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At about 10pm this evening a large black bear (350lbs +) attemped to break in to my chicken coop. It managed to rip open a nesting box door and remove the interior feeder before moving onto our "bear box" (trash bin) and our house trash can on the deck. Thankfully, none of our birds were...

Has anyone ever hard boiled eggs and found a greenish tint to areas of the egg whites? I am not talking about the green ring the yolk can get when cooked too long. The tint is in the whites and it does not appear to matter how old the eggs are before boiling or how long they have been in the...

So one of the most common problems with growing tomatoes is that dreaded black spot on their bottoms (end rot) that seems to show up out of nowhere during the hot dry spells of summer particularly after a wet spring. I always knew growing up that it was due to a calcium deficiency. We would...

So a few weeks ago I posted about an egg I cracked and accidentally "hatched" it. Well "Lucky" the surviving chick was flourishing in the brooder but being an only chick she was needing some safe socializing with the bigger birds. She is now 4-5wks old so last week I started placing her in...

Hey yall, I am canning my first batch of pickles for the season today and was wondering if there was a specific recipe you just love to use. My pickles have just enough spice in them to make them awesome for the whole fam (toot my own horn) but i love to learn and try new things. I pulled 22...

We got 3 new goats 2 days ago and it has already been a fiasco. They are fainting goats so no worries with climbing and jumping. Containment seems to be sufficient....for now....but they are 3 does between 1-3yrs and have never been socialized. I fenced off (2) 1/2 ac sections of our field...

Hey guys, a little frustrated today. So we've been letting our broody hens hatch chicks in addition to our small hatches from the incubator for the last 2 yrs with really good results. This year has proven to be a complete failure. So far 3 broody sets (total of 32 eggs) have yeilded only 1...

I have so many irons in the fire right now I don't know which one to grab. Yesterday I spent the morning putting the roof on a new goat shed and they afternoon demolishing an old shooting house on the back of our property (left from previous owners). After dinner, I finally got the chance to...

Hey yall! Just an update. My peas came in yesterday and they are whoopin' my behind. I picked more than two 5 gal. buckets full and shelled 3/4s myself. My wife helped with some but my boys are at that age when the oldest is in that "silly stage" and thought it was funnier to not shell them...

I was weeding the garden today and came across this guy. I have never seen one before and was wondering if any of yall had and if it was good or bad? Not the best pic but he wouldn't hold still.

So I have always kept all my leftover seeds in the vegetable drawer of the fridge to be used the following season. Some have been around for over 3 yrs now. I throw them out (plant elsewhere outside the garden for chickens and wildlife) when germination drops below about 60%. Well, the corn...

Ive been waiting for our sour cherry tree to finally ripen. Its a mad dash to beat the birds whom always seem to know at first light when the day finally arrives. Well that day was today! But, after a very dry spring so far we have been rocked by T storms and heavy downpours the last 2 days...

So for the first time ever, my broody didn't hatch a single egg. She was sitting on 13 eggs and today is day 24 with no signs of hatching. Her nesting box is full of filth and I decided to try to clean it a bit. Well i accidentally cracked a shell and low and behold there was a live chick...

FYI - I went to TS this morning and Purina Layer Pellets in 50# bags were nearly $20/bag (almost a 30% increase). I'm switching to Producers Pride for at least the summer (less than $12/40#bag). During the warm weather months, my free range flock gets the majority of their diet from the...

FYI - i just went to my local big box store today and loaded another 12ft trailer 8ft tall with lawn mower crates for free! Ive been doing this for the last 6 yrs and have build my coop, goat houses, well houses, and some very nice corner hutches and other furniture from the wood. It takes...

I had a broody Brahma that had a case of cold feet for motherhood. She abandoned her eggs yesterday and again today, leaving them uncovered for more than 6hrs a day during a typical mountain spring day that barely reached 55 degrees. I have had this problem before each time one of my hens go...

We just finished butchering the remaining cull birds of another young flock (6mo old) and adding the "keepers" to our free range adult flock. It went off without a hitch! There were virtually no squabbling at all which is always a plus. The free range flock has now doubled in size to 14 and...

Hey yall, Been away for awhile, but hope everyone is doing well. I am about to become a goat keeper in a few months and was wondering if anyone here allows their free range flock to mingle with theirs goats? Upsides? Downsides? Concerns? I intend to fence nearly 1 ac off into 2 separate...

Hello everyone! Hope all is well in these crazy times. I am reaching out to yall today for advice that may improve hatch rates or knowledge that will help me understand my low success rate. 1st off we have been giving chicks to a friend to hatch for us. Usually 24 at a time and we would get...

So....we just had lighting strike our power pole in the yard...again. I have eggs in the incubator set to hatch ummmm today. 2 have pipped. By the time i got the generator out and everything hooked up, the temp dropped to about 94-95 for at least 10min. Everything is back to normal temps...