If you have had quail, then you know they will fight. And when they fight, they fight dirty. For some reason they like to go for the eyes and head. It can be quite gruesome. Generally these fights are between males over females, or when a new bird tries to join the current group. The […]
Quail is the new chicken
Yep move over chicken…. The quail is here to stay! It has earned top spot at Myshire, and I’m sure many more farms and urban homesteader will make the switch too. Here is the case for changing the way you do birds. 1) Space efficiency. They just don’t need a lot of space! The […]
Top 10 tips for raising chicks…These you need to know!
I raise birds… Mainly quail, but with a few turkeys, geese, chickens, and ducks thrown in. I have come across some tips over time, some of them mine, some stolen from others. Here are a few of my favorite unconventional or $ saving ideas. To prevent water dish drownings from day old chicks, add rocks […]
The lost art of homesteading: I am TRYING to find it
I moved to the country five years ago. I didn’t know how to garden, can, raise any kind of animal, and defiantly nothing about processing any kind of animal. I knew nothing about greenhouses, cisterns, rain barrels, wood burning stoves, or smokehouses. I knew nothing about homesteading. All of this learning has been on hyperdrive, a […]
Winter is coming
Yes we all know it is true, yet for a few more months we may flirt with denial. On the farm every season plays a key aspect in the whole of farm life. A season for planting and baby animals, a season for growing, a season for preserving and butchering, and now I am looking […]
Gloria: our bottle pig
The main thing you need to know about raising piglets is that they are ROTTEN. They want what they want, when they want it, exactly how they say they want it. So don’t get any ideas that you are in charge, because your not. The pig called the shots in our home for nearly a […]
Ideas for making poultry easier to raise
Lets face it… Infrastructure is not glamorous. It my opinion, it is not fun (my Dad would say otherwise) Yet it is a necessary component of this thing we call homesteading. Outbuildings, electric, water, compost piles, animal pastures and garden space must be utilized to make working your homestead easier. It is hard enough with […]
5 homesteader skills you should know
Being a homesteader isn’t like a thing that you can wake up and one day decide that you are. It isn’t something you become after you move to the country, or even after you buy a pair of overalls. To me, being a homesteader is a state of mind, backed by skill sets. These skill […]
10 confessions of a homesteader
THIS POST IS FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY AND IS NOT MEANT TO BE TAKEN AS ADVICE.THESE ARE TRUE STORIES. I have worked all day in the garden growing beautiful organic produce only to come in and feed my kids cereal for dinner. I have been snooty about chemical bug spray… and used a can […]
Mommy! Daddy! There’s a snake in the sandbox!
Mommy! Daddy! Come quick! These are the words that I hear from my littles a few hundred times a day. Nearly every scrape is an emergency and every drawing must be viewed AT ONCE or it may disappear altogether. So -sigh- I will go look at another “emergency”. My husband walked out with me to […]