I spent the last processing day hand-plucking chickens, and by bird number five I knew there had to be a better way. That single afternoon of misery is exactly why I started testing the best chicken pluckers on the market, comparing eight models across a full season of poultry processing. Hand plucking a single chicken … Read more
I have been keeping backyard chickens for the better part of a decade, and I can tell you from experience that finding the best automatic chicken feeders changed my daily routine forever. Before I switched to self-feeders, I lost roughly 30% of every bag of feed to rats, wild birds, and my own flock scratching … Read more
Three winters ago, I walked into my coop at 6 a.m. to find the traditional galvanized waterer frozen solid again. That single morning pushed me to switch every flock on our property to poultry nipple waterers, and I have not gone back since. After 30 days of testing across brooders, layer pens, and a winter … Read more
Bringing home day-old chicks is one of the most rewarding parts of backyard chicken keeping, but those tiny fluffballs cannot regulate their own body temperature for the first several weeks of life. I learned this the hard way during my first spring with a hatchery order of six chicks. Without a proper chick brooder, I … Read more
I have been keeping chickens for almost ten years now, and there is one upgrade that has saved my sanity more than any other: the automatic coop door. Before I installed my first one, I used to drag myself out of bed at sunrise every single day to let the hens out. Then I started … Read more
When I started keeping a small flock of backyard chickens, I underestimated how dirty fresh eggs can get. Mud, pine shavings, the occasional surprise from a broody hen, it adds up fast. After spending hours scrubbing with cloths and running water, I finally caved and bought a silicone egg brush. That little $7 tool cut … Read more
I have spent the past four months testing electric fence chargers on three different properties — a 12-acre cattle pasture, a 6-acre rotational grazing setup for horses, and a small homestead with goats and a stubborn flock of sheep. After running 10 of the most popular models through weeds, rain, summer heat, and one very … Read more
If you’ve ever lost a calf to a wandering fence line or spent a weekend chasing goats through the back 40, you already know: a reliable fence charger is the single piece of equipment that decides whether your electric fence is a tool or a headache. I started testing solar fence chargers eight years ago … Read more
When I drove my first fence line with a sledgehammer, my arms ached for three days. That experience taught me the best t post drivers aren’t a luxury. They’re essential kit for anyone serious about fencing a homestead, farm, or large yard. A T-post driver (also called a fence post pounder) drops weight onto the … Read more
Last spring, my neighbor Bill and I spent an entire Saturday driving 38 wooden posts for a new pasture fence using a manual post driver. By Sunday afternoon, my shoulders felt like they had been through a meat grinder, and only 60% of the posts were straight. That same week, our county extension agent mentioned … Read more