We couldn’t decide a single breed to specialize in – there are SO many great chickens out there! We chose to raise a few heritage breeds known to be docile, cold-hardy, and good foragers; and a couple modern designer breeds solely for colorful eggs to fill our rainbow basket. Our girls lay a whole rainbow from blue to dark chocolate brown! We often have hatching eggs, chicks, pullets, cockerels, hens, and roosters available from exhibition lines.
Unlike Easter Eggers that hatcheries often sell as Ameraucanas, these are the real deal. We love their fluffy cheeks, pea combs, and sky blue (sometimes minty) eggs! We raise a few fun colors – we started out with Self-Blue (aka Lavender) and Black, and then added a couple groups of Wheaten, Blue Wheaten, and Splash Wheaten Ameraucana.
The only truly Norwegian chicken, the Jaerhon or Jaerhons is a small autosexing breed that lays large white eggs. They are active foragers and prefer to free range. We have two lines – one from Ideal Poultry and one from a private breeder who imported her birds directly from her family’s hometown in Norway back when it was legal. Chicks need a bit more TLC and adults are more fragile than other breeds – we are working towards increasing hardiness.
A landrace breed of chickens originating in Sweden, the Svart Hona shares the fibromelanistic trait of its famous cousin, the Ayam Cemani – they are almost completely black, inside and out. Also called the Swedish Black Hen, this breed is larger, more cold-hardy, and far more rare than Ayam Cemani. Their eggs are small compared to our other breeds, but they lay well and have excellent fertility.
Buckeyes are the only APA-recognized chicken breed created by a woman! They quickly stole our hearts – they are sweet and curious, always underfoot, and great bug hunters. They’re also cold-hardy with tiny pea combs. Of all our chickens, these are our absolute favorite and we hope to always have this breed in our coop. Even in the fear stage as chicks, these guys are the first to bum rush us the minute we open the brooder!
Originating in Canada, Chanteclers are THE chickens for northern climates – they’re cushion-combed and have tight feathering for severe winter weather, are sweet as can be, love to free range, lay a ton of large brown eggs, and roosters grow to about 9lbs for those who have a freezer camp. We started out with the Partridge variety and love them so much that we added Buff!
We were very excited to find our Welsummers – they come from an autosexing line and we are working to strengthen that feature. A Dutch breed, they are friendly and great foragers. They lay gorgeous speckled dark brown eggs – almost as dark as our Marans! We breed more for SOP than egg color with this line because we want to keep our beloved autosexing trait. It’s so convenient!
The preferred egg-layer of Julia Child (and James Bond), Black Copper Marans are a French breed famous for their chocolate-colored eggs. We select for both SOP and egg color here, with SOP having the edge. Egg color varies from season to season, but if one of our hens lays lighter than a 4 on the color scale more than once, we pull her from our breeding pen.