farm life

ANIMALS/WILDLIFE, FARM, GOOD FOR NATURE, INFORMATION, URBAN NATURE
Raising Chickens with Kids
- May 25, 2021
Have you ever dreamed of raising your own chickens, but weren’t sure how to get started? Do you want to know if chickens are the right pet for you? Are you wondering if chickens are safe to raise around kids? Today, Leslie Alvis, our resident crazy chicken lady, Creative Team member, and homeschooling and homesteading mom of four is sharing her love of chickens with you. Leslie grew up raising chickens, had a long chicken drought during college and early motherhood years, but has started up a backyard flock again with her own children. This makes her the perfect person to share, tips, essentials, and all the ins and outs of raising chickens with kids.

The beginnings of a chicken mama

I was seven or eight years old when the first chicken arrived in my life. My parents were both veterinarians and our farm was often the rehoming site for a variety of animals. Pecky, a stately Light Brahma Rooster, came to us because his elderly owner couldn’t keep up with his antics. I fell in love.

I loved his silky feathers, his majestic red comb and dangling wattles, his audacious crow, his feathered feet. It wasn’t long before I decided he needed a family, and so it began. We bought some hens from the little lady who sold eggs just down the road. Soon I was showing chickens in 4-H and selling eggs.

My little flock grew quickly and I loved every member of it. All my chickens had names and personalities. They roamed our barn and yard, providing us with multi-colored and multi-sized eggs and endless entertainment. At one point, my mom clipped an article from a local titled, “Chickens: Better than Television,” and stuck it on the refrigerator. It was true for our family. The chickens were my responsibility, but they entertained us all.

Raising chickens with kids

After years of living in a town where we weren’t allowed to raise chickens, we now live in the country and my children are helping me build a flock again. We started with 11 chicks last spring, and just added 13 more. My daughter gleefully announced recently that right now we have three separate flocks: the grown hens, the adolescent chicks, and the newly hatched Ameraucana chicks I couldn’t leave the feed store without last week.

I’m a firm believer in the benefits of kids raising kids with animals. Taking care of animals helps children learn responsibility, gentleness, and the importance of looking after other living things. They learn empathy and compassion. They also get to experience the joy of friendship with those animals. So, although my older kids have their own pets they’re responsible for and I’m the person primarily responsible for the chickens, I make sure all my kids are involved in our chicken raising adventure.

The joys of chickens

If you’re looking for a pet that’s both productive and personable, you really don’t need to look any farther than a chicken. These feathered friends are relatively simple to care for, make enjoyable pets, and a good laying hen will reward you with up to 300 eggs a year! They’re also pets that children of every age will enjoy.

Our children (ranging in ages 3-13) all help me with different parts of the chickens’ care on a daily basis. While they may grumble sometimes about chasing the chickens out of the neighbors’ yard again or running out to lock up the coop at dark, they truly enjoy these quirky birds. Everyone loves how the hens come running when we bring them food scraps. We’re mesmerized by the soft fluff of the baby chicks. And the daily wonder of finding fresh brown, green, and blue eggs never wears off.

A family affair

Our teenage son might complain that chickens aren’t very smart, but he’s the first person to help me solve a problem with laying boxes or roosts or leaking waterers. And even our three year can march out in the yard and catch a chicken, which delights her endlessly. My husband recently asked if he had to start cheeping to get any attention around here. And if you come visit our house, consider yourself forewarned: at least one, and possibly several, of my children will surely thrust a chick in your face, and expect you to be as delighted with it as they are. A full-grown hen may quite possibly appear also. In the house. Just so you know. Welcome to our zoo.

Getting started raising chickens

If you’ve never raised livestock, getting started raising chickens might feel intimidating. Chickens aren’t terribly hard, but there are a few details to consider first. As with any pet, you need to make sure you can provide what chickens need.

The first thing you should do is make sure chickens are allowed where you live. Many towns and cities have allowances for small backyard flocks, but it’s always a good idea to check your local ordinances if you live in a suburban area.

Chickens also need some yard space, whether you intend to let them free-range around your yard, or keep them in an enclosure. You can also do a hybrid of the two: we have an enclosed run to keep the chickens contained when we’re not around. Usually, in the afternoons and evenings, we let them free-range around the yard. They carry a special affinity for the neighbor’s yard, however, so we have to keep an eye on them. When we finish building our homestead, they will have plenty of space to roam freely.

Coop details

Next, you need a secure, draft-free coop for your birds. A general guideline is to allow 2-3 square feet of coop space per chicken. You can buy really cute little coops for a small flock, like this one. If you or someone in your family is up for a bit of a project, check out these great chicken coop plans! My skilled carpenter husband built us a coop out of scrap and repurposed materials. We use a movable dog kennel for our run enclosure.

What you need for baby chicks

But before you get overwhelmed by coop details, take a deep breath. If you’re planning to start with baby chicks, all you need to get started is a deep cardboard box for a brooder. Baby chicks need a cozy, draft-free environment and not too much space to start off with. For the first two weeks of their life, baby chicks only need 6 square inches of space per chick. (But don’t put off the coop plans—these little chicks grow fast!)

In all honesty, we’ve kept baby chicks in roomy boxes in our laundry room, basement, garage…even in the living room. Yes, I’m really that crazy chicken lady. I always prefer to keep the tiny peeps close for a while. Besides, we all just want to hold those little fluffballs every chance we get.

Chicken brooder set up

Getting your brooder set up isn’t hard. Get a nice-sized, sturdy box or build your own, line it with newspaper and pine chips, and hang a heat lamp overhead. A red bulb for your heat lamp helps keep chicks from pecking at one another. The heat lamp should be 18-24 inches away from the chicks. Initially, the ideal brooder temperature is between 90-95 degrees (think body temperature–a mother hen spends most of her time keeping her chicks at her own body temperature).

I always count on the chicks to let me know where it needs to be: when they are cold, they huddle together directly under the heat source. If they’re too hot, they pant and try to get away from it. I watch them very carefully the first few hours after adjusting the heat lamp, to make sure they are comfortable. Although chicks are surprisingly tough and resilient, the wrong temperatures can cause stress and illness. I also arrange the brooder so there is a warm side and a cool side, keeping the food and water on the cooler side.

Additional chicken accessories

If you’re raising chickens, you’ll also need a chick feeder, a waterer, and chick starter feed, which has a higher protein level than adult chicken feed, along with other essential nutrients for healthy chicks. Although you can purchase everything online, I highly recommend using your local farm or garden supply store as much as possible. Not only are you supporting a local business, but you are also tapping into a valuable resource.

A local feed store has knowledgeable employees who can often answer questions for you, as well as competitive prices on everything you need. You’re going to need a regular supply of feed. And if you should ever need medication or supplement for your chickens, you’ll already know right where to find it.

Getting your chicks

Now comes one of the most fun parts of raising chickens: getting your chicks! Once again, you can order chicks online from a hatchery, but you usually have to order at least 25 chicks so they can keep each other warm during shipping. And in my mind, nothing beats picking out those chicks in person. For years, we passed by the chicks at our local feed store on our way to the dog food aisle. We looked longingly into each brooder and told our children, “Someday we’ll live in a place where we can have chickens.”

Last year, just a couple of weeks after moving to our country home, we marched our whole family into the feed store and hand-picked our chicks. It was addictively fun. So fun, in fact, that we couldn’t wait to do it again this year. We talked about it for months, even as we enjoyed raising our bigger chickens. There’s just nothing like getting baby chicks.

Chicken breeds

What breed of chicken you choose really depends on what you’re looking for. Do you want lots of eggs? Brown eggs? Blue and green ones? All pullets (young females), or straight run (a random mixture of males and females)? Docile chickens? Just bantam chickens who look cute? The options are endless, even at a feed store.

If you look in a hatchery catalog, there are more breeds than you can ever imagine. This article has quite a bit of helpful information about the best laying hens, while this one highlights some of the most kid-friendly chicken breeds. And if you’re interested in different breeds based on the different colors of eggs they might lay, check out this article.

How to pick your chicks

When picking out chicks, we’ve used several different criteria. First, my husband’s vote was that he wanted to see lots of variety in our flock. So we’ve picked several different feather colors. I wanted different shades of eggs, so I picked out brown, green, and blue egg-laying chickens. I also selected some breeds because of their reputation as docile and family-friendly birds.

So our entire family trooped around the chick display, saying, “We want some of those, and a couple of those, and a couple of those…” And we love what we’ve ended up with. Our current laying flock has 3 Ameraucanas, 1 Black Australorp, 2 Light Brahmas, and 3 Rhode Island Reds (we actually got the Reds by accident—they were mixed in with some other chicks. I wouldn’t have necessarily picked them, but they are excellent layers and have also become great pets). This year we picked up some Barred Rocks, ISA Browns, more Ameraucanas, and some bantams for the pure fun of their personalities and plumage.

Caring for your chicks

After you get your chicks set up in their brooder, they need what any other animal needs: freshwater, food, and clean bedding. Chicks are messy little critters who love to scratch around. They will kick food and chips into their water, so I try to hang waterers when I can, or at least set the waterer up on a wooden block so it’s slightly elevated. You want to make sure they can still reach it, though! The kids love helping me make sure the chicks have plenty of food.

If your chicks are cheeping loudly, they are probably hungry, thirsty, or too hot or cold. Noisy chicks need attention. The conversational chirping of contented chicks is very different from the yelping cheeps of uncomfortable ones. I can tell as soon as I walk into the room if my chicks are uncomfortable or upset.

Chick maintenance

Sadly, once in a while a baby chick will get sick or simply fail to thrive. Many times, if you are vigilant in checking your chicks often for problems such as lethargy or pasty vents, you can address these issues and resolve them, saving your chick. This article helps outline basic chick problems and how you can identify and treat them.

Every day or two, I get a couple of helpers and we clean out the whole brooder. The kids hold the chicks (I mean, I can put them in a small box if I need to. But the kids love helping by holding the chicks!) while I take everything out of the brooder, roll up the soiled bedding into the papers on the bottom, and put out fresh papers and chips. This is also a good time to clean the waterer thoroughly with soap and water to prevent bacteria build-up.

Growing chicks

After a couple of weeks, those tiny fluffballs get a surprising amount of feathers. It doesn’t take long for chicks to hit what we call the “ugly” stage. They get a little gawky and awkward, no longer cute balls of fuzz but far from the lovely plumage of adult birds. At this stage, I put my son in charge of some exercise equipment for the chicks. They love to hop and perch. You can use a dowel rod or even just a straight stick for a roost, and a small cardboard box gives them something to jump on.

Your chicks are also old enough to start feeding some small treats now. Chickens love all kinds of fruits, vegetables, and even table scraps. However, there are a few foods are bad or even toxic to chickens, so be sure to check a list like this one before you start feeding them everything from your fridge!

When you start feeding your chicks treats, make sure you also include a bit of chick grit in their food. Chickens need grit (crushed up bits of rock) to help them digest their food by grinding it up in their crop. Chick starter feed is very digestible, so I don’t add grit until they start foraging for food or getting supplemental treats. Free-range chickens usually find the bits of rock they need for grit in their natural foraging, but I like to toss a bit of grit in their food to just be sure they have what they need.

Chicken treats

Our favorite part of feeding treats to the chickens is how much they love it—and consequently, how much they love us. When we step out the back door and call, “Here, chick-chick-chick!” the hens come running from every corner of the yard to see what we have for them. They’ll come up and eat out of our hands and follow us around looking for handouts.

In fact, the other day my daughter was holding a chicken under one arm and eating a cookie (don’t judge! We do try to keep the livestock and the eating separate!), and her siblings say the chicken was taking bites out of one side of her cookie while she ate off the other. I didn’t see it, but I fully believe it. We have more than one hen who will sneak up and take a bite off an unattended plate when we eat outside.

Transitioning chicks outside

I like to start transitioning 4-week-old chicks to outdoor life a little at a time on warm days. They still don’t have enough feathers or mass to maintain their body temperature in cool or windy conditions, but they can handle short visits to the great outdoors. We keep them close to us at first. Usually, the kids sit in the grass and let the chicks peck around in the space between two kids’ outstretched legs. When the chicks start hopping away too quickly, we move them to a portable pet enclosure where they have some freedom.

At first, even just a few minutes outside will wear them out completely. But soon they’re able to spend hours outside when our unpredictable Ohio spring weather permits. We give them a windbreak, their food and water, and watch them carefully. Sometimes one child just gets assigned to chick-watching detail, making sure they are handling the outdoor experience okay and aren’t acting chilled.

Outdoor chickens

When all the chicks are fully feathered, they are ready to live outside the brooder. You should begin that transition a few weeks before by moving the heat lamp up an inch each week or reducing your brooder temperature by about 5 degrees. This helps them adjust to living without an extra heat source. I’ve noticed that even my biggest chicks love to bask right under the heat lamp whenever they get a chance, even after they no longer need the extra warmth. (Currently I have some standard-sized chicks in with my smaller bantams, so I’ve had to keep the heat lamp available for the little ones. My kids have accused the big chicks of roosting so close to the heat lamp that they’re going to fry their combs!) Moving that heat lamp away slowly toughens them up for outdoor life.

Life in the coop

Now you’re ready for the next step in chicken raising: moving your chicks to the coop. The coop should be secure against predators and draft-free, bedded down with a generous layer of chips and straw. They need a roost to sleep on and some sort of nesting box. And, of course, a supply of feed and water. If your feeder is outside, make sure it sits out of the rain, or you’ll end up with moldy feed very soon!

Even if you plan to let your chickens free-range, you should keep them locked up in the coop/run area for several days so they learn where their home is. Then start letting them loose for short periods of time, keeping an eye on them to make sure they don’t wander too far. Chickens are generally herd animals who stay together and somewhat close to home. They will instinctively go into their coop to roost at dark.

Chicken herding

But when you want to put your chickens up and it ISN’T dark, it takes a little training! Although it sounds impossible, herding chickens into the coop is doable, if you work with them.

First, get your kids involved! This activity requires some helpers. Next, train your chickens to come when you call. Do this at random intervals throughout the day, and make sure there are always treats involved. The children or I walk out the door and yell, “Here, chick-chick-chick!” whenever we have a bread crust or apple peels or any kind of scraps for the chickens. This teaches them to come running when we call. (As a side note, the dog has learned it’s beneficial to get in on the action when we call the chickens, too. He doesn’t want to miss out on anything good!)

When you want to herd the chickens to the coop, have one person walk toward it, calling the chickens and tossing treats. Have a couple of others walk behind the flock, gently herding them in the right direction. As you practice this, the chickens WILL learn the ropes. They might revolt from time to time, but as a general rule, they’ll go into their coop without too much trouble.

The kids will learn their tricks and how to best herd them along, too. I can send my 6 and 9-year-old girls out to put away the hens at any time of day, and they can do it by themselves. We always put our flock away when we’re leaving, both to protect them against predators and to keep them from roaming into the neighbors’ yard.

A word about roosters

A rooster is a fun addition to a flock. They are full of personality and help protect the hens, but they can also have the potential to be aggressive. We had a rooster with our original flock, and we loved him. He was funny, beautiful, and took excellent care of his hens—but he also became aggressive with our little girls. We worked so hard to try to train him not to be mean, but eventually, we had to rehome him to a family with no small children.

Over the years I’ve had both nice and mean roosters. You can’t write off all roosters because of an experience with a mean one, but you also can’t guarantee that a rooster will be nice, even with lots of love. If you get a male with your flock (and sometimes you will get one even if your chicks are all supposed to be females), just be prepared that you may have to deal with an aggressive one. But don’t assume the worst–treat him with love and respect, and hope he’ll respond well! We currently have two suspected roosters mixed in with our young pullets, and we’re loving them up all we can. We’re all hoping for some nice fellows this year.

How to handle chicken predators

One of the harder parts of raising chickens is the sad reality of predators. Unfortunately, chickens are an easy mark for any number of predators. Even in suburban areas, you may have to watch out for hawks, owls, and even dogs. Out in the country, we also have to worry about raccoons, foxes, and coyotes.

The best way to protect your birds is to make sure their coop is secure from top to bottom. Latch them in every night at dusk to protect again nocturnal invaders. Make sure their fenced area is as secure as you can make it, with sturdy walls and some sort of mesh or wire covering.

But if you let your chickens free-range, you have to realize that they may be exposed to predators. Quite unexpectedly, we had a red-tailed hawk swoop right up to the back edge of our yard and kill a hen last year. It was a heartbreaking experience for all of us. Although it was something of a freak event that we couldn’t have expected or prevented, it also reminded us of the importance of caring well for these somewhat helpless creatures. Our chickens depend on us to look after them and keep them safe–that’s part of the responsibility of pet/livestock ownership.

Sometimes illness or accident will still strike our animals, but I’m trying to teach my children to be good caretakers of our animal friends. We do our best to provide them with a safe, healthy home. In return, they provide us with endless entertainment, fun, and a wonderful supply of delicious eggs.

Have you ever considered raising chickens?
Let us know if you have any questions about chickens and kids.

About the author

Leslie is an Ohio farm girl and chaser of light, children, and sometimes chickens. She’s a lover of Jesus, wife to her high school sweetheart, and a homeschooling mom of four wild rascals who love the great outdoors as much as she does. As a family, they love hiking, camping, fishing, and just about any outdoor activity. She and her husband are just beginning the process of building a homestead from the ground up, doing most of the work themselves. Leslie has a lifelong obsession with writing and capturing everyday life from behind the lens. You can follow along with their homesteading, homeschooling, and everyday adventures on her Instagram account.

You can find more from Leslie in the following locations:
Instagram: @c_l_allofus
Client work: @lalvisphotography
Leslie’s RWMC posts: Owling with Kids, Homemade Apple Butter, Dealing with Poison Ivy, Mosquitoes & Ticks, Creating Nature Fairy Gardens, Eco-Friendly Bird Feeders, Getting Kids Outside During the School Year, Pond Nature Study, Maple Syrup with Kids, Cattle Farm Chores
FARM, GARDENING, INFORMATION, OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES
Teaching Kids About Where Food Comes From
- December 7, 2020
We all know kids are innately curious and soak up new information like sponges, especially if it’s something they’re naturally interested in. You’re likely here because you’re looking for ideas to feed that curiosity in your kids. Today, we have creative team member Jake Smith of Black Ridge Farms, sharing a little about feeding your kid’s minds, as well as their bodies in one fell swoop. Jake is a farmer in Washington state and dad of four little ones. He’s sharing how he helps teach his curious farm kids about the origin of the food that ends up on their plate and the importance of knowing where your food comes from.

Grow something, grow anything!

Let’s start with the easiest thing to do in teaching kids where their food comes from…grow something. Anything! It doesn’t have to be difficult or an entire garden worth of plants. Just start with planting a seed or two in a pot in your house or in the backyard. If you live a nomadic life on the road you can still participate. Let those plants sit in the window as you trundle down the road.

You’ll only need a few things to get started with growing food. Grab some organic potting soil or compost from your local hardware store or nursery, a couple of pots to grow your plants in, and the seeds of your choice. That’s it. It doesn’t have to be overwhelming to be considered growing something. You don’t have to be a farmer or a gardener or even have a “green thumb”. Just give it a try.

Get the kids involved in growing

Let your kids have fun getting a little messy filling their pots up with potting soil or digging in the soil in the backyard. Growing something doesn’t have to be dirty per se, but when you mix kids with dirt, a little mess is bound to happen. I find it easiest to just embrace it and not fight it. Let them have fun and they’ll be more likely to participate and enjoy the activity. 🙂

Once your kids have their pots loosely filled with soil or the soil loosened in your garden beds it’s time to plant the seeds they’ve chosen. Each seed is a little different about how it responds best regarding germination. Some seeds like to be left on the surface of the soil. Some seeds like to be pushed into the soil a little ways. Others like to have small mounds piled over them.

Your seed packet should provide ideal planting conditions printed on it, including helpful information on the depth to plant the seed in the soil, watering intervals, hours of sunlight it desires, etc. Reference those for the best chances to succeed at germination and growth. However, we’ve also let our kids plant things any way they wanted at times and plenty of the seeds still sprung forth. Where there’s a will there’s a way.

Let it grow, let it grow!

After their seeds are planted it’s just down to watering and time (i.e. patience). If you’re growing indoors, find a window or ledge for the plants where they will have about the right amount of sunshine. Keep them up high to protect them from younger siblings looking to do their own dirt exploration activity (speaking from personal experience here). Then, you’ll just need to keep your soil adequately watered (but not over-watered) while waiting for their little seed to sprout.

We’ve had everything from overenthusiastic waterers to potentially some watering neglect. You name it, we’ve covered the watering spectrum. Once again, the plant wants to grow, it wants to sprout. Don’t stress about having everything perfect for it. There’s an area of grace around its ideal growing conditions, it’s not something you need to meet 100% to succeed.

Of course, your kids will be confident their seeds are never going to sprout about an hour after they’ve planted them. Because surely, they should be up by now. It’s been forever! Patience, grasshopper. In a few days, you should start to see little sprouts coming forth out of the soil.

Each plant is different, so some will sprout quicker than others. Let the kids check them first thing every morning. They’ll likely give them a little poking and prodding. It’s alright, it’s part of their curiosity in learning about the growing process. I like to let it happen. Worst case scenario, the seed doesn’t sprout and they’ve learned what they can’t do and will just need to plant new seeds. No biggie.

Be curious and observant

As their plants grow they’ll notice leaves springing forth. Some plants will have different stems growing out of the main one. Some will be a main stalk, some will flower, some will spread over the ground. Every plant is different and has unique qualities. My kids ask me loads of questions about observations they make about plants and animals that I’ve never noticed nor thought about. I regularly have to look up their questions to find answers. It’s a part of the growing process (the plants’ and the kids’) I never anticipated but have come to love.

Over time, with regular care, the plant will start to produce whatever fruit or vegetable it’s supposed to produce. More questions come along with this process. And more patience is required as they wait for it to grow to maturity. Eventually, the time comes for the harvest when they can pick and eat the fruits of their labor. In my opinion, this is the best part.

There is no more satisfying feeling than seeing my kids eyes light up as they bite into a tomato they’ve watched grow from a tiny seed, or plucking raspberries off the plant for a snack as they run by. From having experienced the entire growing process, kids have a deeper understanding of where their food comes from and how much work and love goes into growing each plant.

Follow a farmer and get a tour

So, what if you’re wanting to dig deeper into growing fruits and vegetables than you can in your backyard? What if you want more of a field trip than the hands-on growing experience? Kids love this. There are likely plenty of small farmers in your area that would love to give you a tour of their farm. If you live deep within the heart of a city, you might have to venture an hour or more away. But, most people should be able to find a farm within 30 minutes. It all depends on your area, but you might be surprised how many small farms there are around you.

You say, “That’s great, Jake, but how do I find these farmers?” To which I say, “Google it.” If the search results in your area don’t turn up a whole lot (which isn’t uncommon) you might have to get a little creative. Plenty of farmers exist on social media. Once you find one farm locally, you’ll likely find quite a few connected with them. From there you can follow them, learn from them, and get to know them even from the comfort of your home.

We have plenty of farmers we follow and know their farming ups and downs. We consider them friends and we learn from them regularly even though we’ve likely never met in person. Follow local farms on social media and get to know them. Maybe once you feel comfortable, reach out to them, express interest in visiting their farm. They’ll likely be more than happy to show you around. If you’re still struggling to find any farmers in your area, message me on Instagram @blackridgefarms and I’ll be happy to help you out.

Visit a farmer’s market

Another way to find farmers in your area to talk to is by visiting your local farmer’s market. If there are farmers at the market, it’s likely they’re from a farm nearby. If you’re comfortable with it, strike up a conversation, and chat with them. Ask your questions and get to know more about what they grow.

If you’d rather contact them after you’ve procured their farm name and location on their booth, reach out to them via email or social media. Mention you saw them at the market and would love to visit their farm. I’ve yet to turn someone down from a request like this.

Farmers are doing what they do for a love of the land, the plants, and the animals. We love to share that with anyone interested. Especially kids.

Map out where food comes from

A lot of our homeschooling involves following our kids’ natural curiosity. We take the opportunity to teach by exploring the questions that pop up from our kids when they come across things they’re unfamiliar with or haven’t learned about yet. Whenever we come across an interesting new food, the first thing we do is look it up and figure out where it’s from. We end up exploring the area of the world the new food grows. We learn about what the weather conditions are like there, soil conditions, farming practices, etc.

Over time, as we end up looking up more foods and animals, our kids start to make connections. They consider what the climate might be like in an area of the world they’ve never been to. They start to connect the dots of “oh hey, this chicken breed is from the same country as that type of cheese we made and that variety of grapes we have growing in the garden.”

In this regard, the experience and learning is less about the growing of the food or the farm where it was grown and more of a geography lesson about where certain foods grow well and where they originate from. In our northern climate with cold, snowy winters, this is how our kids now understand that it’s not feasible for us to grow bananas or kiwis outdoors. And they also appreciate how far those foods have to come to get to us.

Connecting with your food

Connecting with your food can be as much or as little as you want it to be. For us, our lives revolve around the growing, care for, and enjoying of food. For you, it may be just a slight curiosity to know more about how your food is raised and where your food comes from. Or maybe you’re curious about what life may have been like for your grandparents that were farmers. There is no right or wrong answer. But hopefully, this post inspired you to get curious about where your food comes from and make it a priority to teach kids a little more about the growing and farming process.

What steps are you going to take in teaching your kids
about where their food comes from?

About the author

Jake and his wife Jessica are raising four adorable children on Black Ridge Farms in the wilds of the Pacific Northwest. Jake enjoys any time spent on the farm taking care of their various animals and seeing how quickly the kids learn to care for and love their animals. He bounces back and forth between the farm and his 9-5 while Jessica shoulders the bulk of responsibility of homeschooling the kids, keeping the house in order, and keeping a watchful eye on the farm in Jake’s absence. While he has one foot dipped in the 1800s, the other foot has danced around the marketing and tech fields. Jake has worked as a Graphic Designer, Digital Designer, and most recently a User Experience Designer. Beyond those pre-packaged titles, Jake is a creative dreamer with an entrepreneurial streak that believes in the power of one’s mindset, time spent with loved ones, and real, healthy food.

You can find more from Jake online in the following locations:
Instagram: @blackridgefarms
Website: Black Ridge Farms
RWMC posts: Jake Smith
FALL, OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES, RECIPES
Family Traditions: Making Open-Fire Apple Butter with Kids
- November 18, 2020
If this past year has taught us anything, it’s that family matters more than ever before and we should not take the time we spend together for granted. We’ve also learned that sometimes it’s nice to slow things down and it’s even nicer to do that outside, surrounded by those you love. Today, our Creative Team member and Ohio homeschooling mom of four, Leslie Alvis, shares her family’s tradition of making old-fashioned homemade open-fire apple butter. This is a time-honored tradition that’s been passed down generations, from great-grandparents to the grandkids. It’s a beautiful story of slowing things down, getting everyone involved, and spending quality time together. Grab a cup of tea and enjoy this one!

Good old-fashioned traditions

The skills of past generations were often passed along verbally and through hands-on experience. Children learned the wisdom of their parents and grandparents as they worked alongside them. Sometimes we call the ways of past generations “old fashioned” because they didn’t have the modern conveniences we use today. But often the slower ways tied people closer to each other and the rhythms of the earth. This fall our family had the opportunity to experience this firsthand as my husband’s grandparents taught us a new skill in an old-fashioned way: making apple butter over an open fire.

Apple butter tradition

Years ago, my husband’s grandparents would get together with a group of friends every fall to make apple butter. They peeled the apples by hand—five bushels of them. Then, they gathered together for a full day of cooking, stirring, and canning the delicious results. Several years back, Nanny and Grandpa acquired their own equipment and began teaching their grandchildren the tradition of open-fire apple butter making.

It’s been a few years since anyone organized the event and we all missed it. So, this fall we decided to make it happen. We wanted our children to enjoy this experience, spend time with their great-grandparents, and make these memories together. With practical wisdom, special traditions, and a lot of laughter, they taught us their way of making apple butter.

Old-fashioned apple butter

Making apple butter over an open fire is a slow process. Even if you precook your apples to soften them, it still takes lots of hours of stirring and cooking. Peeling bushels and bushels of apples takes a lot of time, too! We spent most of a Friday and Saturday on our apple butter project. But, an important part of the experience is the gift of spending time with friends and family, working and visiting together. We had four generations involved with our apple butter making this year.

In my mind, this is the heritage of doing things “the old-fashioned way.” It’s slowing down and spending time with your people, learning from each other, and helping each other. Plus, there really is something about the taste of food cooked long and slow over an open fire. No other apple butter tastes quite the same.

Kids helping make apple butter

Even though making apple butter involves a lot of sharp knives, hot fire, and boiling liquids, our children found plenty of ways to be involved. Even the little ones used apple peelers (with careful supervision) and helped us with the peeling process. Our bigger kids helped stir the apple butter. All of them helped add the cinnamon candies and cinnamon oil into the apple butter as it cooked. Our son is always ready to build and feed a fire, and our oldest daughter also joined the canning assembly line. We found ways to get them all involved.

All four of our kids were all outside with us all day, playing and helping and eating. One of their cousins was able to join us, and they also played in the woods and played board games near the fire. They especially loved getting to spend time with their great-grandparents, since Covid has limited our family activities this year. The time together was a gift, and I think the pandemic has reminded us of just how precious that gift is.

Peeling the apples

The process of making apple butter begins with peeling the apples the day before. We bought several bushels of “seconds” apples from an local Amish orchard. Nanny taught me to get several different varieties of apples to give our apple butter the best flavor. Several family members came over and helped us peel apples all afternoon. I found my children out peeling apples while I made supper, and they filled a half a bucket of apples by themselves. Then my sister-in-law and I picked up our paring knives again that evening and peeled until late into the night.

The apples can sit in covered pans or buckets in a cool place overnight. Nanny assured me that it wouldn’t harm the apple butter if they browned a little. A few of us took some apples home to pre-cook before putting the apples in the big copper kettle. This cuts down significantly on cooking and stirring time over the open fire. We worked off an old photocopied recipe with Nanny’s handwritten notes and instructions on it. She thinks perhaps this recipe is for a 30-gallon kettle, and we only had a 20 gallon one. We modified the ingredients based on the amount of apples we could fit into the kettle.

Weather challenges

Although the weather was beautiful and warm the day we peeled our apples, a stormy cold front blew in overnight. Saturday morning dawned gray, raw, and blustery. We tried to set up our cooking fire in our backyard and found that the wind made our project impossible. We had the apples all peeled–people invited–cinnamon rolls ready to eat. Somehow we had to save our apple butter making day.

My husband and I walked across the road and down the farm lane to a small clearing at the edge of my dad’s pine woods. It was a little farther from our house, but the trees gave us just enough protection to start a fire and spend the day in relative shelter from the wind. We were still chilly, but it was bearable. We built a second fire to heat water over for hot chocolate and cooked soup over it for lunch.

Apple butter equipment

A copper kettle is essential for open fire apple butter making because it conducts heat so evenly and helps keep the apple butter from scorching. You can buy a copper kettle new, if you have several hundred dollars for it. They’re a pretty major investment. If you’re really interested in making apple butter this way, I’d recommend watching farm auctions or antique stores. Or go in together with some friends and begin your own apple butter tradition together!

Fire it up

We had a hard time getting the fire the right temperature at first. Too much flame and the apple butter will bubble right out of the pot. When it’s really bubbling, you also need to watch out for it popping out. It can burn if you stand too close!

The apple butter has to be stirred constantly with a long-handled paddle with holes drilled through it. Nanny and Grandpa bought theirs at Lehman’s Hardware, a local store that has made it big by specializing in old-fashioned equipment. You can find one online at http://www.lehmans.com. Again, buying one new is pretty expensive. If you know someone with rudimentary woodworking skills, you could probably get them to make you one for a fraction of the price.

Apple butter traditions

One of Grandpa’s traditions is for the children to toss a couple silver dollars into the kettle to help keep the butter from sticking to the bottom of the pan. (Nanny says they use two because only rich people can afford to throw more money than that into a pot.) After putting in the silver dollars, our kids raced off to get their own pennies to add to the kettle. At the end of the day they had some shiny clean copper pennies to remember the day by. They washed off Grandpa’s silver dollars and he slid them back in his pocket for next time.

After all the apples had cooked down and the mixture was smooth, we got to experience another one of Nanny and Grandpa’s unique apple butter traditions. Their recipe calls for cinnamon red hot candies to be stirred in for color and flavor. So the kids munched on candies while tossing them into the pot by the handful. I think that may have been their favorite part. (Also, I spared myself the angst of running from store to store, trying to find red hot candies at this time of year. I ordered these off Amazon.)

Finishing the apple butter

After the cinnamon candies comes the sugar. 15 lbs of it! (That’s about 1 lb per gallon of finished apple butter, so that’s not quite as alarming as it sounds!). We stirred it in gradually, then cooked it for a couple more hours.

The girls and my husband took turns stirring, and we drank coffee and hot chocolate while we waited. We also set up a sawhorse table for the finishing assembly line. When the apple butter is finished, it will appear “set up” when you dab a bit onto a glass dish and turn it from side to side. No water runs out from the edges and it holds its shape. At that point, you add cinnamon oil and stir for another half hour while preparing to can it.

Canning apple butter

Hot apple butter can be canned with the cold pack (or hot seal) method. We set up our assembly line and Nanny assigned us all our jobs before we moved the kettle off the fire. Then, as fast as we could, we ladled our apple butter into clean canning jars. One person ladled and the next wiped the rims. Another person pulled canning lids out of hot water and set them on top, and the last one screwed the rings on. I moved the hot jars off the table to keep the workspace open. You have to work quickly to can the mixture while it’s still hot. The apple butter will create a vacuum and seal itself in the jars as it cools.

Cleaning the kettle with biscuits

It was at this point, as we began filling jars, that I realized I had totally forgotten about another important tradition. Nanny had told me we needed to have hot biscuits ready to eat as soon as the canning was done. Hot biscuits are how we would clean out the copper kettle. I raced across the road to our home and whipped up the fastest batch of biscuits I’d ever made! Then, I set a timer on my phone and ran back to join the assembly line again while the biscuits baked.

Thankfully, the timing worked out. There was a tray of hot biscuits waiting when we were ready to scrape the last bit of apple butter out of the kettle. Everyone spooned apple butter onto their biscuits and we got to enjoy the fruits of all our labor. The kids broke off pieces of biscuit and wiped the kettle clean. It was a perfect way to end a long day of work on a chilly fall day. We all enjoyed the experience, the apple butter, and the memories we made together.

Passing down the traditions

Thank you for letting me share this experience of passing down our family’s tradition of making old-fashioned apple butter with you. The process and time spent together are so special to us and our family. I hope our apple butter days are a memory my children never forget and may even want to create with their grandchildren someday. Does your family have any special traditions or recipes they’ve passed down generations?

What old fashioned skills or traditions
have you learned from someone special to you?

About the author

Leslie is an Ohio farm girl and chaser of light, children, and sometimes chickens. She’s a lover of Jesus, wife to her high school sweetheart, and a homeschooling mom of four wild rascals who love the great outdoors as much as she does. As a family, they love hiking, camping, fishing, and just about any outdoor activity. She and her husband are just beginning the process of building a homestead from the ground up, doing most of the work themselves. Leslie has a lifelong obsession with writing and capturing everyday life from behind the lens. You can follow along with their homesteading, homeschooling, and everyday adventures on her Instagram account.

You can find more from Leslie in the following locations:
Instagram: @c_l_allofus
Client work: @lalvisphotography
RWMC posts: Leslie Alvis
ANIMALS/WILDLIFE, FARM, INFORMATION, SUMMER
Summer On the Farm with Animals
- September 15, 2020
Everyone loves springtime on the farm – baby animals everywhere and they’re so cute and cuddly! (Even baby vegetables are adorable!) By fall, many farm animals are fully grown – or at least close. What you may not realize is that there is a magical time between spring and fall which seems like animal childhood. Summer! This is when the animals develop their distinct personalities, find their tribe, and learn whatever it is they are supposed to learn. Just like children, animals often learn through play. Today, we have Ginny Yurich, founder of the 1000 Hours Outside challenge, here to walk us through the growing up months of farm animals! As a first-year farmer, she’s been fascinated to learn so many new things she was never expecting to learn. Are you curious about summer on the farm with animals is like? Read on!

Little farm animals have big personalities

Springtime on a farm is so exciting, everything is bursting forth with new life. It can also be a challenging time as new farm babies don’t always make it. There are high highs and there are very low lows. However, once springtime passes into the summer months, there are a lot of new little animals to take care of and I was surprised to see all sorts of individual characteristics emerge. Summer on the farm with animals is a really magical time of year – particularly if you get to experience it with your kids.

Prior to living on a farm and being around farm animals, I would’ve thought there wasn’t much distinction from one goat to the next. Who knew chickens had such distinct personalities? Turns out, farm animals have all sorts of personalities and unique characteristics. Summertime is when those personalities start to emerge and you get the opportunity to meet your new crew and learn all about them.

Birds of a feather flock together

Fun fact: There are over 20 billion chickens in the world. Beyond chickens, there are other birds in the same animal order (technically called “Galliformes”) that include turkeys, quail, pheasants, peacocks, guineafowl, and more! Often the chicks can be raised together in the same incubator; a space where they are kept warm for the first several weeks of life.

As they grow older, even though they don’t know what they look like, they gravitate to the birds of their own kind. It’s incredible. The turkeys hang out with the turkeys. The guineafowl run with the other guineafowl. And the chickens all roost together at night. Sometimes, a few chickens may team up with a guinea or two, or any other combination of these chicken-like birds. But by the end of the summer, they all have separated on their own to be with birds who have the same characteristics. Summer on the farm is when important decisions are made in the life of a bird.

Learning about chickens, turkeys and guineafowl

We’ve learned so much about our birds this past year and summer on the farm has been a great time to observe them. As chickens, turkeys, and guineafowl grow up they are busy establishing a pecking order. If you have a lot of poultry-type birds you can watch this sophisticated process unfold. The birds start to group together almost like little gangs! There always tends to be one who leads the pack when they run around the chicken run or when they free range. How do they keep this all straight? Well, chickens are able to differentiate between more than 100 chicken faces of their own species! It helps that they can see in full color. It’s remarkable.

The personality of chickens

Some chickens like to stay put near their coop. They are satisfied to have food and water brought to them daily like royalty. Others are foragers, doing what they can to escape their confines to explore nearby property. They look for bugs and dig small holes to sit in to stay cool. At night, some birds will enter the coop like clockwork, ready to roost and rest to prepare for the next day. Others try their best to get into available trees, also roosting but in actual branches instead of on poles in the coop.

One thing we didn’t know when we first got chicks is that it can take up to six months before they actually begin laying eggs. Some will lay eggs a little earlier depending on breed. Even once they begin laying it takes them a while to get into a groove. The first eggs can be small and may not even have a shell! Where will you find the eggs? Possibly in a nesting box in your coop. But, if your chickens are free-range, there is no end to where they may lay them. In fact, one of our hens was hiding an entire clutch of amongst some long grasses for three entire weeks! We only found them because they hatched and six little chicks were out following their mama around.

Oh, the life of a pig!

Summer on the farm with pigs has definitely been interesting! Before we got pigs I had read that they don’t smell all that bad. In my opinion, that turned out to be false. Pigs definitely have a distinct odor and most would find it quite unpleasant. Piglets themselves are very strong. At just 30 pounds they are hard to control, imagine when they grow ten or more times that size! Some pigs can grow to over 700 pounds.

During the summer pigs do what you would expect them to do – they eat. And then they wallow in the mud to keep themselves cool. And then they sleep. Oh, the life! Pigs are extremely intelligent animals. Ours have escaped their pen more than once by lifting the gate entirely off its hinges. You’ve gotta be quick with pigs around. If they are out for long, they will root up your entire lawn. You’ve also gotta be quick with pigs because pigs are fast runners! On those short little legs they can run a seven-minute mile!

Raising goats

There isn’t anything much cuter than a baby goat. Did you know baby goats can be up and walking within minutes of birth? As they grow, goats develop unique and distinct personalities. Some are calm, while others are more active and wily. Some try and escape time and again, while others are fine to stay put. Eventually, if you breed a female goat (also called a doe or a nanny) and she gives birth you may be able to milk her. Certain goats are fine with the milking process while others kick and jump the entire time.

Just like humans, goats need companionships. Unlike dogs, where a family could own just one, it would be unhealthy to own just one goat. A group of goats is called a herd (ok, not that surprising), but if you’re going to have goats…go with the herd mentality. Get a bunch!

Baby goats jump and frolic and as they grow they become very good at climbing. Often farms will have small goat playgrounds for the goats to jump around on. Below is a photo of our only goat escapee, Spirit. She is constantly squeezing out of her pen to forage for new weeds while her mama (Willow) and brother (Spark) are fine to stay put. The good thing is that she’s still small enough to be lovingly carried back to the barn.

Barn cats

The barn cats (and kittens) have been such a delight for us this summer! At birth, kittens weigh about the same as a lemon. For the first one to two weeks of life, they cannot see or even hear! Both their eyes and ear canals are closed when they are born.

It takes about four weeks for a kitten to begin to play. Just like in children, this play helps them learn the skills they need to learn in order to survive. Kitten play looks like running, climbing, pawing, chasing, and pouncing. They often play with their siblings (some of whom may be half-siblings, see below). Kitten play will help them develop social skills as well as predatory skills, both of which are needed if the kittens remain outdoors.

One of the most interesting things I’ve ever learned about kittens is that all of the kittens in a litter aren’t necessarily from the same father. Each egg is fertilized by one single sperm. And if there are several male cats (“toms”) around, each egg may be fertilized by a different tomcat. This may account for the variety of colors, patterns, and personalities that emerge from one single litter of kittens.

Summer on the farm

Summer on the farm is like a sped-up version of childhood. It is such an exciting experience to watch our farm animals grow and observe their personalities and unique characteristics emerge and shine. Those individualities make it a little harder if a particular animal passes, which can be a common experience due to all sorts of factors such as parasites or predators. Still, the animals that do grow up on your farm can become like little family pets. Once the springtime rolls around again, many farm animals will be old enough to reproduce themselves and the beautiful process of life begins all over again!

What is your favorite farm animal?
Are there farms near you that are open to having visitors?

About the author

Ginny is a Michigan homeschooling mother of five and the founder of 1000 Hours Outside. She is a thought-leader in the world of nature-based play and its benefits for children. Her 1000 Hours Outside Challenge spans the globe and many people from all walks of life look to her for inspiration as well as practical tips on how to put down the screens and get outside. Ginny has a Masters Degree in Education from the University of Michigan and is also a children’s book author and illustrator. Her book, The Little Farmhouse in West Virginia was published in February 2019.

You can find more from Ginny in the following locations:
Website: http://www.1000HoursOutside.com
Instagram: @1000hoursoutside
Facebook: @1000hoursoutside
RWMC posts: Ginny Yurich
ANIMALS/WILDLIFE, FARM, INFORMATION, OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES
10 Tips for Letting Your Kids Help with Chores
- September 10, 2020
Getting kids to help out around the house with chores can feel like an overwhelming task at times. Very rarely do kids offer to clean up the playroom, put dishes away or walk the dog. However, kids are naturally curious, want to spend time with their parents, and love helping out in the right circumstances. Today, we have Creative Team member Jake Smith, Washington farmer and dad of four, here sharing 1o tips for letting your kids help with the chores. Whether you’re on a farm, in the city or anywhere in between, these tips are great ways to incorporate fun, learning, and responsibility into your chores and projects. Before you know it, you might even start to like doing chores with your kids!

10 tips for letting kids help with chores

Currently, our family lives on a small farm in Washington State where there is an abundance of daily chores. Staying on top of all the chores around a farm is no small task. Some days when I call on my kids to help out, I’m not exactly met with joyous, excited replies. So, I decided to dig a little deeper to figure out how to make doing something monotonous a little less so.

I make no claims to be an expert on the subject of getting kids to help with chores. However, I feel like writing these 10 chore tips is as much for myself as it is for the kids because it’s so easy to get impatient and just revert to the classic, “fine, I’ll do it myself!” manta. At the very least I’m here to provide a glimpse of hope that doing chores with your kids can be fun, rewarding, and will set them up to become capable and creative problem solvers.

You don’t have to live on a farm to teach kids about responsibility and helping out with chores. We haven’t always lived on a farm. Just a few years ago we lived in the suburbs and were able to experiment with and apply many of these same principles successfully. I hope you’ll be able to apply some of these tips to your situation, wherever you live and whatever the chores are.

1. Make it fun

I can’t stress enough how important it is to make helping out with chores fun for the kids. If there’s only one tip you take away from this post and forget the rest, this is that tip. I won’t lie, there are plenty of chores I don’t enjoy doing. Why would I expect my kids would miraculously love doing the things I dislike? They share my DNA after all, chances are we’ve got more than a couple of similarities.

However, when we need to get some work done, it helps tremendously to find a way to incorporate a little fun into the chore. If we’re dreading the chore or if it’s bordering on the mundane, we pump the jams and do dance silly dances while we work. We sing songs or tell each other jokes. Whatever it takes to get excited that day. And while I’m not saying you should bribe your kids, if you happen to have some popsicles you were planning to dole out later that day anyway, maybe some correlation between work done and a reward isn’t a bad thing. Particularly, when they’re struggling to get excited about cleaning up the living room…

2. Offer choices

When getting kids to help with chores, I’ve learned some days they just need options. Kids like feeling like they have some control and say in the decision-making process. If there are multiple chores that need to be done, I give them a choice. Do you want to help feed the chickens or the cows today? Some days they’ll choose the chickens, some days they’ll choose the cows, others they want to do both and we have to decide which to do first. However, we are all susceptible to choice overload so I try not to offer them more than two or three options at a time.

For many of our farm chores, they aren’t big enough yet to do things on their own, so they assist me. It’s not the end of the world if I don’t have helpers. However, it certainly makes it more fun for me when they tag along, carry what they can, and ask a million questions. Before I even realize it, they’re able to do a little more, then a little more. Eventually, they take over a task from me entirely. It’s a beautiful process to observe and bittersweet as they get older.

3. Follow their interests

Following our kids’ interests is more than a small part of why we have our farm. I’m willing to bet our kids were partially influenced by our desire for living the farm life, but regardless, while we were living in the suburbs, farming is what they played, drew, and talked about every day. We worked and sacrificed in other areas of our lives to make finding our farm a priority. A place where the kids could explore their interests and space to develop new ones.

For you and your kids, it may be something other than farming. Maybe it’s sports, going camping, biking, animals, art, etc. Every one of our kids has slightly different interest areas. Our oldest LOVES her chickens. At eight years old she knows more about birds of every type than I do, no joke. Going and collecting eggs, making sure waterers are filled, and checking to be sure everyone looks healthy isn’t even thought of as a chore to her. She loves it. Our kids don’t think about their interest areas being work, they just wake up and want to go do them. Unfortunately, things like unloading the dishwasher and taking out the trash rarely fall into this category so you may have to rely on one of the other ten tips for those guys.

4. Create a daily chore routine

Kids love routine and knowing what to expect. Every day, we try to do roughly the same chores, in the same order, at the same time of day. It gives the kids some consistency and helps with transitions. The kids now know that when I’m finishing up filling waterers for one group of chickens, we will be transitioning to filling buckets of water to pack to another group of chickens further away. They can anticipate the next move, so they run into the barn and argue about whose turn it is to hold the hose to fill the buckets that day. By the time I’ve reached the hydrant, there’s usually one of them holding the other end of the hose ready to fill the water buckets up.

Some of these chores were never ones that I specifically asked them to do or help out with. I just went about my daily chore routine, they followed along and picked up on it. They saw places where they could jump in and help out, based on our routine. Certainly, our chores don’t all happen this seamlessly, and even this example has breakdowns regularly when they can’t agree on whose turn it is to hold the hose. That’s just life.

5. Make it a learning experience

We homeschool our kids and consider our farm part of the learning experience. Farm life is a natural progression to ask questions and invite curiosity. While we’re doing our chores, we like asking the kids leading questions that get their brains thinking about life on the farm. “Hmm, interesting this chicken egg is green, do you know why that is?” “Why do you think the cows chose to eat this variety of grass but didn’t touch that grass over there?” “Wow, the moon is super orange tonight, what do you think causes that?”

Chances are, I don’t actually know the answers to most of these wonderings, either. But that’s ok. Because we’ve fostered that childlike wonder about everything, the kids are asking me what seems like a million questions a day about things I’ve never even considered. I’ll ask them to keep that question and we’ll look it up when we get back into the house. Every evening we’re looking up answers and learning together. They’re so excited about the things they’re learning, seeing, and exploring they don’t even notice we’re getting chores done at the same time.

6. Lead by example

Kids are observant. Sometimes, they’re a lot more observant than I want them to be. My attitude about a certain task is almost always replicated in my children. If I’m going to have a bad attitude about going out and shoveling snow in the dark for the fifth time this week, there’s absolutely no chance they’re going to want to join me and help out. They may come out and sled down the hill while I shovel, but there’s no way they’re going to help me shovel because I’ve told them it’s terrible either in my body language or in word. Why would they willingly want to do something they know I don’t enjoy?

However, if I make it fun (see tip #1) for myself, chances are it’ll make it fun for them too. We’ve had many snow shoveling competitions to see who can clear the most snow the fastest. The clear winner? Me. 😉

7. Let them take ownership of their areas

This tip fully belongs to my wife, I can’t take credit for it. We were struggling so much with getting the kids to help out regularly with household chores; unloading the dishwasher, cleaning the bathroom, setting/clearing the table, etc. You know, the ones you just sort of do over and over and over again all the time endlessly? We tried assigning chore charts for these. Then we tried a weekly rotating chore assignment. Then we tried no chore charts. You name it, we tried it. No luck.

Kicking and screaming fits regularly lasted longer than doing the actual chore would have taken. Finally, in order to get the kids to help with chores, my wife got the idea to try letting each of the kids have “their areas” of ownership. Areas of the house that involved certain tasks they could become experts in and take pride of ownership around. If the bathroom is clean, I know to comment to my oldest about how great it looks. If the front entryway has all the shoes put away and I can actually walk through it without tripping, I know kid #3 has worked her magic and to tell her thank you.

8. Include them in whatever you happen to be doing

Even though I’m a farmer, I still work my normal 8-5, off-farm job just like everyone else. So, when I’m home in the evenings or on the weekends I like to spend time with my family. Shocker, right? Rather than making all the farm work another thing keeping me away from my wife and kids, we’ve worked to turn chore time into family time.

Kids have a natural curiosity and love for helping out. Just by tagging along in whatever I happen to be doing, they’re observing and learning from me constantly. A lot of the time we gather eggs together, if someone gets a particularly pretty egg they’ll exclaim and show the rest of the family. When we go load haybales for wintertime feed, the whole family comes along. Sure, I do all the work at present while my wife drives the pickup, but they’re observing and learning. In a few years when they’re strong enough to help out, they’ll do so excitedly and the learning curve will be small.

9. Expect them to be beginners

I know this one sounds pretty straightforward but for some reason, it wasn’t easy for me to realize they have never done…well, anything really. Maybe because they’re kids? Like I said in the beginning, I’m not an expert in this parenting business. Maybe I’m the slow learner? But I had to learn to just let them be terrible and take forever at first. Would it have been easier and quicker to just do some tasks myself? Yes, absolutely. And at first, I would do just that. I would take over and complete it myself.

However, now I’m slowly learning to just let them be terrible, to let them learn, to figure it out through some guided trial and error. It’s going to be terrible the first time anyone does anything. The tenth time? A little less terrible. The hundredth time? They might have it down pretty good by then. By providing your kids with a safe space to try, fail, and try again, they’ll learn over time they can figure most anything out and won’t be afraid to take the chance to try. This is probably one of the most empowering things I’ve done for my kids.

10. Have patience with them

Having patience with the kids as they figure out how to help with chores goes hand-in-hand with tip #9. Like I said in the beginning, I’m no expert at this. I’m trying to figure it out at the same time. But, I have noticed one thing, if I’m grumpy or short with my kids while they’re doing their best to help me out, you can rest assured they’re not going to enjoy doing that task again the next time. I try to always be conscious of my attitude and my demeanor, especially around them. It may seem like craziness but I find at least 50% of my kids’ attitude around anything in life directly reflects my own attitude. In reality, it’s probably much higher.

As parents to our precious little children, we’re their whole world. They’re taking in, learning, and figuring out everything through us. It’s all new. They look to us to mimic what to do, how to react, how to feel. So, having patience with them means having patience with myself, and understanding the much greater goal is not to have accomplished my to-do list successfully at the end of the day. The goal is to have lived a life worth living, to have loved my family unconditionally, and to have mattered to those around me.

How do you get your kids to help with chores?

About the author

Jake and his wife Jessica are raising four adorable children on Blackridge Farms in the wilds of the Pacific Northwest. Jake enjoys any time spent on the farm taking care of their various animals and seeing how quickly the kids learn to care for and love their animals. He bounces back and forth between the farm and his 9-5 while Jessica shoulders the bulk of responsibility of homeschooling the kids, keeping the house in order, and keeping a watchful eye on the farm in Jake’s absence. While he has one foot dipped in the 1800s, the other foot has danced around the marketing and tech fields where Jake has worked as a Graphic Designer, Digital Designer, and most recently a User Experience Designer. Beyond those pre-packaged titles, Jake is a creative dreamer with an entrepreneurial streak that believes in the power of one’s mindset, time spent with loved ones, and real, healthy food.

You can find more from Jake online in the following locations:
Instagram: @blackridgefarms
Website: Black Ridge Farms

You may also like this post on Cattle Farm Chores for Kids.
ANIMALS/WILDLIFE, INFORMATION, NATURE SCHOOL, SPRING
Hatching Chicks in an Incubator with Kids
- May 12, 2020
Bringing nature inside is an excellent way to engage children, learn new things and make family memories. There are many ways to incorporate nature experiences into our homes and schooling. These are a great complement to outdoor nature excursions and adventures. One incredible way to teach your children about nature, caring from animals and life cycles is to hatch baby chicks! Today, we have Ginny Yurich, founder of the 1000 Hours Outside challenge, here to teach us about hatching chicks in an incubator with kids! The entire fascinating process takes just 21 days from egg to chick. Even if chickens are not in your future, this is a great read – share it with the kids!

Nature at home

I am writing this post in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. We are on shelter-in-place orders for a few more weeks and have been for quite a while now. Like many people, the plans for our winter and spring were significantly altered. These past few months were originally slotted for a speaking tour around the United States and countless adventures along our travel route. Instead, we’ve found ourselves stuck at home. We’ve had to find new ways to incorporate nature into our lives. New circumstances offer new opportunities and this slowed down pace has allowed us to try some brand new things. Caring for the animals on our farm has been an incredible experience and a wonderful way to get our daily dose of nature.

Learning new things

With this new lifestyle came new experiences for our family. For the first time ever we got to experience hatching chicks right in our house! This post details our second attempt hacking chicks because nothing happened the first time around (they weren’t fertilized, see below). True to form, I consistently fail at pretty much everything I try the first go around! The second attempt, however, left us with FOUR brand new baby chicks. What an experience!! It was so exciting that we cleaned out our incubator and set another batch of eggs in the very next day.

Since this experience is all brand new to us I probably won’t answer all your questions. However, we learned a tremendous amount about the process and that’s what I’m going to share with you here! This an excellent time in life to have some chickens around, if it’s allowed where you live. If not, this is still a fabulous learning activity for your school or homeschool. You can always find people to buy the chicks once they have hatched… or you could just give them away!

The incubator

I am proud to admit that I am now a part of several chicken groups on Facebook! Those are my go-to places for information on hatching chicks and raising chickens since these are the people who have already tried what I have not. The Nurture Right 360 Incubator was the top incubator choice in all of these groups, and so, that is what we went with. It holds up to 22 eggs! Its top features are heat and humidity consistency, egg turning, a countdown timer, and a candling feature (more about candling later). We love it, but this is by no means your only incubator option.

There are many sizes, varieties, and brands of egg incubators available. Some hold as little as three eggs while others can hold up to 250! An incubator is even something you can even make yourself, if you’re feeling crafty. If you search DIY incubator plans you can find countless articles and videos detailing different ways to make one! Another option to consider is calling your local school district to find if they have one you can borrow for three weeks.

Incubator must-have features

In order for the incubator to actually work, it must be able to keep the egg environment at a consistent temperature and humidity. Chicken eggs must be kept at a temperature between 99 and 102 degrees Fahrenheit. 99.5 degrees Fahrenheit is considered the ideal temperature. This is extremely important because temperature fluctuations as little as one-fourth of a degree can decrease the rate of hatching and/or cause health issues with hatching chicks.

Humidity control helps the developing embryos have the correct amount of moisture throughout incubation. Similar to the temperature, there is an acceptable range (50 to 65 percent humidity) with 60% being the ideal number here. Incubators have water-holding devices that help maintain humidity levels.

Some incubators turn the eggs automatically. In order for eggs to be viable, they must be turned three times a day every day until the final 72 hours before hatching. This keeps the yolk right in the center of the egg white so that it doesn’t stick to the shell membrane. If the yolk gets stuck, the embryo will die. If your incubator doesn’t have an automatic turning feature you will have to rotate the eggs by hand. Miraculously, mama hens know to turn the eggs they are sitting on! If you were to place a small line with a pencil on the outside of an eggshell that a hen has been sitting on you would find, by looking at your line, that at different times of the day the hen will have rotated the egg. Isn’t that amazing?

If you look below, you will see that our incubator shows temperature, humidity and the day of incubating we are on. D-10 means that there are 10 days remaining. A red light will show up if temperature or humidity is outside of the acceptable range.

Fertilized eggs

Biology 101 – in order for an egg to be fertilized, a hen and a rooster must mate prior to the formation of the egg. Hens can lay eggs with or without the presence of a rooster. The eggs you buy from the grocery store are not fertilized. They come from hens who live with other hens. If you want to hatch baby chicks a rooster must be involved in the process. A single successful mating session allows a hen to produce fertile eggs for around two weeks. You can use a process called egg candling to find out if your eggs are fertilized or not.

If you have your own hens and they live with a rooster, chances are you will have many fertilized eggs. If you do not have a rooster, you can also obtain fertilized eggs from hatcheries or even buy them in local groups on Facebook!

Egg candling

Egg candling is a fascinating process allowing you to partially see inside of an egg and watch the development of the embryo over time. It’s as simple as shining a bright light on the egg. However, the process must happen quickly, in just a few minutes or less, in order to avoid the temperature of the egg dropping too drastically. Be sure to handle the eggs with clean hands. Around day seven of development, egg candling allows you to tell which eggs are fertilized and which ones are not.

Some incubators come with a bright light you can carefully set your egg on in order to observe. Or, you could just hold the egg in one hand and use your other hand to shine a flashlight into it. Some people use an actual candle (hence the name).

By day seven you should be able to clearly see an embryo forming inside of a fertilized egg. It looks like a small black dot. Additionally, you may see the presence of veins. You can clearly see the difference between the eggs below. One shows the black dot of the embryo and emerging veins while the other is empty and not fertilized.

As your egg develops, through candling, you will be able to see the embryo grow and even begin to wiggle around. It will gradually fill the egg up causing the inside of the egg to look very dark. Once day 18 hits it’s time to leave the eggs alone and wait for them to hatch!

(fertilized egg above – unfertilized egg below)

Preparing for hatching

Hatching is wildly exciting! This is definitely our favorite part of the entire process! Chicks can begin hatching as early as 19 days. Although, occasionally the process can take as long as 25 days. Did you know that you can actually hear the chick chirping before it breaks out of its egg?! Amazing.

On day 18 of development, stop turning the eggs, raise the humidity to 70%, and begin to wait. From this time on, leave the eggs be and do not handle them if at all, if possible. One of the very last things to happen is that the chick absorbs the yolk. This allows the chick to go up to 72 hours without food and water after hatching. It’s also what makes it possible to order chicks through the mail!

The first thing you will see is a pip. The pip is the first crack in the shell that the chick creates using its egg tooth. Once the first pip happens your chick will be fully hatched within 18 hours (but often a lot sooner). From this point forward to do not open the incubator. A drop in humidity or temperature can gravely affect hatching chicks by drying up the membranes inside of the egg. Leave the eggs/chicks alone and just watch in utter fascination!

The hatching process

The pip will eventually turn into a crack that goes all around the egg. It doesn’t happen in the middle. The crack will occur towards the end of one side of the egg. While hatching, the chick will slowly turn its body around in the shell to extend the crack from the inside out. Hatching is an exhausting process and once the chick has finally emerged it may look limp and lifeless for a while.

A newborn chick will be wet and slumped over. Resist the urge to attempt to dry them off. Within just a few hours they will fluff up and start looking super adorable. Moving them from the incubator too early could cause them to catch a chill. Remember not to take any of your baby chicks out until they ALL hatch!

And now you have chicks!

Now that you have baby chicks, what do you do next? Well, a photo shoot is definitely in order! Next, Baby chicks hatched in an incubator will need to go into a brooder once they are completely dry. A brooder is a heated area meant to keep chicks safe while they are small. Many people make a homemade brooder out of a plastic tub or even a plastic pool. The chicks will stay in the brooder for about 8-10 weeks. After that, you can move them to a coop. On average, chickens start laying eggs around six months old.

Hatching chicks with kids

And there you have it! Our entire experience hatching chicks from eggs and all the fun stuff we learned along the way. This was such an incredible experience for our entire family and we learned so much. If you ever have the opportunity to try hatching chicks from eggs, you should! And if not, make sure to share this read with your kids and explain the process so they’re aware. Kids (and adults) are fascinated by this and will learn so much.

Have you ever watched a chick hatch in an incubator?
What are some of your favorite ways to bring nature inside?

About the Author

Ginny is a Michigan homeschooling mother of five and the founder of 1000 Hours Outside. She is a thought-leader in the world of nature-based play and its benefits for children. Her 1000 Hours Outside Challenge spans the globe and many people from all walks of life look to her for inspiration as well as practical tips on how to put down the screens and get outside. Ginny has a Masters Degree in Education from the University of Michigan and is also a children’s book author and illustrator. Her book, The Little Farmhouse in West Virginia was published in February 2019.

You can find more from Ginny in the following locations:
Website: http://www.1000HoursOutside.com
Instagram: @1000hoursoutside
Facebook: @1000hoursoutside
RWMC posts: Ginny Yurich

farm life

The beginnings of a chicken mama

Raising chickens with kids

The joys of chickens

A family affair

Getting started raising chickens

Coop details

What you need for baby chicks

Chicken brooder set up

Additional chicken accessories

Getting your chicks

Chicken breeds

How to pick your chicks

Caring for your chicks

Chick maintenance

Growing chicks

Chicken treats

Transitioning chicks outside

Outdoor chickens

Life in the coop

Chicken herding

A word about roosters

How to handle chicken predators

Have you ever considered raising chickens? Let us know if you have any questions about chickens and kids.

About the author

Grow something, grow anything!

Get the kids involved in growing

Let it grow, let it grow!

Be curious and observant

Follow a farmer and get a tour

Visit a farmer’s market

Map out where food comes from

Connecting with your food

What steps are you going to take in teaching your kids about where their food comes from?

About the author

Good old-fashioned traditions

Apple butter tradition

Old-fashioned apple butter

Kids helping make apple butter

Peeling the apples

Weather challenges

Apple butter equipment

Fire it up

Apple butter traditions

Finishing the apple butter

Canning apple butter

Cleaning the kettle with biscuits

Passing down the traditions

What old fashioned skills or traditionshave you learned from someone special to you?

About the author

Little farm animals have big personalities

Birds of a feather flock together

Learning about chickens, turkeys and guineafowl

The personality of chickens

Oh, the life of a pig!

Raising goats

Barn cats

Summer on the farm

What is your favorite farm animal? Are there farms near you that are open to having visitors?

About the author

10 tips for letting kids help with chores

1. Make it fun

2. Offer choices

3. Follow their interests

4. Create a daily chore routine

5. Make it a learning experience

6. Lead by example

7. Let them take ownership of their areas

8. Include them in whatever you happen to be doing

9. Expect them to be beginners

10. Have patience with them

How do you get your kids to help with chores?

About the author

Nature at home

Learning new things

The incubator

Incubator must-have features

Fertilized eggs

Egg candling

Preparing for hatching

Have you ever considered raising chickens?
Let us know if you have any questions about chickens and kids.

What steps are you going to take in teaching your kids
about where their food comes from?

What old fashioned skills or traditions
have you learned from someone special to you?

What is your favorite farm animal?
Are there farms near you that are open to having visitors?

Have you ever watched a chick hatch in an incubator?
What are some of your favorite ways to bring nature inside?