Lisa Steele

Interview: How to Reduce Vet Bills Naturally

From her beautiful farm in Maine, Lisa has contributed her sage advice to the backyard chicken keeping community for more than a decade and has recently entered the culinary arena with the release of her first cookbook, The Fresh Eggs Daily Cookbook.

Dubbed "Queen of the Coop" by the media, she's an author, 5th generation chicken keeper, Maine master gardener and "coop to kitchen" cook and has been featured on The View, Martha Knows Best on HGTV, NPR's Here & Now, Dr. Oz, P. Allen Smith's Garden Home on PBS and the Hallmark Home & Family Show.

Website | Instagram

Carly MacQuarrie

Growing a Chicken Garden

Carly MacQuarrie, founder of The Little Green Shoot, and creator of Homestead in the City, helps new gardeners find their way to grow, harvest, and preserve their own healthy, delicious, foods to enjoy all year round—even in the city.

Carly started The Little Green Shoot to show that food can be grown anywhere by anyone. She is here to teach you that this is all possible, and to work towards her dream of more people growing their own vibrant fruits, vegetables, and medicinal herbs in any old place that can be found.

Website | Instagram | Facebook

Shelby DeVore

Adding Roosters to Your Flock

Shelby DeVore is a multigenerational homesteader with 20+ years of experience raising chickens and homesteading.  Not only does she have a ton of personal experience raising chickens for meat, eggs and show, but she also has a strong educational background that gives her a unique perspective when it comes to raising chickens. 

Shelby has a B.S. in Animal and Dairy Science and a M.S. in Agriculture.  Before she started teaching homesteading online, she worked as a high school and college agriculture teacher where she taught hundreds of students and community members how to easily and successfully garden and raise chickens and other livestock.

She currently teaches others how to homestead (without the crazy) and is working to help as many people embrace a simpler, more traditional lifestyle as possible.  

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Holly Callahan-Kasmala and Chrisie DiCarlo

Understanding Chicken Crops

Holly Callahan-Kasmala grew up as a 4-H kid on a small horse farm. She has been keeping chickens for more than 20 years, and is passionate about Heritage chickens and helping people find the right breed for their needs. Holly has an MA in History, and is a long-time fiber artist/teacher. In addition to keeping Heritage breed chickens and rare breed sheep, she also grows heirloom cotton, dye plants, and all kinds of heirloom vegetables, fruit, and flowers on her small Maryland farm. She is the creator and co-host of Coffee with the Chicken Ladies Podcast.


Chrisie DiCarlo is a retired veterinary technician with a passion for helping people care for their poultry. During her 15 years in the field, she managed a technical trauma nursing care team in a busy urban veterinary hospital ER. She gave up her career to be a stay-at-home mom to her two amazing daughters. Chrisie has been keeping chickens for more than 8 years. She also loves growing herbs, fruit, and flowers on her small Maryland farm. She is the creator and co-host of Coffee with the Chicken Ladies Podcast.

Website | Instagram

Dalia Monterroso

Setting Up for Baby Chicks

Dalia Monterroso, also known as The President of Chickenlandia, is a backyard chicken educator, entertainer, and author. When she’s not teaching in-person classes or doing seminars, you can find her on the popular YouTube Channel "Welcome to Chickenlandia," her top-rated podcast "Bawk Tawk," or in her online course "Backyard Chickens 101: A Chicken Course for Everyone."

In 2023, Dalia published her first book "Let’s All Keep Chickens! A Down-to-Earth Guide to Natural Practices for Healthier Birds and a Happier World" (Storey Publishing). In this beginner and intermediate guide, Dalia aims to not only share the ins and outs of chicken keeping but also to bring people together through an age-old practice common to almost all of our ancestry.

To learn more about Dalia’s philosophy and vision, you can watch her 2017 TEDx Talk "I Dream of Chickens," which she delivered at Western Washington University. Dalia is a dynamic and engaging speaker who believes that being among her flock has brought peace and joy into her life. She wishes to share that peace and joy with everyone she meets. 

Website | Instagram | YouTube

Franchesca Duval

The Energetics of Keeping Chickens

Franchesca Duval is the owner and founder of Alchemist Farm, a completely unique ecologically focused humane chicken hatchery in Northern California.

Franchesca has over 30 years of experience in working with chickens and loves to share her knowledge so everyone can get to experience the same magic of working with them.

She ships her 14 different breeds of chickens nationwide from February through October of each year. 

Facebook | Instagram

Sara and Jacob Franklin

Solving Aggression: How to Prevent Attacks and Befriend Any Rooster

Sara and Jacob Franklin, founders of Roovolution, are on a mission to revolutionize rooster care and behavioral management worldwide. With thousands of hours invested closely observing and analyzing social interaction and communication within their own flock, they have gained a deep understanding and valuable insight which informs their guidance. Through their YouTube channel and podcast, they combine their first-hand experience with in-depth research in order to reshape perception and provide keepers with lasting solutions to behavioral issues.



In addition to content-creation, they offer tailored advice through no-cost private consultation and ongoing support to ensure the success of those seeking help. Alongside a dedicated team of kindred spirits, they also volunteer their time helping operate Rooster Allies, a flourishing online community with a commitment to compassionate care. Through these efforts, they routinely empower keepers to cultivate harmonious and rewarding relationships with even their most difficult roosters.

Website | YouTube

Lisa Lombardo

Help...My Hens are Laying Weird Eggs

Lisa Lombardo is the author of The Beginner's Guide to Backyard Homesteading: Step-by-Step Instructions for Raising Crops and Animals and Organic Gardening for Beginners: An Eco-Friendly Guide to Growing Vegetables, Fruits, and Herbs. She shares her homesteading adventures and information about raising chickens, gardening, and preserving food on her website The Self Sufficient HomeAcre. She also provides resources for keeping chickens, gardening, and preserving the harvest on her Etsy shop, Lisa’s Homestead Garden.

Lisa grew up on a small farm and has continued her love of gardening and caring for animals ever since. She earned an Associate of Applied Science in horticulture and a Bachelor of Fine Arts before working as a landscape designer. In 2012 she created her website as a way to help others learn to care for poultry, raise a garden, and increase their self-reliance. Lisa lives near Chicago on a one-acre homestead with her husband, son, two dogs, a cat, and a flock of chickens.

Website | Facebook

Claire Dineen

Chicken Health Checks & First Aid Kits

I'm a Health Promotion Educator with a science-based chicken blog that is an eclectic combination of poultry health and flock management issues as well as broader topics of interest (series such as When Art Meets Chickens and Having Chickens Is A Great Way To Meet Your Neighbours; chickens as therapy; grief and loss, coop design, etc). 


I've done numerous collaborations with other small flock chicken keepers as well as Avian Veterinarians, Vet Techs, and a Medical Laboratory Scientist at a Veterinary Teaching Hospital. My mentor is Dr Vicki Bowes, DVM/Avian Pathologist who I have partnered with to create four series: Avian Pathology Cases (so far, more than 300), Tailgate Necropsy, Chicken Myth Busters and Ask A Poultry Vet.


I have kept chickens for 15 years and have been blogging for 5. My Facebook page Bitchin' Chickens Farm is where I post health issues, community news and my chicken memes. I have the freedom of not being beholden to sponsors or affiliates.

Website | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube

Nikki Husted

Bonding with Chickens

Hi, I'm Nikki! I live in Ohio with my husband, our two young sons, our dog, 2 & 3/4 cats, a few dozen chickens, and 4 goats. 

I’ve been dealing with chickens in one way or another for almost two decades. Hatched my first egg in 2006 and haven’t looked back! I love sharing my chicken keeping experience with others and making it pure and simple is my goal!

Website |TikTok | Instagram

Jason Contreras

Setting Up for Home Butchering

In 2016 they sold most of their belongings and left the city in Los Angeles to start a small homestead in the mountains of North Carolina. They became passionate about growing their own food and knowing what exactly was in their food after Jason became diagnosed with cancer in 2010.

Now in remission, they are on a journey to grow their own food and be healthy. 
As they grow and learn new things they enjoy sharing the journey in hopes to inspire others. 
Jason and his family documents homestead life on their Sow the Land Youtube channel. Sharing with others as they learn and grow.

Besides filming and editing for their Youtube channel Jason enjoys creating and making things in his wood shop. Jason is the jack of all trades taking care of the farm animals, building structures and striving to create the most efficient homestead.

Website | YouTube

Tove Danovich

A Fortified Flock: Pest and Predator Proofing Your Coop

Tove Danovich is the author of the book Under the Henfluence: Inside the World of Backyard Chickens and the People Who Love Them. Her writing about chickens has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Country Living, and Backyard Poultry Magazine, among others. 

She is a former Midwesterner, turned New Yorker, who now lives in Portland, Oregon. She keeps an ever changing number of chickens in her suburban yard. Their Instagram @BestLittleHenhouse is more popular than hers.

Website | Instagram | Facebook | Amazon

Brittni Poisson

DIY Coop Building - Pinterest Worthy & Predator Proof

Hi! I’m Brittni, and I live in NH with my husband and four year old daughter. I am an interior designer and own a design company. In 2022, I decided to use my DIY and design skills to build a coop and run for my flock, and it gained some popularity on social media for being both functional and pretty. I have since built a garden, two more coops, a larger run, and will surely build more in the future. I put the plans for all of my projects on my website for anyone who loves them and wants to build their own!

I am passionate about homesteading and have big plans for expanding our garden, our flock, and adding more animals soon. I love that as I learn and grow our homestead, I’m able to provide knowledge and resources for others to do the same, and turn it into another offering for my business. In addition to DIY build plans, my shop also offers homemade soaps, a fun line of chicken and homestead apparel, and will more products soon!

Website | Instagram

Tedra Hamel

Raising Friendly Chickens: How to Make a Lasting Bond with Your Feathered Friends

Tedra Hamel, who hails from the Pacific Northwest, is an enthusiastic lover of the outdoors, a critical care nurse, a doting chicken mom, and self-taught artist. She is deeply inspired by both nature and hens, and her work is a love letter to the sweeping beauty of the natural world as well as the sweet and curious disposition of the backyard chicken.

She can be found on Instagram as @therapychickens, where you can follow her and her flock’s daily adventures.

Etsy Shop | Instagram

Fiona Osborne

Is Breeding and Hatching Chickens for Me?

Fiona is based in England, UK and she breeds Buff Orpington chickens using the natural broody tendencies of the breed to incubate, hatch and raise the chicks.  Her chickens free-range in the orchard of her smallholding that she runs with her husband Hugh and all of the broody hens and chicks have full access to the area to graze as they choose.


Fiona and Hugh run a YouTube channel English Country Life featuring tutorials on a self-sufficient lifestyle including many videos on caring for chickens and breeding chickens. They are also regular columnists with the UK magazines The Country Smallholder and Practical Poultry.


You may know Fiona as @theflooflady on Instagram where she features daily videos of her beloved Orpingtons.

Website | YouTube | Instagram

Janet Garman

Keeping Roosters with the Flock

Janet Garman is a farmer, author and freelance writer in Maryland. A career in writing began after the nest emptied. All the years of studying farm management and raising many species of livestock along with a full house of children led her to begin sharing her experience in a farm theme blog and website.

Janet's background includes a degree in large animal farm management and animal science from University of Maryland and decades of farm and homesteading experience. Her books include 50 Do It Yourself Projects for Keeping Chickens, Skyhorse Publishing 2017, Keeping Sheep and Other Fiber Animals, Skyhorse Publishing 2018, 50 Do It Yourself Projects for Keeping Goats, Skyhorse Publishing, 2020, Chickens from Scratch, Raising Your Own Chickens from Hatch to Egg Laying and Beyond, 2016, Habitat Housing for Rabbits, and Margarita and the Beautiful Gifts, 2016.

This past year, Janet increased her farm’s impact on the local community by hosting farm craft gatherings on the farm. Additional gardens spaces were planted and an informal CSA was started. 2024 plans include further outreach to groups meeting on the farm, learning wool crafts, natural dyeing, and improving the CSA offering.

Website | Instagram | Facebook

Lisa and Charlie Bayorek

Raising Chickens From Flock To Stock

We are Lisa and Charlie of Homesteading and Hungry. We have two teenage boys CJ & Landon and homestead on a little farm in the Midlands of SC. with the most beautiful sunsets. We grow and raise as much of our own food as we can. 

We have cows, goats, a whimsical chicken village, turkeys, barn cats and Literally the Worst Homesteading DOG ever 

We absolutely love sharing homestead DIYS and easy from scratch recipe tutorials to inspire others to embrace the homestead lifestyle.

Website | Instagram | YouTube

Katie Gregerson

Backyard Farm and Garden Oasis

Katie is a backyard farmer who started keeping chickens in 2019 and has now expanded to goats, greenhouse and overall backyard farming. She also shares what she is learning about preserving, baking and cooking from scratch. She spent many days on family and friends farms as a child and hopes to move with her own family to an expanded homestead in the future.

For monthly backyard farming tips and updates, go to gregschicks.com and subscribe to the monthly FREE newsletter! Katie looks forward to connecting with you and continuing to share her backyard farming experiences. 

Website | Instagram | Facebook

Bernard Henry

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Raising Quail

My earliest memories as a child involved birds. Growing up my parents always had pairs of love birds in our house, and I also grew up visiting my grandparents 9-acre farm, which consisted of a huge ½ acre garden with lots of chickens and ducks. In high school I decided that I wanted to start raising chickens. I remember reading about the marans breed and became obsessed with having hens that laid dark chocolate eggs. This was the start of Fat Hen Farms back in 2012. Over the years, I added over nine breeds of chickens to have the most colorful egg collection I could get. I had a fascination with with egg color genetics and did my thesis on it in college! I decided to defer my acceptance into medical school shortly after graduating to pursue my passion of raising birds, while educating others how to care for them.


Over the years I fell more in love with the diversity and uniqueness of quail (both old and new world species) and decided to narrow my focus more on quail than other bird species. There’s now over 200+ birds on my farm!

Website | Instagram

Maat van Uitert

Herbs to Keep Parasites from the Coop

Maat van Uitert (pronounced May-aht van Eye-tert) is the founder of the home and garden website Pampered Chicken Mama, which reaches approximately 20 million readers every month.

She’s the author of 2 best selling Amazon books, including Chickens: Naturally Raising A Sustainable Flock (found on Amazon) and Organic By Choice (also found on Amazon here), a public speaker, and social media activist. Maat has been featured on NBC, CBS, ABC, and featured in and interviewed by Glamour, Prevention, Reader’s Digest, and Women’s Health. Maat is a contributor to Community Chickens, Backyard Poultry, Chickens, and Countryside magazines. Maat lives on a small farm in Southeast Missouri with her husband and two special needs children.

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