Chicken Labels Explained: What Are You Actually Paying For?

send us an email and be sure to include your address so we can respond! Standard Cornish chickens aren’t Cornish Cross—and choosing good breeders takes more than spotting a big young bird. Blake Phillips of 4 Hill Acres joins Jennifer Bryant and Carey Blackmon to talk about raising large-fowl Cornish, selecting for balanced proportions, and waiting long enough to see a potential breeder’s full promise. Blake explains why he waits until about 18 months to choose his breeders and what he hopes...

send us an email and be sure to include your address so we can respond! A beautiful chicken coop is only useful if it works for your birds—and for the person doing the chores. Jennifer Bryant and Carey Blackmon talk with Nikki Husted of Purely Chickens about backyard chicken keeping, learning from social media without copying every trend, and making practical choices for your own flock. Nikki shares her journey from hatching chicks in a kindergarten classroom to educating chicken keepers onl...

send us an email and be sure to include your address so we can respond! Do ducks need a pond? Can ducklings swim? Does every duck need extra niacin—and what health risks should backyard keepers actually watch for? Jennifer Bryant welcomes poultry veterinarian Dr. Teresa Morishita back to Poultry Nerds for a practical conversation about duck care, feeding, and flock health. Jennifer brings examples from her own Welsh Harlequin flock and her move toward Muscovies, while Dr. Morishita discusses...

send us an email and be sure to include your address so we can respond! The chick pulls much of its calcium out of the eggshell, so what the hen ate before she laid the egg matters long before it hatches. Thin shells, soft shells, or chicks that don't make it: it is not always the incubator and it is not always shipping. Carey and I walk through calcium, phosphorus, and vitamin D, why a hen needs all three, whether more oyster shell helps, whether chickens get vitamin D from the sun, and why...

send us an email and be sure to include your address so we can respond! Heat plates don't heat the brooder. They heat the chick, and only if it can touch the plate. If you're losing chicks, that's one of several brooder mistakes we see all the time. Carey is building a new brooder, so we're getting into what actually matters when you raise chicks: why an old-time show breeder swears by solid-top brooders, why 99.9% of the "my chicks are dying" messages we get in winter come down to one thin...