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Farm Feed

Best Chicken Feed: 3 Top Picks for Backyard Flocks

Chickens gathered around a feeder eating chicken feed
(Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash)

Walk into any feed store and you’ll find a wall of bags all claiming to be the best chicken feed for your flock. The truth is there isn’t one single best option — the right chicken feed depends on your birds’ age, whether they’re laying, and how much you want to spend.

What matters most is matching the feed to the life stage of your flock and making sure it delivers enough protein and calcium to keep hens laying well. This guide covers what to look for, the difference between layer feed and starter/grower feed, and three real chicken feed products worth putting in your coop.

If you want the bigger picture on feed categories across every animal on the farm, our guide to the different types of animal feed is a good starting point, and our breakdown of what most farm animals eat covers chickens alongside the rest of your livestock. This post is the specific, product-level deep dive neither of those covers.

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Home & Garden

How to Start Composting: A Beginner’s Guide

A backyard compost pile with browns and greens layered for beginner composting
(Photo by Calixte Benoit on Unsplash)

Composting for beginners sounds more complicated than it actually is. At its core, you’re just piling up the right mix of “browns” and “greens,” giving it some air and moisture, and letting nature do the rest. The tricky part is usually the details — what ratio to use, how often to turn it, and what to do when the pile starts to smell.

This guide walks through how to start composting the traditional, outdoor way, from your first pile to your first batch of finished compost. If you’re short on outdoor space or want a faster, odor-free indoor method instead, our bokashi composting guide covers a fermentation-based alternative that works well on a balcony or under a kitchen sink.

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Farm Animals

How to Build a Chicken Coop: A Complete DIY Guide

A wooden backyard chicken coop with a chicken standing near the entrance
(Photo by Bram Wouters on Unsplash)

A good chicken coop is the single most important investment you’ll make when you start keeping chickens. It’s what stands between your flock and a raccoon at 2am, what keeps them dry through a February storm, and what determines whether collecting eggs is a five-minute joy or a daily headache. This guide walks through everything that goes into building a proper chicken coop, from sizing and materials to predator-proofing, ventilation, and nesting boxes — plus a few solid ready-made options if building from scratch isn’t for you.

If you haven’t already worked out flock size, feeding, and the basics of getting started, our guide on how to get started with raising chickens covers that ground first. This article picks up where that one leaves off and goes deep on the coop itself.

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Farm Animals

Goat Breeds for Beginners: Meat, Dairy & Small Breeds Guide

Goats grazing together in a pasture, representing different goat breeds for beginners
(Photo by Moa Király on Unsplash)

If you’re building out your farm animals lineup, goats are one of the most rewarding additions you can make. They’re hardy, personable, and come in dozens of breeds suited to almost any homestead, whether you’re after meat, milk, or just a couple of easygoing companions to clear brush.

The tricky part isn’t whether to raise goats — it’s figuring out which of the many goat breeds actually fits your space, your climate, and your goals. A dairy breed bred for high milk yields is a poor match for someone who just wants a couple of low-maintenance browsers, and a large meat breed needs very different fencing than a Pygmy goat.

This guide breaks down the most popular meat goat breeds, dairy goat breeds, and small goat breeds, plus what you should think through before bringing your first goats home.

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Home & Garden

Best Greenhouse Kits: 4 Top Picks for Every Budget

A small standalone greenhouse kit set up in a backyard garden
(Photo by Adrian Infernus on Unsplash)

Not everyone wants to spend a weekend framing lumber and cutting panels. If you just want a working greenhouse up and growing plants this weekend, a ready-made kit gets you there a lot faster than building one from scratch. This guide rounds up solid greenhouse kits across a range of sizes and budgets, from compact starter setups to full walk-in structures, so you can pick the one that actually fits your yard and your growing goals.

If you’re not sure yet whether buying or building is the better fit for you, our guide to setting up your own greenhouse walks through the trade-offs and covers the DIY build process in detail.

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Farm Animals

Raising Ducks for Eggs and Meat: A Beginner’s Guide

Ducks swimming and foraging near a pond on a small farm
(Photo by Sherise Van Dyk on Unsplash)

Chickens tend to get all the attention when people think about backyard poultry, but raising ducks deserves a serious look too. Ducks are hardier in bad weather, better foragers, and several breeds are noticeably quieter than a rooster crowing at dawn.

If you’ve already gone through getting started with raising chickens, a lot of the basics will feel familiar — but ducks have their own quirks, especially around water, that are worth understanding before you bring any home.

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Categories
Homesteading

Composting Toilet for Off-Grid Homes: 3 Top Picks

A small off-grid cabin bathroom setup suited to a composting toilet
(Photo by Thomas Werneken on Unsplash)

A composting toilet is one of the most practical upgrades you can make to an off-grid home, and it’s often one of the first questions people ask when they start planning a homestead without a septic or sewer connection. No water lines, no septic tank, and no black tank to pump out — just a system that turns waste into something you can eventually return to the soil.

This guide covers how composting toilets actually work, why off-grid households choose them, the difference between self-contained and central-system designs, and three real products worth considering.

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Categories
Farm Feed

Goat Feed Guide: What to Feed Kids, Does, and Bucks

A goat eating hay from a feeder on a small homestead
(Photo by Cali Brutz on Unsplash)

Once you’ve settled on a breed — whether that’s a meat goat, a dairy goat, or one of the smaller dual-purpose breeds — the next question is almost always the same: what should you actually be feeding it?

Goat feed isn’t one-size-fits-all. What a doe needs while nursing kids is very different from what a browsing buck needs the rest of the year, and one of the most common beginner mistakes — feeding sheep mineral to goats — can quietly make your goats sick over time.

This guide covers goat feed basics by life stage, how hay, pellets, and browse fit together, and why copper matters so much more for goats than most beginners realize.

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Farming

Companion Planting Chart: Best & Worst Vegetable Pairings

Rows of mixed vegetables planted together in a companion planting vegetable garden
(Photo by Ulrike R. Donohue on Unsplash)

Some vegetables genuinely make each other better neighbors, and some quietly sabotage each other’s growth. Companion planting is the practice of pairing crops that help one another — through pest deterrence, nutrient sharing, or simple use of space — while keeping the bad pairings apart.

It’s one of the oldest tricks in farming and home gardening alike, and you don’t need a science degree to use it well. You mostly just need a reliable companion planting chart to reference when you’re laying out beds each spring.

This guide covers the classic companion planting pairings, the combinations you should actively avoid, and a full reference chart you can come back to season after season.

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Home & Garden

Garden Soil: Buying & Building Guide

Gardener holding a handful of rich dark garden soil
(Photo by Sandie Clarke on Unsplash)

Good garden soil is the difference between a bed that struggles all season and one that barely needs babysitting. It’s also one of the most confusing things to shop for — walk down the soil aisle at any garden center and you’ll see “topsoil,” “garden soil,” and “potting mix” sitting side by side, often for similar prices, with no obvious explanation of which one you actually need.

This guide clears up that confusion, covers how to build your own soil mix if you’d rather not buy it bagged, and walks through when buying makes more sense than building.

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