free range chickens Archives - Life is Better with Chickens

Renata and the Case of the Bulging Wattles: A Chicken with a Tick Bite

Tue, 27 Feb 2024 06:00:36 +0000

This story begins with some bad, sad, hard news: in early December we lost one of our two sweet tiny twins to an in-coop hawk attack. More about “coop maintenance (super hard) lessons learned” to come. This left our sweet Renata a tiny gal without a tiny pal. Chicken body language can be ambivalent at...

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A Chicken with a Tick Bite appeared first on Life is Better with Chickens.

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Lang, the Fox, and a bit about Chicken Predators

Tue, 03 Oct 2023 06:00:17 +0000

It was a late August afternoon. I was on the phone with a friend when I heard a wild cacophony of clucking and bah-gawking circling the house. I looked out the side porch and saw the silver blur of Lang dart by, and then what my eye-brain synapses decided was (taking in a big fluffy...

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Minnie and the Mystery Malady: When Your Chicken Gets an Insect Bite

Tue, 15 Aug 2023 06:00:42 +0000

It was late on a Monday afternoon in mid-July in east Tennessee. A real warm day, by local standards. I was about to corral the chickie girls into their run for snacks, preens, and drinks before bed. They had been out most of the afternoon and were lolling about in the corner of the yard...

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Oprah Our (Buff Orpington) Chicken Girl

Mon, 26 Jun 2023 06:00:28 +0000

It’s been a very challenging few weeks. We’ve definitely had some trouble at the hen house. There’s lots of tricky stuff to process and write about, but it needs time to settle. Right now I’d rather share some happiness and joy. Which means, it’s time to share the story of bringing home and getting to...

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Chickens Are Not Gardeners

Tue, 18 Apr 2023 06:00:55 +0000

Chickens are tiny rototillers. Chickens are lightly domesticated velociraptors. Chickens are annihilators of insecta and annelida—annihilators with hyper-focused intensity. Chickens are not gardeners. Gardening with chickens? Before you read more, may I suggest Metallica’s Seek and Destroy. A chicken’s mission is to gobble up every bug, worm, grub, leaf, fruit, and whatever other nourishment it...

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