Top Three Homestead Chickens

Published on June 24, 2023June 27, 2023 by Holly Spangler6 Comments

Our top picks for the best three chickens to have on the homestead

After keeping chickens for a couple of years now, we’ve officially kept 11 different breeds of chickens! Wow. That seems like a lot, but because all chickens can pretty much cohabitate unless there is a really bad bully, it’s easy to just mix and match breeds. This list may change after some of our little chickies grow up and their personalities start to come through, but currently, these are my top three picks for the best chickens to have on a homestead.

The criteria that I’m looking at for a good homestead chicken include ability to forage/free range, egg laying abilities, and personality. A bonus is whether or not they will go broody. This means their willingness to sit on a clutch of eggs, hatch them, and raise the chicks.

1. Speckled Sussex Chicken

The Speckled Sussex was actually the first chicken we brought into our homestead. I was convinced that these would be the absolute best, after binge listening to Coffee with the Chicken Ladies podcast and going through all their breed spotlights! (BTW, highly recommend this podcast if you’re thinking about getting into chickens, these ladies are true experts!).

We started with six of them… Hence Six Sussex Homestead 🙂 We ended up trading our Sussex roo because he became pretty aggressive, but honestly I do miss him because he was BEAUTIFUL. And due to predation, we are down to three ladies. They are the absolute best homestead chickens in our opinion. They choose forage over chicken feed, which could cut down on the feed bill a lot if you are able to free range your chickens. They are extremely personable and chatty, despite me getting them at a year old after they weren’t handled much. They also ALWAYS go broody and raise chicks in the late Spring. They make the best mamas, are extremely protective of their babies, and are amazing at teaching them how to forage.

The only con to the Speckled Sussex is in true heritage breed fashion, they will completely stop laying when the weather starts to cool down, and will not start again until we are well into Spring. So if you do bring these chickens in, I would also recommend keeping a couple of production layers if you want to keep getting a few eggs over the winter.

2. Brahma

We love the Brahma chicken, even though we only have one! We got a Buff Brahma by accident from Tractor Supply when they had the bins labeled wrong, and I’m so glad we did. The best pro to having a Brahma chicken is their personality. They are big and lovable. Our Brahma, Martha Washington will allow anyone to pick her up and carry her around, and loves to take treats from your hand.

They are great if you plan to have your chickens around kids, even though they are a very large breed of chicken, they are known as gentle giants. These homestead chickens are also great at foraging and free ranging, and it’s also a plus that they are absolutely beautiful chickens. The Buff color is definitely my favorite and Martha is one of my favorite chickens to photograph. Again with Brahma chickens, they aren’t the MOST prolific layers. They will stop laying over the winter, as they are a heritage breed and they will typically lay through the Spring and Summer and slow down over Fall and Winter.

3. Rhode Island Red

The Rhode Island Red is just a classic, go-to homestead chicken. It is another heritage breed, but in our experience a lot of times they will continue laying over the Winter, making them one of the more prolific layers of the heritage breeds.

They range in color from a deep red to a lighter auburn, and they are great foragers as well. Personality wise, I find them to be a bit more aloof than our other favorite breeds, but they make up for it with egg laying and free ranging abilities. I also have never had a Rhode Island Red go broody. We do have one Rhode Island Red who is our favorite, her name is Ruby and due to her being at the bottom of the pecking order with one of our previous roos, she was pretty badly bullied by the rest of the chickens, was missing tons of feathers and just in rough shape at the end of last year. I ended up separating her from the others and she became my little buddy. Now she is fully feathered again, and has the most beautiful deep red feathers marked with black as well. So there is hope for them to be more personable if they are handled a lot.

We also currently have juvenile Buff Orpingtons, Plymouth Barred Rock, Leghorns and Golden Laced Wyandottes, so this list may end up changing when some of those chickies get into their egg laying season and their little personalities start to come through. We will certainly keep you updated when that happens! What is your favorite homestead chicken? Let us know in the comments!

DIY Pallet Goat Milking Stand

Published on June 21, 2023 by Holly SpanglerLeave a comment

Why we needed a DIY Goat Milking stand…

Surprise! We decided to add more goats to the homestead sooner rather than later! I’ve been waffling back and forth for a while on whether we wanted to add more goats or wait until our doeling, Olive, is old enough to breed. The problem with waiting for her to breed is that I WANT MILK. She won’t be able to breed until the beginning of next year at the earliest, and then it will still be five more months until she kids. So that puts us at a year from now for fresh milk.

Now that I am pretty comfortable with the dietary needs of our goats and see how simple it really is to care for them, I feel like adding a doe in milk (already producing milk) will be easy since we already have the setup, and will quickly offset the cost of joining a herdshare again. Plus with any excess, I can try my hand at cheese making, something I’ve always wanted to do 🙂 Home dairy has been a dream of mine from the moment I discovered homesteading. I remember staying up at night baking sourdough bread and cleaning the floors in our tiny house in California listening to podcasts about dairy goats… LOL. It feels like I’m coming full circle, and the best part is that I can provide my family with such a nutrient dense food, and teach the kids about another part of the food system.

Why goat’s milk?

As I mentioned, I have been dreaming about having a dairy animal since the day I discovered homesteading. However, a cow seemed too intimidating for someone who had no experience with farm animals, and the amount of milk a cow produces is just overwhelming. Then once we bought our property in VA it definitely cemented the idea of using goats or sheep for dairy because we simply do not have the room for a cow. Plus, being super new to dairy, I feel like a lot of the milk would end up going to waste because I wouldn’t be able to deal with the sheer volume of milk that a cow produces.

Plus, I love goats cheese and goats milk products, so it just makes sense! Mini goats are compact, adorable and hilarious, and not intimidating to my small children. Plus the Nigerian Dwarf milk is sweet and creamy (although my husband refuses to believe it).

Materials for DIY Goat Milking Stand

Pallet – For this project we used a full top pallet. If you can find a source for full top pallets, they’re much more convenient to use because you don’t have to fill in the gaps with extra wood.

Additional lumber – You will also need 4x4s for the legs, 2x4s for the supporting structure, and 1x6s for the horizontal part of the structure and where the feeder hangs onto the front.

Drill or impact driver and Phillips head screwdriver bit – I used an impact driver and self drilling screws because I didn’t want to spend extra time drilling. I will say, you run more risk of splitting the wood this way, but to me it was worth the time save because I built this basically within one naptime and one bedtime for my kids 😀

Outdoor screws – I used 2 1/2 inch and 2 inch screws on different areas of the project depending on how thick the wood was.

Circular saw – At first this seemed like an intimidating tool to use, but it’s really quite simple. Just make sure to wear safety glasses for flying wood! Also, if it’s not something that’s in your budget to buy new, I would suggest checking your local Habitat for Humanity ReStore. I got ours for FIVE BUCKS! All it needed was a new blade.

1/2 in x 8in bolt and 1/2 in hex nut – This will be used to hold the locking mechanism in place.

1/2 in drill bit – I chose to get this Milwaukee drill bit because it has the 1/4 in hex shank at the bottom which allows for use in the impact driver or regular drill. It was more expensive, but our drill isn’t very powerful so I wanted to be able to use it in the impact driver.

Hook and eye lock, or hook with chain – For now we are just using a hook and eye lock at the top, but I’m planning on switching this out for a hook with a small chain, to allow for bigger goats on the stand.

Hanging feeder – I used this 5qt over the fence feeder, and it fits right onto the front of the milking stand. This holds the feed while I’m milking, and it works perfectly.

How to build DIY Pallet Goat Milking Stand

It was really pretty easy to build this milking stand, but I did have a couple of hiccups and had to take apart the vertical structure once after building it and reconfigure, but I’ll explain that later. First step is to cut down the pallet. You don’t have to cut the pallet down, but if you leave it wide, you will end up needing larger pieces of the additional lumber. I cut it down so that there was basically one support beam on each side.

Then I cut the 4x4s to 18 inches each. I attached these by using a 2 1/2 inch deck screw in the top and the side of each one, for extra support. Then I broke additional planks off the leftover portion of the pallet to screw onto the front and back of the stand to cover up where it was open on the ends.

The next step was to start building the vertical structure. In the pictures below, I will show the method that I used to do the initial build, but I realized soon after that this was not going to work, because it was too narrow to be able to fit the locking mechanism. In later pictures, you’ll see that I then moved the 2x4s to the sides of the structure and turned them sideways, opening up the middle much more.

The vertical 2x4s are 36 inches each, just in case we ever decide to do full size goats vs minis. This will accommodate both.

I attached these with three 2 1/2 inch screws. In this initial build, I used more planks that I broke off the leftover pallet in order to make the horizontal part of the support. In the final build I used 1×6 board that I cut down to the proper size. The method was the same though. Place one plank on each side of the 2×4 and use a 2 inch screw to attach them.

Photo of vertical structure of DIY pallet goat milking stand

Next I attached the headlock that will actually hold the goat in place during milking. When you’re looking at the stand head on, the 2×4 on the left will be stationary. The one on the right will be attached with the bolt and nut, so that you can open and close it. I basically slid the 2×4 in between the two 1×6 boards, and used 2 inch screws on each side of the top, and only the back side on the bottom. This left room for me to attach the feed bucket in front, because there was no screw in the way.

In this photo from the back of the milk stand, you can see how the 2×4 is basically sitting on the front of the milking stand, and is attached by screws in the top and bottom. The next step was to attach the moving part of the head lock. I took my half inch drill bit and made holes through each 1×6 board on the bottom. The middle of the bolt is 7 inches apart from the middle of the stationary 2×4.

For the mobile part of the headlock we happened to have a 2×3 stud that I used but you could just as easily use another piece of a 2×4. I also drilled a 1/2 inch hole into the bottom of this piece. Then I slid it down in between the 1×6 boards, and fished the bolt through the boards and the 2×3. Lastly, screwed the nut onto the other side.

The last two things I did were attach the eye hook at the top to hold the headlock in place while I’m milking, and jam the feeder onto the front. It took a little force to get it in between the 1×6 board and the stationary 2×4, but now it’s not going anywhere.

The DIY Pallet Goat Milking Stand has been working great for us so far, and the only thing I need to do now is build a little step for Nougat since we are currently using a big plastic case and she doesn’t like her hooves slipping on it.

And for the last pic… please enjoy a little Nougat smile as she was finishing up on the milking stand 🙂

DIY Straw Storage with Pallets and Tarp

Published on May 30, 2023 by Holly SpanglerLeave a comment

DIY Easy and Cheap Hay/Straw Storage using Pallets and Tarp

We’ve been having a HUGE problem with straw storage, because we don’t have a barn on our property, and our feed shed is very small, so just big enough to fit a few bales of hay for the goats and the grain and chicken feed. We need to keep a bale of straw around to use as bedding for the goats, and I will occasionally use it in the chickens nesting areas, or around the garden, etc.

Recently we have just been keeping the straw on a pallet in the driveway, and it was covered with a light tarp, but not secured in any way, so it would constantly blow off, leaving the straw exposed to the elements, and eventually molding inside. So now, much to my husband’s dismay, there is straw strewn all over the back of the driveway since I completely gave up on the tarp. HENCE, needing to come up with a better solution, and a cheap/DIY one since we can’t afford to build a barn right now.

I’ll post pictures below of what I came up with… we’ll see if it works and I’ll update the post with any changes we make.

What you will need to build DIY Straw/Hay Storage from Pallets

Pavers – I used cheap pavers from Home Depot to lay down the base for the straw storage area.

Cinder blocks – Cinder blocks can be really useful around the homestead for a variety of projects, whether temporary or otherwise. We have one of our chicken coops propped up on cinder blocks, and I’m using them here to keep the pallet up off the ground so the wood doesn’t rot as quickly. Again, you can get these from Home Depot.

Pallet – Any old pallet will do, just make sure the slats aren’t too far apart so the hay or straw won’t just completely fall through the holes.

Heavy duty tarp – Pick the size depending on how much hay or straw you plan on storing, but this one is the 6×8 heavy duty tarp from WalMart. I chose the heavy duty one because this will be constantly exposed to the elements.

3M Hooks – I used the 3M hooks to attach the tarp on one side to the wall of the shed.

Short light duty fence post – You could alternatively use a garden stake, but the light duty fence post has little hooks and holes where you can easily attach the tarp with a small zip tie. I may end up changing up the design and using two of these, but we happened to have one laying around. You can get these at any farm supply store like Tractor Supply.

Put Down a Foundation for the Straw Storage

The first thing I did was move some pavers we had laying around to the side of the lawn shed, as well as four cinder blocks. This created a nice base for the little pallet holder I set up.

I also added the garden stake about two feet in front of the cinder block set up.

Put the pallet on the cinder block base

Then I just stacked the pallet on top the cinder block base. Honestly at some point I will probably change out this pallet since the slats are pretty far apart, and this one had already been exposed to the elements, so it has already started to deteriorate, but I needed something to use right away and this was available. Which I guess is the whole idea of DIY pallet storage, this is something anyone could do in a pinch!

Attach the 3M hooks onto the side of the shed on either side of the pallet storage. Then simply stack the straw onto the pallet, and pull the tarp over. Attach the middle grommet on the tarp to one of the hooks on the fence post, and you have cheap, easy, DIY straw storage! If you need to, take a pair of pliers and bend out the hook a little if the grommet won’t fit into it. Now, we’ll see how long this lasts, or if I can convince DH to move to a farm with a barn… 🙂

Let me know in the comments if you have any tricks for DIY hay or straw storage without a barn, we could definitely use them!

Getting Started With Chickens

Published on May 1, 2023May 1, 2023 by Holly SpanglerLeave a comment

Since we’ve really gotten into the groove of things with our animals the past couple of years and we’ve done about 6 batches of chicks now including some we’ve hatched, I’ve had a few friends ask me how to set up for chickens! Read below to see how we typically set up for adding new baby chicks 🙂

Why add chickens to your family?

Chickens are typically the first animals someone brings into a homestead, and they’re also great for a backyard. They’re probably the most useful animal so far around our property as well. They finish off any kitchen scraps from meat, to veggies, to pasta. They’re not picky and they eat everything which cuts down on the feed bill, and providing them a varied diet ensures they will lay amazing eggs with super rich egg yolks.

They’re great at turning the compost, aerating garden beds after the growing season, and they’re just fun to watch! There is always flock drama going on which can be entertaining, and if you handle them frequently as you raise them, and handfeed them treats they will grow to love you and follow you around the yard like little dogs.

What do you need to start with chicks?

A Brooder – Aka a container to keep the chicks in! It could be as basic as a 50 gallon tote from Walmart, which happens to be what we are using right now, or as complicated as a hand built wooden brooder box with a screen top. We also love to use a pack and play, and I’ll post a picture of that set up below. The pack and play gives the chicks lots more room to run around, but it does have mesh sides which allows a lot of the chicken dust to escape. That’s something to think about if you are sensitive to animal dander especially if they are in your house. A pro of using the 50 gallon tote is that you can clean it out quickly with the hose. You should also have something to put on the top since as soon as chicks start to grow wing feathers, they will be able to fly out. We use old window screens and they work perfectly.

A Heater – Baby chicks absolutely need to have a heat source. When hens hatch eggs they are usually excellent mamas and will provide the chicks with a warm place to sleep and hang out until they have their feathers in. When we don’t have a mama hen we need to provide them with an alternative source of heat so they don’t get chilled.

There are two options… a heat lamp or a brooder plate. We typically love the brooder plate and this is the one we use from tractor supply. It fits perfectly in our pack n play set up. This brooder plate is pretty big and will not fit in a 50-gallon tote. The heat lamp gets the job done, but you always want to be diligent about securing it because they are known to cause fires. There are other options for smaller brooder plates available on Amazon such as this 12×12 plate. The only downside I will note about the brooder plate is that the chickens will jump on top of it and poop all over it, which can get really gross really fast. I usually will try to keep it covered with aluminum foil so I can just roll it up and throw it out when it gets gross.

Feeder/Waterer – Chicks always need to have a fresh supply of food and water. Honestly you can use any container for food, but usually we opt for the little galvanized food and water attachments they sell at farm supply stores. They fit onto a quart sized mason jar and they’re just small and easy to fit in the brooder and don’t make a ton of mess. I also have been known to just put the food into an old takeout container, but they do tend to get into it and scratch around and make a mess in the food. The actual feeder prevents this from happening as much. A plastic chick waterer also works well, but we’ve found the ones they sell at farm supply stores don’t last more than 6 months without breaking. The one in the photo below actually came from Petco, so we’ll see how long it lasts.

Food – For baby chicks you want to start with a chick starter/grower. It has more protein than a traditional layer feed because the babies grow so fast. We used to use DuMor, but recently switched all our chicken feed to Nutrena NatureWise, because we noticed our hens yolks were so much richer with this feed. The chickens all seem to love it!

Bedding – The chicks will need some soft bedding for their brooder. We always use the big bag of flaked pine bedding from Tractor Supply. You will need to get the FLAKE pine shavings vs the fine, because the chicks can aspirate the small particles in the fine bedding.

Tips for starting chicks…

1. Something else you should always have on hand for chicks is electrolytes. I always keep a bag of Hydro-Hen, which is an electrolyte plus a probiotic. This is something that can be given to chicks but is also great for adult birds especially in hot weather. I honestly don’t ALWAYS use this for my chicks, but if they are super young or just seem like they aren’t doing well/having issues with pasty-butt etc, I will be sure to add some to their water. It can be the difference between a chick who lives and one that dies, which is an unfortunately inevitable at some point while raising chicks.

2. Use something to keep the food and water up off the bedding. In the picture of our brooder setup you can see we normally use a small piece of plywood. I’ve also seen people use a rolled wire mesh, as long as the holes are small enough that the chicks little toes won’t get stuck. This prevents them from getting so much of the bedding into their water and food. It especially keeps the water so much cleaner and free from bedding.

3. Keep an eye out for pasty butt. Pasty butt is a condition where the chicks vent (rear end) gets clogged with hardened poo and they are unable to relieve themselves. It really is as gross as it sounds. However… it is deadly! We’ve had chicks die within a day because I didn’t notice it and they essentially get so backed up that they are poisoned by their own waste. It happens a lot in chicks that are shipped commercially due to stress and getting chilled. Check out the Chicken Chick’s guide to treatment of pasty-butt. It really is pretty easy and we’ve dealt with it many times with no issue.

How long do chicks need to stay in the brooder?

This really depends on a couple things. The heat outside, how cold it’s getting at night and the amount of feathers the chicks have. Generally chicks will be fully feathered at around 6 weeks of age, but usually if the temps are staying at 65 degrees consistently they should be ok to be outside a little before that. We just play it by ear. When it starts to get warmer during the day I will try to turn off the heat during the day and just keep it on for them at night, so they can gradually get used to the outside temperature.

Moving chicks to the big coop…

If you don’t have any other chickens this is easy, as you will simply move the chicks into the new coop at night and make sure you keep them in a small run for a about a week so they get used to their new home and know where to go to sleep at night. Sometimes they will need help the first few days so it’s best to keep them confined to a smaller area.

If you have an existing flock it can get a little tricky because chickens notoriously have a “pecking order” and the younger chicks will get picked on. Personally, we keep a small run inside of our big run. We will move the younger chicks into this small run for a few days to a week. That way they are exposed to the flock but still protected inside their small run. Then they can integrate with the flock without too much drama. You should move them into the coop at night, and there might still be a little scuffling around, but chickens sleep at night and won’t be as disturbed by the new additions.

Our big coop is currently not in the best condition so we’ll be expanding/updating it this summer. Let me know in the comments if you have any other tips or tricks for starting out with chicks, and check back later for my post on our favorite free-ranging chicken breeds!

DIY Goat Shelter with Pallets

Published on April 26, 2023April 28, 2023 by Holly SpanglerLeave a comment

Anyone who has talked homesteading with me for any length of time knows that getting goats has been a huge dream of mine. Despite what everyone says about them being mischievous, getting into everything, eating everything, etc. I was still determined to get them. And this Spring my dreams have come true 😀 We had an opportunity to get two Mini-Nubian goat kids for a much lower price than they would normally be and I was somehow able to convince Ryan that this would be a good idea. After all, think of the milk, cheese, and soap!

So a few weeks before we were set to pick up the babies, I started thinking about how to go about building an easy DIY shelter for them. I had read that all they really need is a three sided shelter, or lean-to to make sure they have a wind break, and a place to get out of the rain and snow because goats HATE to be wet. I started brainstorming the most affordable option that I could DIY. Of course I had to go with pallets. I’ll break down the cost at the end of the post. I was able to source pallets from someone near me through searching on Facebook marketplace, and luckily I was able to find some with full sides so there are no big holes allowing for drafts.

Method for the Goat Shelter Build

I just stood the pallets up on their sides, then used a drill and long self drilling screws to attach them together. This makes it so that if I need to reconfigure or make the structure bigger at any point, I can easily take it apart and add more. I will need to do this by next year since we plan on breeding our doe for milk, and she will need a separate area to kid. I added 2x4s along the bottom for extra structure and in case we want to add wheels to the back and make it mobile.

In my infinite wisdom, I bought the cheapest 2x4s not realizing they aren’t pressure treated so I’m sure those will need to be replaced sooner rather than later, but they are working for now. The next step was to run additional 2x4s up the sides of the goat shelter to support the roof. I basically decided how much I should pitch the roof and marked it with a pencil. Using a tape measure, I measured how long it was then used a circular saw to cut two to that length. I cut two more to a shorter length for the other side. These 2x4s are pressure treated, and also provide additional support for the corners of the structure.

The last step was to run a couple more 2x4s along the top to provide structure for the roof. I cut them long enough that the roof would hang over the shelter on both sides and provide protection from the rain. Honestly, our drill wasn’t powerful enough to drill through the corrugated steel roofing I got from Home Depot, so I improvised and each spot I needed to put a screw, I tapped a nail through the roofing first, then followed up with the screw, attaching it to the wood. I put about 5 or 6 screws along the 2×4 on each side, putting longer screws where it needed to go all the way through and attach to the vertical 2x4s.

I really went into this with no plan and was pleasantly surprised by how well it turned out. On the inside I mounted this hay feeder that I got from Tractor Supply, as well as this mineral feeder for their loose minerals. Mounting the hay and mineral feeders on the inside ensures that the hay stays out of the rain and won’t mold.

And of course I had to include a picture with our adorable goat babies, Jam and Olive watching me take pictures from the background and wondering why I’m not feeding them treats.

Cost Breakdown for Goat Shelter:

Pallets – 5 at $10/each = $50
2x4s – 2 @ $3.35 = $6.70 / 6 @ $4.98 = $29.88
Pack of assorted outdoor screws – $12.67
Hay feeder – $54.99
Mineral Feeder – $8.49
Corrugated steel roofing – 3 @ $19.98 = $59.94

TOTAL = $222.67

We will definitely be expanding and making it more of a permanent structure since we will have more animals than just the two goats and we’ve already picked up four more of the full sided pallets to do so. But in comparison to a local builder we were considering that was about $900 for the smallest shelter I would say we saved a lot in doing this ourselves. I also love that it’s changeable, and I can adjust it to fit our needs. So if you’re considering goats or sheep, and you are able to source them, pallets are a great tool for building easy DIY goat or sheep shelters. Let me know in the comments if you have any questions about the build or if you would try this for your animals!