sustainable by producing your own garden veggies and chicken eggs in your backyard. But the trick is being properly prepared for the challenges. For instance, the pet chickens you love so much are not going to respect your garden […]

It’s February, and time to get the backyard gardening blood rousted and roiling full tile boogie! I must somehow confound my husband into delivering and distributing several loads of chicken poo infused pine shavings over our potato bed. 

I feel blessed to have a small chunk of this earth to call my own. I really do want to make the best of it. Yet, my efforts to create the attractive and productive outdoor space that I imagine have been woefully inadequate.  While I dream of harvesting homegrown crops to feed my family the way […]

How many of us have some unwanted  garden helpers? I may have a few chicken garden helpers here and there. Likely story, Nugget. No one is buying it. I could put in a higher fence, as even my fattest hens can easily scale my low, 4-foot fence when the motivation is free reign of the garden… […]

It’s seed catalog time! If you garden, you’re probably already being tempted by all the things you can order… but you have to do extra thinking when deciding what plants to grow when you keep pet chickens. There are some good steps to take to combine chickens and gardening–you definitely want to think ahead. Chickens want to […]