On the long drive back home, in an attempt to distract the kids and get them to think about something, I asked what things we would need if we were to be modern-day homesteaders. I pointed out that one of the challenges would be to provide our own food; we simply couldn’t go to Wal-Mart and buy what we needed whenever we ran out. It was decided that we needed to raise chickens on this fictional homestead. The kids mentioned that we could use the eggs for baking and for breakfast, etc. Then, we could also kill the chickens for meat as well. I’ve never raised chickens and began to wonder if you have to do anything special for chickens to produce eggs — do they require a specific environment or anything else like that?

I put the question to the kids and I said, “If we raise chickens, how do we get them to lay eggs?” Porter immediately responded with a firm, “Ya squeeze ‘em!” So, there you have it… all you would-be homesteaders… just squeeze your chickens when you need eggs.