Daniel Foster

If you have noticed your chickens scratching more than usual, dropping feathers, or laying fewer eggs, you might be dealing with a parasite problem. Mites and lice are the two most common external parasites that infest backyard flocks, and a single female mite can multiply to over 500,000 mites in just nine weeks. The good … Read more

Last spring, I walked out to my coop expecting the usual four warm eggs and came back with an empty basket. Three days passed. Then a week. I had six healthy hens who looked fine, ate well, and acted normal, yet my egg count had crashed to zero. That panic is what most backyard chicken … Read more

Yes, you can treat bumblefoot in a chicken at home for mild and moderate cases. Bumblefoot (pododermatitis) is a staph infection of the footpad that responds well to warm Epsom salt soaks, careful removal of the infected core, and daily bandaging when caught early. I have walked several of our own hens through this exact … Read more

I lost two chicks to coccidiosis before I learned what to watch for. By the time I noticed the bloody droppings, it was already too late. That was years ago, and since then I have raised dozens of batches without losing another bird to this disease. The difference? Knowing how to spot the early warning … Read more

When a hen is egg-bound, she has an egg stuck in her oviduct that she cannot pass. This is a true emergency. Without intervention, an egg-bound hen can die within 24 to 48 hours from shock, infection, or pressure on her internal organs. I have raised laying hens for years, and egg binding is the … Read more

Bringing new chickens home is exciting, but tossing them straight into your existing flock is a recipe for blood, stress, and sometimes worse. Learning how to introduce new chickens to an existing flock the right way keeps your birds safe, healthy, and stress-free through the whole process. I have integrated dozens of birds into my … Read more

When I first started raising chickens, I made every mistake in the book with my eggs. I washed them all immediately, stored them in the fridge door, and wondered why some went bad within a week. After talking to experienced keepers and digging into food safety guidelines, I learned that learning how to clean and … Read more

Keeping chickens healthy through extreme seasonal swings is one of the hardest things I have learned as a backyard flock owner. Between blistering summer heat waves that pushed past 105 degrees Fahrenheit here and bitter January nights that dropped below zero, I have lost birds I shouldn’t have and learned what actually works the hard … Read more

When I raised my first batch of ducklings three springs ago, I watched one of my Pekins start sitting down more than the others. I figured she was just tired. Within five days she could barely stand, and I was on the phone with a waterfowl vet scrambling for answers. That experience pushed me to … Read more

If you’ve noticed your duckling’s wing sticking out at an odd angle, you may be looking at angel wing. I want to walk you through everything I’ve learned about this common waterfowl wing deformity, including how to spot it early, splint it correctly, and adjust your duck’s diet so the wing grows back into place. … Read more