More Chickens, More Markets!
We are excited to announce that we are expanding our laying flock by a lot! Our friends over at Calico Farms are getting out of the egg business and we are bringing their flock on over to our farm. Starting next week their birds will be hanging out in our barn getting used to a new home. As part of this we will be taking over their table at the Hillhurst Sunnyside Farmers Market every Wednesday from 3pm to 7pm at the Hillhurst Sunnyside Community Association. We are also opening up a pickup location at the market for our CSA program.
The hens we are bringing over are a slightly different variety of laying hen. So it is going to take a bit of time to get to know them. Normally we aren't keen on moving a flock onto the farm from another farm. It poses biosecurity risks, and there is the stress of travelling. But in this case it lets us get our flock size up and opens doors to new markets and customers, so we felt the risks worth it.
The move happens this Saturday, so for our customers in Cochrane we will be contacting you directly to arrange a time either on Friday or Sunday to get you your eggs.
Ducks!
Along with the hens from Calico we are bringing on board 30 layers of a different type: ducks!
Marcus is a big fan of duck eggs, and we are very happy to bring this specialty product to our customers in our egg CSA as well as at farmers markets. We've never worked with ducks before, so this will be a bit of a learning curve. The ducks are going to move to our farm a bit later, as we have to do some hefty retrofitting to get them happy housing. We haven't sorted out how or if we will be running them on pasture like we do our chickens. Maybe if we are lucky they will love to eat thistle and toad flax!
The variety we are bringing in from Calico are an egg laying variant of the Peking duck. They are lovely, all white birds about double the size of a chicken. They seem to love wagging their tails, so I expect some fun videos and photos on our socials this summer.
We will be selling the eggs by the half dozen as extras with your share and at market tables. Look for them in about a month.
Meat Birds
We have lots of room in our chicken CSA, so be sure to sign up now to secure your pasture raised chicken this summer. We will also be selling them frozen at both HSCA and the Cochrane Ranch Farmers Markets.
Locally Yours,
Marcus, Sarah, Samuel, Boaz
