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An Easy and Inexpensive Boot Bath Sanitizer for Your Chicken Coop

Boots being washed after a trip to the chicken coop

Using a boot bath before and after you visit your chickens keeps your footwear clean. More important, it enhances your biosecurity measures to ensure that your flock stays healthy. The procedure for maintaining a boot bath and sanitizer is easy and inexpensive. Make a Boot Bath To make a boot bath and sanitizer, you need […]

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Hard Boiled Egg Eating Contest Waiver Success!

You have completed the hard boiled egg eating contest waiver. We look forward to seeing you at the festival. Good Luck! All contestants please arrive and check in at the Building C (Clifton’s Westside Café 452 W Commercial St, Lebanon, MO) by 2p.m. on Saturday October 5th. Explore More: Map to Cackle Hatchery® Contact Cackle […]

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Free-Range Chickens, Good Idea or Not?

A Bielfelders chicken in a field

What, exactly, are free-range chickens? According to USDA, free-range chickens must be “allowed access to the outside.” That doesn’t mean they actually have to go outside. They just have to have outdoor access. On the other hand, to many rural chicken keepers, free range means letting the chickens go wherever they wish. That’s a non-starter […]

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Does Your Homeowners Association Allow Chickens?

A little girl holds a chicken

Some 75.5 million Americans — or about 30% of the entire population — live in a community governed by a Homeowners Association (HOA), according to the Foundation for Community Association Research. Further, the 365,000 different HOAs each enforce their own set of rules. And not all Homeowners Association rules allow chickens. Chickens and HOAs An […]

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Cackle Hatchery’s Annual Silent Auction

Join us to benefit youth poultry groups! Every year during the chicken festival, we auction off chickens with proceeds going to organized youth poultry groups. This is a traditional silent auction with bid sheets. Come and browse the beautiful birds that we are auctioning off. Be a part of the bidding for a good cause. […]

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Molting Sequence in Chickens

A diagram of a chicken

Each fall most chickens go through an annual molt, during which a shiny new set of feathers replaces their previous plumage. During the molt, nutrients used to produce eggs are diverted to producing feathers. As a result, laying slows, or ceases altogether. The best layers molt fast and furious, as if in a hurry to […]

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Standard Chicken versus Bantam, What’s the Difference?

Two chickens in a yard

What’s the difference between a standard chicken versus a bantam chicken? To understand the difference, let’s look at what a standard chicken is and what a bantam is. Standard Chicken The word “standard” when applied to chickens can be confusing. In some contexts it means that the breed has been standardized by the American Poultry […]

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12 Benefits of Keeping Ducks

A young man herds some ducks

Maybe you already keep chickens or other poultry and are considering adding ducks. Or maybe you’re thinking of starting with ducks as your first foray into the world of poultry. To help you decide whether or not duck keeping is for you, here are some of the benefits of keeping ducks. Ducks are easy to […]

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Cackle Dealer Listing Update

As part of our ongoing support and growth for our vendors we would like to extend the opportunity to be a part of the Cackle Hatchery website! We are building a new area of the site that will feature information and individual pages for our vendors. The goal is to help your business and ours […]

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How Old Can Eggs Get?

A Berryfield egg

How old can eggs get— if they aren’t deliberately preserved — is a question facing archeologist investigating a 1,700 year old egg discovered in England. The shell is still intact and CT scans show the egg contains liquid, possibly consisting of the original yolk and albumen. Where did this egg come from? The egg’s contents […]

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