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How Our Duck Nearly Died Freezing in a Blizzard
Midwest farmer shares an astonishing story about a duck, Mr. Quackers, who survived freezing to a water dish during a -30°F blizzard after missing the coop check. Rescued by slowly thawing and warming him up, he recovered in 24 hours, living inside for 8 days to heal from frostbite. The incident led to exploring safer water solutions for ducks during extreme cold.
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How to Make Sure Your Pumpkins Look Amazing All Season
Pumpkin season is finally here!! If you’re like me, you absolutely love filling your front porch with a variety of different colored and shaped pumpkins. Big ones, small ones, bumpy ones… But there’s nothing worse than bringing your pumpkins home from the patch, only to have them start rotting a week later! I’ve been growing pumpkins on our farm for about 8 years, and my husband started even before that. I’ve seen it all, and I’ve got your back. Some issues aren’t easily avoidable, and all pumpkins will rot. But with these tips you can slow that process down to hopefully get your pumpkins to last the entire season. Pick…
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Best Gardening Books for Kids
Get your kids excited about gardening with some of our favorite books! These are sure to get your kids asking questions and planning their own gardens.
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Potatoes For Beginners
Potatoes fresh from the ground are something I never knew I needed in my life. How is it even possible that they taste that much better? I don’t know. But they are so creamy and mashable and delicious. They are easy to grow, easy to store, and can be used in so many meals. Planting Your Potatoes Potatoes are a root vegetable that likes loose soil with good drainage, lots of sun, and plenty of water. Prepping Your Soil Since some pretty major growth happens underground with potatoes, it’s really important to have soil that is nice and loose. Our favorite method for creating the optimal growing conditions for potatoes…
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Onions For Beginners
Onions are a wonderful addition to your garden! They take up minimal space, are easy to plant and maintain, and can store all winter. Learn how to plant, care for, harvest and store your onions.
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How to Coop Train Guinea Fowl
Did you even know you needed to coop train guinea fowl? Guineas are wild birds, with minds of their own. They take a long time to feel like a place is home, and like to roam. This makes keeping them around a bit of a challenge if you don’t take the right steps to ensure they know where home is. Here are the exact methods we have used in successfully training our guineas to return to our coop each and every night. It’s Much Easier to Coop Train Keets Starting off with guinea keets is one of the best ways to ensure they stick around. Adult birds have just been…
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All Natural Coop Disinfectant
If you keep chickens, you’re going to get familiar with poop. Chickens poop….like a lot. Not only while they are running around, but they continue to let it loose as they sleep. All this manure in your coop is the perfect breeding ground for bacteria and flies in the warmer months. Yuck. Every time you clean the coop and change their bedding, you should be disinfecting. But don’t think you need to turn to harmful chemicals and toxic cleaners to get the job done. Use my favorite home made natural disinfectant instead. ORANGE AND VINEGAR NATURAL DISINFECTANT Making your own non toxic and natural disinfectant is so easy and so inexpensive.…
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9 Reasons You Need Guinea Fowl
Guinea fowl are a unique and wonderful addition to your homestead. They are a natural way to control pests, and help to protect your chickens by sounding the alarm when a predator is near.
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Do I Need a Rooster??
You must have started, or be thinking about starting your own flock of chickens! Yay! Congratulations! You are about to start the most rewarding journey as a hobby farmer. I like to call chickens, the “gateway animal.” Give it some time, and you’ll see what I mean 😉 A question I get asked rather frequently is: Do I need a rooster to get eggs? Answer: NO!!! Your chickens will lay eggs with or without a roo. Their reproductive cycles are not determined by whether or not fertilization occurs. Each breed produces and lays eggs at a slightly different rate. And environmental factors such as the amount of daylight a hen…
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Why Aren’t My Chickens Laying in the Winter
This article contains affiliate links. This means if you click through and make a purchase I may receive a commission, at no additional cost to you. For more information see my disclosures here. Over the summer you were getting an abundance of eggs each day. So many that maybe you didn’t even know what to do with them! Then fall rolled around, and things started to slow down. By December…. you were lucky to find one lone egg in the nesting boxes. What gives?! Just like everything, eggs have a season. There are periods of high production, and periods of slow to no production. It’s all part of a healthy…
