Part 1 of the homestead upgrades – The Chicken Yard.  We were consistently having issues with our chickens getting out of the yard.  The first 4 yrs we lived here, we did not have issues with the chickens getting out.  Then we added some new breeds and tripled in size.  Parts of our fence were small enough that some of the chicks got out and the rooster decided he needed to protect them as well and flew over.  Once he did that the some of the other hens decided they weren’t going to be unprotected and next thing you know I had a host of free ranging chickens everywhere.  The problem with that is that most of them hung out in the horse barn, eating the grain, dog food, cat food, whatever they could find; not to mention the presents they left behind (if you know what I mean)  I see why dogs are meant to eat dog food.  Anyway, I thought if my son would just put them all back and we block off the fence to keep the chicks in we’d be fine.  Unfortunately, the taste of freedom was too much for them and they begin flying over our fence and then I found out also, that my son had been throwing them back over the fence (further boosting their flying confidence).  I know you can clip/pull out the flying feathers.  Just seemed a little inhuman to me.  We’re trying to keep everything as much as possible as God designed it.   Here’s the finished product after the 3rd snowfall:

Egg yields were good this year.  Here’s a sampling of the differences in Egg sizes as compared to a white store-bought XL egg.  The far left is a double-yolker.  We had a chicken that was always laying double-yokes.  The middle one is a normal single yolk and the far right is the white store-bought egg (obviously)

Fresh (non-caged) Benefits