The Chicken Geek · Chickens' Digital Knowledge Core
Backyard chickens,
done properly.
Breed guides, care and coop know-how, and honest gear reviews — grounded in real keeping experience and the wider backyard-chicken community. Everything you need to raise a happy, healthy flock.
Real keeping experience
Written from hands-on keeping, not restated blog consensus.
Real keeper wisdom
Grounded in years of hands-on keeping and the wider chicken community — what actually works, not blog theory.
Cited where it counts
Breed standards, health, and science link to real, checkable sources.
Honest gear reviews
We lead with the caveat, not the hype — and flag what we couldn’t verify.
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Guides
Fresh from the run
Silkie Chickens: The Complete Breed Guide (Care, Eggs, Colors & Standards)
Silkie chickens are the fluffy, five-toed, black-skinned bantams everyone falls for — but they come with a few care rules that catch new keepers out. Here's the complete, honest guide.
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Australorp Chickens: The Complete Breed Guide
The Australorp holds the world record for eggs laid in a year — but the reason to keep one is that it pairs serious laying with one of the calmest temperaments in the coop. Here's the honest, complete guide, backed by our own flock.
Deathlayer Chicken (Westfälische Totleger): The Complete Breed Guide
The Deathlayer is an ultra-rare, 400-year-old German breed with a dramatic name — but its real claim to fame isn't how many eggs it lays, it's how long it keeps laying them. Here's the honest, complete guide.
How Long Do Chickens Live? The Honest Lifespan Guide (By Breed)
A chicken can live 8–10 years or more — but most backyard birds never get there, and it's rarely old age that stops them. Here's the honest lifespan by breed, what actually kills backyard chickens, and how to stack the odds in your flock's favor.
Chicken Nesting Boxes: Sizing, Placement, and Fixing Floor Eggs
Hens will lay eggs anywhere — getting them to lay where you want is about placement, not the box. Here's the sizing, the one rule that actually stops floor eggs, and the tricks that work in our own coop.
Best Chicken Coop Bedding: The Complete Comparison Guide
Pine, sand, straw, hay, hemp, rice hulls, wood ash — we've kept birds on all of them. Here's the honest comparison, the one rule that matters more than the material, and the two mistakes most guides get wrong.
Ideal Temperature for Chickens: The Real Cold & Heat Guide
Every guide on this topic obsesses over cold and treats heat as an afterthought — backwards, since heat is what actually kills chickens. Here's the honest range for both, plus the frostbite, breed, and brooder details most guides skip.
▶ Backyard Eggcellency
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