Farm and Soap Updates

I usually find myself answering this question from two perspectives. Either, "Is soap really necessary?" or "Is soap enough?" So let's have a quick look at the chemistry of how soap really works. At its core, what soap really does is to make water a better cleanser. By itself, water does an ok job at removing dirt. Think about trying to get dirt off your hands with a dry paper towel or by rinsing with water. Water does a much better job!  But now think about washing your hands with either a dry soap bar or soap combined with water, the dry...

The days are quickly getting shorter here in the northern hemisphere as autumn takes hold. What that means for a lot of chicken keepers is a sudden drop in egg production. Like plants and many other animals, a chicken's biology is attuned to the change in day length over the seasons.  When days get longer in the spring, this triggers the hens reproductive cycle to lay lots of eggs, since spring and summer are great times of year to raise chicks. As the days get shorter, egg production slows down, since raising chicks in the winter is generally a bad...

About once a year I offer a slightly different product in my chicken line up: the "stew chicken". This kind of bird must be cooked very differently than most chicken you are used to from either the grocery store or poultry growers at the farmers market. Roasting a stew chicken is a great recipe for chicken flavored rubber bands! Braising or simmering in a liquid is a must to get these birds tender. What is a stew chicken? You may hear stew chickens also called stew hens, this is because they are typically 'retired' laying hens. Unlike chickens raised specifically...

As someone who has a lot of chickens (there are about 700 on the farm right now!) I often field questions about chicken keeping from friends and customers. There's a common query that often begins with the lament that a fox or a weasel or even the neighbor's dog has just killed several chickens and the question is: how do I protect my chickens from predators? Please note that this is written from a North American perspective, so your predator species will vary depending on where in the world you live. However, most of this advice is applicable no matter...

This is a bit of a niche topic today but I do get questions about using my soap in outdoor situations such as camping, outdoor bathing or even just in the backyard. The usual question is whether my soaps are biodegradable. The short answer is yes, they are. However, just because something is biodegradable does not mean that it is environmentally safe in all contexts. What does biodegradable mean? In the context of soap, biodegradable simply means that all of its components can be broken down by bacteria. Many ingredients found in commercial soaps and detergents can be environmentally harmful,...