My Pet Chicken Blog

Aargh! Are ye a chicken pirate? I kept chickens for over many years before I became a pirate. What took so long? Well, even though I’d had lots of chickens, none of them chose to be “shoulder birds,” until two of the birds from a 2016 batch of chicks from My Pet Chicken. “Brahma Mama,” […]

As you begin your chick raising journey, you’ll be faced with a variety of common challenges and mistakes when it comes to baby chick care. A few of those challenges begin the moment you hit that lovely purchase button and submit your order. Even the most expert among us make mistakes sometimes (yes, that should […]

One customer’s story of too much chick grit…. Too much chick grit can be harmful to your newly delivered flock. One of our customers, Cindy (not her real name) excitedly picked up her peeping balls of fluff from the post office. She quickly took them home and settled them in their new brooder. They all […]

This is the story of Helen, my little cross beak Easter Egger. She is a survivor, to say the least, and has completely captured my heart. Helen was not expected to live very long, yet she is now three and a half years old already! She recently moved out of the main coop and is […]

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 the best parts about working at My Pet Chicken is being able to talk about chickens, all day long, with people who like talking about chickens!  We discuss young birds, and old birds and everything in between. If you’ve just caught the chicken-fever, you know what I am talking about when I say […]

If I could find one word to describe Poultry Congress this year, it would be something between crazy, and loud! Located on the fairgrounds known regiionally for the “Big E” fair, the Northeastern Poultry Congress is an event in mid January that poultry enthusiasts in the northeast look forward to all year. Between the rows and rows of […]

Connecticut’s state motto: “He who is transplanted still sustains.” This is so fitting! We moved in November of 2013 from a rural/suburban New England town to our current residence in Connecticut, and have been fighting ever since to sustain our dwindling flock of chickens. While we had run-ins with predators at our old haunt—including raccoons, hawks and coyote—it […]

My 5 year old daughter is really into dinosaurs right now. I mean REALLY into dinosaurs. We read books, collect toys, watch dinosaur cartoons and she forces me to try to pronounce things like carcharodontosaurus or Velociraptor mongoliensis. So anything we find that we can read about these reptiles, we will. While she’s into dinosaurs, […]

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.  […]