Great tips on
homesteading,
frugal living,
and self reliance.

Why Chickens Are
a Valuable Addition to Every Homestead

Adding chickens to your backyard farm is the fastest way to a healthy organic garden, and a delightful way to make your homesteading more self-sufficient.

Why Are They So Important?

In the thirties, during the Great Depression, horror stories abounded about soup lines and folks facing starvation. But those who owned their own land along with a dozen or more hens and roosters never went hungry.

That's because in a bad economy, those who can raise their own food are way ahead of the game.

With a dozen or so hens and a rooster you'll have a steady supply of eggs and meat.

Live in the city? You probably won't be able to keep a rooster, but most city ordinances will allow you to have up to six hens. Those lovely birds will supply you with two and a half dozen eggs per week.

Polish rooster and Rhode Island Red hen

Your Organic Garden Will Thank You

The manure from your hens or rooster is one of the most fertile substances in nature. While you should never add the manure directly to your soil - the nitrogen is too strong and can burn your plants - it does marvelous things when added to your compost pile.

Better yet, if you keep goats and some of your hay has gone moldy, add it to your hen's roosting box or to the brooder. Your hens won't care, and when they're done with it, that wonderful moldy, manure-laden hay will jump-start your composting.

Great With Children

Depending on the breed, these birds can be gentle and safe around children. Your little ones will love holding the baby chicks.

Easy to Raise

Although they do require some special care those first two to three weeks of their life, these birds are - on the whole - easy to care for. All they require is a little shelter, fresh water and food every day. Gallon water feeders are available. Use those and you'll only need to provide water for your birds once a day.

kids holding hen

Raise Your Own Eggs, Improve Your Health

A survey done by Mother Earth News revealed that poultry - particularly those who live in poultry tractors moved daily - have up to one third less cholesterol and a fourth less saturated fat than commercially raised eggs. They also have more vitamin A and a lot more omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin E and beta carotene than their commercial counterparts.

A Better Way to Fry Chicken chicken fryer

Using cast iron cookware such as this fryer for frying chicken will add sufficient iron to your diet daily without having to take iron supplements.

And unlike with iron supplements, you'll not run the risk of "overdosing" on iron by cooking in cast iron.

Pre-Seasoned, this fryer is a natural, nonstick cookware.

Use it on your stove or cook with it outside using coals. It's the ideal cookware to have in an emergency. This sturdy, durable dutch oven will last for generations when properly cared for.

Just $38.52 plus shipping and handling.

Learn more about Cast Iron Cookware here

Ready to purchase? Click here

Free range birds eat more of the diet they are supposed to have - lots of leafy greens, bugs and worms. They enjoy their lives; my birds love it when I move their tractor about. Everyday they get a new supply of grass to scratch in! Commercially raised birds, on the other hand, spend their entire lives cramped in the same small, dark, dirty space. They consume a diet of cottonseed, soy and corn with additives thrown in.

This stressful environment can make them sick, so they're also given antibiotics to keep them from dying too soon. You and your family ingest those antibiotics when you eat their eggs. Plus, you're eating eggs from stressed-out, potentially sick birds.

With your own free-range birds, you're providing a kinder environment for your brood and better nutrition for your family.

Fresh, clean meat

Naturally, the same goes for the birds you raise for meat. Less stress and no antibiotics. Plus, the meat will be cleaner. Hens and roosters that are commercially processed and killed are plucked and then thrown into a large vat of hot water until they are ready to be cut up.A lot of fecal matter collects in the vat. The poultry is literally cooking in "fecal soup".

Complete Chicken Tractor Design

Complete instructions plus tons of helpful chicken care tips!

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The feces soaks into the flesh of the bird and is in the liquid that comes in the packaging. When you butcher your own birds, you eliminate the "fecal soup." Hence, cleaner meat.

Eggs Are An Easy Income

Everybody loves fresh eggs, so they are easy to sell. Keep a few extra hens to produce more eggs than you and your family can eat. Sell the surplus, and within a year you'll recoup your startup and feed costs. Keep selling your extra eggs, and the following year, you'll have free eggs and earn a little income besides.

Add Iron to Your Diet Naturally

Using cast iron cookware such as this skillet will add sufficient iron to your diet daily without having to take iron supplements.

And unlike with iron supplements, you'll not run the risk of "overdosing" on iron.

Learn more here.

Or if you're ready to buy, click here.

Build Your Own Chicken Tractor!

You Can Build a Chicken Tractor Provides you with step-by-step instructions on how to build a chicken tractor and also provides helpful information on how to get free wood and how your chickens can pay for themselves.

Special to this website,
just $10.74
almost 30% off list price
Click here to learn more.

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Add Iron to Your Diet Naturally

Using cast iron cookware to prepare meals will add enough iron to your diet without having to take iron supplements.

And unlike with iron supplements, you'll not run the risk of "overdosing" on iron.

Learn more here.

Or if you're ready to buy, click here.

Add Iron to Your Diet Naturally

Using cast iron cookware to prepare meals will add enough iron to your diet without having to take iron supplements.

And unlike with iron supplements, you'll not run the risk of "overdosing" on iron.

Learn more here.

Or if you're ready to buy, click here.

Build Your Own Chicken Tractor!

You Can Build a Chicken Tractor Provides you with step-by-step instructions on how to build a chicken tractor and also provides helpful information on how to get free wood and how your chickens can pay for themselves.

Special to this website,
just $10.74
almost 30% off list price
Click here to learn more.