If you are trying to learn how to hatch chicks with a broody hen, you are in the right place! My first year of owning chickens I started with day-old chicks. Let me tell you it was a lot of work caring for those chicks (I don’t know how people do it who don’t work from home to be honest). Keeping poop out of the waterer, checking on chicks for pasty butt, adjusting the heat lamp, making sure they had enough food - it was constant work.

In this post I am going to teach you:

• How to encourage your hens to go broody
• What chicken breeds are the most prone to go broody
• The best place to let your broody hen hatch her chicks
• How to keep your broody hen on the nest
• The hatching options you have with a broody hen (how to latch day-old chicks and using fertilized eggs) 
• How to build a Brooder Box from one piece of plywood

Don’t get me wrong, I loved having the hands-on experience and I adore my hand-raised hens. The thing is, once I let my very first hen go broody and raise her own clutch of chicks, I realized I am never going to raise chicks myself again. Why? Because broody mama hen was one thousand percent better at it than me!

Figuring out how to use your existing property, or a brand new piece of land, and turn it into a homestead can be a daunting task. In this post, I’m going to share with you how we planned out our homestead on five acres over the course of five years. It’s so fun to see where we started when we first purchased our land, and then five years later, how everything turned out. 

We’ll go over:

• How we utilized the existing land and outbuildings
• How we put in a homestead garden and orchard
• What tools and machinery we've found to be essential for homesteading
• How we integrated chickens over the course of five years on our homestead

Welcome back to Week 4 of our 30-Day Food Security Plan. Can you believe it's been a month since we started learning about gardening, chicken keeping, foraging, and homemaking?  I have been loving teaching you everything I know about food security and this week is no different. In this final post in our 30-Day Food Security Plan you will learn (click to jump!):

• How to fertilize and protect your garden from pests
• The top four medical supplies you need in your chicken vet bag
• How to locally source herbs, liquor, and baked goods
• How to make yogurt at home
• The absolute best organic gardening, chicken keeping, and homemaking books

If you just found this series, be sure to head back to Week 1 so you can learn how this 30-Day Food Security Plan works and get started on the right foot!

I want you to remember that you are completely capable of starting something new (like making your own yogurt). Sure, you're probably going to make some mistakes in the process as you learn but the payoff is worth it.  Doing these things with a loved one or your kids will bring you some fun and purpose during this uncertain time. Let’s dive into Week 4!

Learning how to hatch your own chicks using an incubator can be one of the most rewarding experiences as you start your first flock of backyard chickens. At Green Willow Homestead I’ve always let a broody mama hen do the work for me. While this leaves hatching eggs up to the true professionals (actual hens), the downside was that expanding my flock was dependent on my hens. What if I wanted a few clutches of chicks in June or July? That’s where incubating your own hatching eggs becomes necessary!

So today I’m having Erin Roy of The Harvest Trail Blog teach all of us exactly how to hatch your own chicks using an incubator. Erin is so knowledgeable about using incubators and hatching eggs and I can’t wait for you to learn from her!

Welcome back to Week 3 on how to build food security for your family in less than 30 days. In Week 3 of our Food Security Plan, I am going to teach you (click to jump!):

• What seeds you can plant right now in your first garden
• How to design and build your chicken coop
• How to brew your first batch of Kombucha
• How to identify five of the most common local edible weeds

If you just found this series, be sure to head back to Week 1 so you can learn how this Food Security series works and get started on the right foot!

I want you to remember that you are completely capable of starting something new (like chicken keeping). Sure, you're probably going to make some mistakes in the process as you learn but the payoff is worth it.  Doing these things with a loved one or your kids will bring you some fun and purpose during this uncertain time. Let’s dive into Week 3!

Welcome back to Week 2 on how to build food security for your family in less than 30 days. In Week 2 of our Food Security Plan, I am going to teach you the straightforward step-by-step on (click to jump!):

• Where to put your vegetable garden
• How to build raised garden beds
• How to start seeds indoors
• How to plant fruit trees with perennials
• How to care for chicks during their first week of life
• How to locally source food for your family

To head back to Week 1 of this series to learn about food security, its inherent limitations, and how this four-part series works click here.

I want you to remember that you are completely capable of starting something new (like chicken keeping). Sure, you're probably going to make some mistakes in the process as you learn but the payoff is worth it!  Doing these things with a loved one or your kids will bring you some fun and purpose during this uncertain time. Let’s dive into Week 2!

As more and more of us are jumping into chicken keeping and raising chicks for the first time, I thought it would be helpful to have on an expert chicken tender to teach you why when you are shopping for chicks - you should skip the big stores and hatcheries and buy from a small farm instead.

Maeg Yosef runs Silver Fox Farm along with her wife, Sarah, in Greenfield MA. They are a very small poultry farm and humane hatchery who focus on selective chicken breeding for homesteaders, backyard chicken keepers, and small farms. Maeg is bursting with knowledge when it comes to starting your first flock so I can't wait for you to read on. Even I learned something new from this guest post! 

If you are here to learn how you can build food security for your family in less than 30 days, you are in the right place. When I started out with homesteading six years ago, I knew that food security was important to me. Never did I guess that our entire world would come to a standstill and leave the majority of our society scrambling to build food security for themselves and their families.

For decades, homesteading has been a way for families to increase their self sufficiency not just out of rejection of a failing industrialized food system, but out of our love for the land, our connection with animals, and our focus on growing nutritious and safe food.

This 30-day Food Security Plan will be broken up into four weeks. We will focus on Week 1 in this post. For the next four weeks, I will share with you the simple and straightforward things you can do to boost your family's food security during this uncertain time. So if you are in need of guidance and help navigating how to get started with your first veggie garden or your first flock of chickens - you are in the right place!

Are you curious about the journey behind our DIY A-Frame chicken coop tractors? In this post I am going to share with you why we decided to design and build our own unique A-frame chicken tractor for our backyard hens. Lastly, I'll share with you how you can get your hands on our A-frame chicken coop tractor build plans so you can build one for your backyard or homestead!

My very first flock of backyard chickens clocked in at seven beautiful hens. After researching and reading as much as I could on how best to raise laying hens, I decided to let them free-range because pastured chickens are the happiest and healthiest. 

Why? Being able to forage for bugs and grubs allows them a diverse diet, lots of sunshine, and never ending entertainment. Keeping hens on grass also provides us the healthiest eggs possible thanks to their higher beta-carotene, choline, and omega-3 levels. It was win-win in my book. 

So after a few weeks of free-ranging my very first flock, imagine my dismay when I came out to check on my girls and found feathers and blood everywhere. My heart sank as I did a headcount and found two of my girls missing. A hawk had been through my flock and thus began the conundrum that most backyard chicken owners face. Do you let your hens free-range and take the risk of a predator attack or do you keep them cooped up and safe and limit their diet and their happiness?

If you live in an area that gets blasted with snow and cold temperatures during the winter months, then your chickens are definitely going to need the extra nutritional boost only supplements can give. 

Every winter on our farm in Wisconsin, I give a handful of high quality, natural supplements to my hens. In this post, I am going to share with you why you should consider supplementation during the winter months for your chickens, which supplements I recommend, and the benefits they provide for your flock.