Tag: Backyard Chickens

10 Ways Homesteaders Are Saving the Planet

Homesteading is all about creating a lifestyle of self-sufficiency. It starts with something as simple as a garden to feed your family, chickens to provide eggs, and it can go as far as growing herbs for medicine, raising cows & other animals and finding ways to do things for yourself and your family without the need for much else. Homesteading can also involve creating and making things based on what you have to provide a source of income for your family. All in all, creating a more self-sufficient lifestyle is rewarding and provides many benefits, including helping the planet! How? Well, I’m happy to explain.

Here are 10 ways homesteading can help save the planet:

1. By promoting biodiversity

Ponds, plants, animals, fish, it’s all part of the homesteading lifestyle.

2. By providing pollinator habitat

Bees and butterflies, as small as they are, do a very big job of pollinating our crops so that people all over the world can eat. By us homesteaders providing them with flowers to feast on, we’re helping keep them alive so they can keep us alive.

3. By cleaning your air

Many plants are air filtering. Did you know that? Clean air = less asthma hospitalizations for you and me.

4. By regenerating the soil

Natural fertilizer from backyard farm animals enriches the soil and won’t contaminate local drinking water like chemical fertilizers. Using the land productively helps prevent soil erosion so the land can continue to be used.

5. By shrinking the local carbon footprint

Locally grown food has the lowest carbon emissions, so whether it’s farm eggs or hydroponic basil, it’s got a lower carbon footprint compared to store-bought eggs and produce. Collecting eggs from your own back yard or from your neighbors is a heck of a lot better for the environment than a car trip to the store for eggs.

6. By saving the oceans

The more food you grow at home, the less plastic packaging. Recyclable or not, plastic can’t be recycled over and over again like metals, so eventually they’ll end up in the environment. Another win for backyard farming!

Here are a few more ways homesteading really helps:

7. By helping you stay cool

The extra foliage in our backyards help soak up the sun’s heat, preventing what scientists call heat island effect. The less green, the hotter it is. That’s why cities tend to be a few degrees hotter than suburbs and countryside. So uh, you’re welcome! Without us expect your electric bill to be a bit higher for A/C.

8. By lowering your grocery bill

Whether we’re bartering with our neighbors or eating what we grow, the overall effect is people are finding more of what they need outside of the grocery store. This keeps local grocery stores from hiking up their prices and may even lead to more discounted “manager specials” because people aren’t buying stuff fast enough.

9. By creating community

In an antisocial world, homesteads are a place where you can reconnect with nature and humanity.

10. By raising rooted children

Raising children on a homestead teaches certain lessons and instills certain values you can’t get from YouTube. Like that the outdoors has just as much to offer, if not more, than a screen. That good things take time, like the mango tree we planted in and fruited later. Raising children in to adults who understand these important lessons will make the world a better place.

What Is Homesteading?

What is homesteading?

Settling on the land, living a life of self-sufficiency, and a nod to the simpler times before us all come to mind. In reality, it is a million different things to a million different people.

From those of us that have large acreage and fully functioning farms to those of us raising a handful of chickens in their suburban backyard.

From those who grow and can their fruits and vegetables to those who raise their animals for meat.

In our journey through homesteading we have learned a lot in a short time. We have learned what works as far as planting fruits and vegetables, and we have learned what doesn’t work when trying to cram a backyard with birds.

To me however, the most important thing about homesteading is that it is so much more than what you are doing, it’s how you are doing it. Each step in the right direction towards self-sufficiency and enjoying the outdoors is a step forward! The thing that has been the most rewarding though has nothing to do with growing or planting, collecting eggs or raising animals.

The most rewarding thing is how this lifestyle has allowed us to reconnect, with nature and and plants, and animals…but most importantly how it helps is reconnect with each other. To me, homesteading is all about family, good crops or bad, full egg baskets of empty, rain, shine and everything in between.

What We Love About Duck Eggs vs Chicken Eggs

This isn’t the most loveliest of photos but we were feeding a few eggs back to the ducks and chickens (benefits them by providing protein, omegas, and calcium from the shell) and this is just ONE duck egg yolk.

It was hard to focus on but man, the duck egg yolks can be so much larger which increases the good fats and omegas that come with it. The color comes from all the free-range time they have during the day. They forage on all the plants and bugs.

The duck eggs are usually white, but we will be having some chocolate runners laying in a few months and they will lay mint colored eggs.

Here are some of our duck eggs:

Here are our chickens eggs:

Chicken eggs do taste very similar however with the higher fat content a duck egg yolk has, I’d say they are better for baking and fluffing things up.

5 Ingredient Coop Refresher Spray for Smells, Lice & Mite Prevention

There is a lot to be said for essential oils and how they can keep your coop fresh smelling and keep the bugs away. Many air fresheners have harsh chemicals that can irritate your chickens or ducks, so DIY is definitely the way to go.

Especially in a place like Florida where the summers can be both sweltering hot and soaking wet, a good coop spray is totally necessary.

Though using neem oil is probably my favorite natural way to treat for nasty bugs (on both plants and elsewhere), neem oil can be hard to find and I don’t use it regularly, so this has become my go to recipe for those in-between moments for freshening up of the hen house.

I’ve narrowed down my mix to only the basics and without further adieu, the recipe is as follows.

5 Ingredient Coop Refresher Spray for Smells, Lice & Mite Prevention

• 1 cup of white vinegar

• 1 cup of water

• 1 generous squirt dr bronners soap

• Approx 15 drops peppermint essential oil

• Approx 20 drops tea tree essential oil

If you’re interested in why this is my “go-to”, peppermint essential oil helps to repel bugs. Plain and simple. When it gets humid and hot, the fruit flies have a field day on any spilled water, or anything else. For some reason, flies hate peppermint!

The tea tree essential oil is good for warding off both lice and mites. This can be sprayed in the coop, on roosting bars and in nesting boxes.

Vinegar is a natural cleaner and a good bleach alternative for some applications. I try to use it as much as I can in place of any harsh cleaners. Vinegar is biodegradable, but isn’t a registered disinfectant and isn’t strong enough to kill germs like staph, so though it’s good for this freshener, this spray is not appropriate for treating any major bacterial or biosecurity issues.

Chicken-Proofing Your Garden

A quick $20 and 5 minutes, I turned the garden boxes into an actual space. I didn’t just use straw, I used a straw blanket with small netting and stakes to keep it in place.

Why you ask? CHICKEN PROOF.

They don’t want to dig through mesh so area around our garden can be protected and not washed away into the creek behind us. Also, my husband made chicken wire lids for the boxes to keep the chickens from eating everything.

Personal Space, Please!

Let’s discuss personal space, Jolene.

You’re a little too close to my breakfast. Don’t even think about drinking my Coca Cola.

Let’s discuss personal space, Jolene. You’re a little too close to my breakfast. #drinkingwithchickens

But really though, having chickens has been such a fun and rewarding adventure! They even pay their fair share for living on the homestead. ☺️

Certified Wildlife Habitat

wildlife

Our homestead has been recognized by the National Wildlife Federation along with the Florida Wildlife Federation as a Certified Wildlife Habitat. We achieved certification by creating gardens that offer food, water, cover and places to raise young for wildlife and maintaining them in a natural, sustainable way.

We were able to achieve this largely in part due to my husband’s hard work on our natural pond, our herb & vegetable garden, amble fruit trees, converting our shed into a coop and also raising free-ranging chickens and ducks organically which provide food for friends and family.

4 Things We’ve Learned So Far

1. Chopped straw vs pine shavings in the coop has proven to be a great experiment. I didn’t know what to expect but I’m super excited to report that the chopped straw seems to stay cleaner longer and has been much easier to spread around..

2. Peppermint is a wonderful thing to grow in the garden, especially when you have chickens. Certain plants (like peppermint) will spread and take over. I use it daily in the coop, for the chickens to snack on and also, to freshen up the coop. Planting a small above ground garden in a tub, box, etc.. with herbs like Rosemary, Thyme, Peppermint, Lavender will be your coop cleaning friend.

3. If you decide on chickens, go big or go home. Within 3 months, we had moved the chickens from the small coop we had, into our shed (more about shed coop on the blog). It doesn’t matter how fancy it is, you’ll soon realize that you’ll want more space. There are so many options, it might even be worth it to build your own.

4. Chia, flax, clover and wheatgrass are great to grow around your yard, especially when you have chickens. They will forage and get extra nutrients from these things but they’re also super easy to get going, they sprout within a few days and provide awesome ground cover.

So there you go… thanks for following us 🙂

Growing Herbs To Benefit Your Chickens & The Coop

You may wonder why I collect herbs daily for the chickens... so let me take a second to explain the benefits of each:  rosemary - assists with pain relief and enhancing respiratory health, it's also a great natural insecticide.  basil – great antibacterial, mucous membrane health, smells lovely.  lavender – helps relieve stress, can also increase blood circulation, great coop cleaner, insecticide  marigolds – great stress reliever, increases blood circulation, aromatic, insecticide, helps produce colorful yolks  mint –  insecticide and rodent repellent, antioxidant, aids in respiratory health, wonderful digestive aid, lowers body temperature naturally which can keep the chickens cooler, smells amazing in the coop.  oregano – combats coccidia, salmonella, infectious bronchitis, avian flu, blackhead and e-Coli, strengthens immune system  sage – antioxidant, antiparasitic, general health promoter, wonderful smell. Throw in some other various herbs you have around the garden and your chickens will be happy.

You may wonder why I collect herbs daily for the chickens… so let me take a second to explain the benefits of each:

rosemary – assists with pain relief and enhancing respiratory health, it’s also a great natural insecticide.

basil – great antibacterial, mucous membrane health, smells lovely.

lavender – helps relieve stress, can also increase blood circulation, great coop cleaner, insecticide

marigolds – great stress reliever, increases blood circulation, aromatic, insecticide, helps produce colorful yolks

mint – insecticide and rodent repellent, antioxidant, aids in respiratory health, wonderful digestive aid, lowers body temperature naturally which can keep the chickens cooler, smells amazing in the coop.

oregano – combats coccidia, salmonella, infectious bronchitis, avian flu, blackhead and e-Coli, strengthens immune system

sage – antioxidant, antiparasitic, general health promoter, wonderful smell.

Throw in some other herbs you have around your garden and you’re good to go.

DIY Natural Duck Pond (no chemicals, pumps) with progress photos

Swipe for gradual pond progression. It's only been a few weeks... I never thought having a pond would be so peaceful. I've asked my husband to write a little post about it for those interested in doing the same. Stay tuned.

First we got chickens, and the chickens needed a coop. So we turned our shed into a coop. When we got ducks though, what they really needed was a nice and natural pond.

After doing a little research, I learned there are many types of ponds that you can build yourself, much easier than I had imagined also. Somewhere in the search for inspiration, I decided that making the pond as natural as possible would fit our homestead lifestyle much better than installing pumps and waterfalls and using artificial chemicals to keep the water clean.

A natural pond not only spoke to our lifestyle but also kept in line with our low maintenance creed.

If you’re thinking about a pond, it’s as simple as starting to dig, and that’s exactly what I did. I picked out the spot, roughed in the shape and started to dig. I took out some rocks, and a few roots but mainly just started to dig. I wanted to go down a little bit further than the maximum depth I wanted to make up for the liner and under-liner material, and I wanted some areas deeper than others, so keep that all in mind as you dig.

Once I got the shape and depth, I dropped in some old carpet pieces to protect the liner from any roots that might try to puncture it, then followed that with the liner. I tried the best I could to make the liner smooth to the kidney shape we dug. The liner overlapped some on the soil and I kept it in place with some rocks around the border.

After this, I filled it up with water, and that was the last time other than topping off here and there I’ve had to add water. It’s mostly now filled by rainwater.

As far as a “natural pond” goes, plants are your filter so choose them carefully. There are plenty of plants that help, but I think looking at actual natural ponds helps to give you an idea what plants grow in your area and which ones help sustain a natural aquatic biome. If you’re lucky you can forage some for yourself and cut the costs.

Another concern was mosquitos, this easily was addressed by adding guppies, mosquito fish, and goldfish. They kept the water moving a bit and actually eat the mosquito larvae.

Simple additions like little solar fountains or sprinklers can help keep the water moving to discourage mosquitos also and help oxygenate the water some.

Lastly, make it your own! Plant around the edges, add solar lights, enjoy larger fish like koi, or just enjoy the natural aquatic pondscape you’ve made and the local plants you’ve foraged.

Here are some progression photos:

It can be as simple or as difficult as you like, but with my creed of simple being better, a natural pond is a fun, creative way to make the most out of your backyard or property and yes, the ducks love it!

Ducks & Chickens Happy in Same Coop

The ducks and chickens are cohabiting greatly. We put them all in the coop at night. The chickens go to sleep and the ducks party.

At night, the ducks snuggle in a corner opposite the older gals. I have shown the ducks the ways of the hanging feeders too and they are loving life.

We originally bought separate food but the ducks love to eat what the chickens eat so we ended up with a feed for both.

10 Hip Hop Names For Chickens (Watch out, Chicki Minaj!)

A completely off the wall post but here are 10 hip hop names for chickens. Yes, super informative post here.

1. CHICKI MINAJ

2. DR. LAY

3. EGGENIM

4. LIL WING

5. 2FLOCK

6. EGGS EGGS EGGS TENTACION

7. KANYE NEST

8. MASTER PEEP

9. EGGY EGGZALEA

10. BIRDMAN

Today the girls look like they are about to drop the hottest mixtape of the year. What do you think? #lilwing #chickyminaj #egginem

So welcome.

DIY: From Old Shed to Chicken Coop

The decision to turn our shed into a coop came on a whim. We had a small coop we were using but wanted to update the space. We started talking about the idea of using our shed as a coop when we decided to clean it out and it was nearly empty. The shed was purchased years ago and the local company came and delivered it, leveled it and made sure it was placed properly on our land.

I feel any shed can be turned into a coop when you have the basics already in place. The best thing about using what you have is you can really splurge on essentials without feeling bad. If you have a shed that’s not being used, this is definitely a fun project to do. Here are some photos for you to get an idea for your next project:

We use pine shavings from Tractor Supply for the bedding and flooring. It’s only approximately $6 a bag.

We used old wooden crates for nesting boxes. We bought cedar trellises from Lowe’s for their ladders. We used old crib slats for something for them to play on.

My husband took out the window on the door and added some chicken wire for better airflow.

I keep their food and bedding in metal trash cans. I use fresh herbs to keep the coop smelling nice. I planted mint by the front door.

The best part about this project is being able to use what you have. It’s fun to improve upon and create something that fits the needs of your chickens. So be creative and have fun.

On The Fence About Backyard Chickens?

I had no idea what all went into having chickens until we decided to jump in blindfolded. To say it is a rewarding experience would be an understatement. Before I go any further, I’d like to mention that having chickens is not super involved, it is fun, educational and it’ll add quite a bit of joy to your life.

I found the Tractor Supply chick days pamplet super helpful and full of information.

We started out with 4 female chickens (pullets) which were only a few dollars from Tractor Supply. We kept them in a tupperware while brooding so they would grow and also be kept safe from cold and predators.

They grow quick! Next thing I knew they needed a bigger space.

If you’re on the fence, get backyard chickens. It is so rewarding. Stay tuned for the shed coop reveal.

Shredded Fabric Curtains for Chicken Coops

I made a shredded fabric curtain for the nesting boxes. The chickens love to hide. The process is simple and quick. Have fabric strips ready to go, any fabric works. Loop the fabric over a large piece of string or another long piece of fabric, and then tie knots.

It’s the perfect thing to give the chickens a little privacy for their nesting boxes.

Free Range Chickens (mostly)

Each of our chickens have their own personality but no matter how much they differ, they always love to be front and center whenever we are outside. They love to get in on the action and play.

We do have a coop for them that includes a nesting box and a run. This is where they sleep at night. On top of the run is a garden box where I planted mint that took over.

However, during the day we let them take complete control of the backyard space.

At night, they go into their coop to roost and they do that on their own. It usually always happens around 7:20pm. They just know what to do.

During the day, I love watching them hide under the fruit trees or take shelter under the trampoline.

Fresh rainwater is the perfect afternoon drink, I suppose. ??

Chickens are a lot of fun. I went into this not knowing anything about having chickens.

I’ll be writing some articles soon on where to begin.