Come On Down to Blue Barn Farm
How we started out to where we are today:
Our addiction began in May of 2016. We started off with 8 Silkie chicks. Heard they were one of the hardest to start off with but we were up for the challenge! Soon we brought home more babies to add to the collection (6 Golden Comets), making that 14 total. For our first year we kept it simple. Homemade coop, a decent number of starter chickens and many ups and downs to prepare us for our new life as Chicken Tenders!
In April of 2017 we decided to try our luck at Cornish Cross, ducks and meat Turkeys! Later we got Easter Eggers and Barred Rocks (the start to another addicting year). Months later a very broody Silkie took on the role of motherhood and adopted 3 Jersey Giants and 3 White Crested Black Polish, successfully raising them to 8 weeks without incident. We got more Silkies this year, Old English Game Bantams and Golden Sebrights! (Kept both Old English for breeding the following year, hint hint) Light Brahmas came much later, as did two Heritage Turkeys (one being a Bronze, the other a Black Spanish), neither of which we kept later on like we planned.
We waited until late April of 2018 till we got anymore chicks- more specifically 3 Easter Egger and 3 Buff Orpington (notice the pattern?). This year we were overwhelmed with eggs, and had more than we or our customers could eat - we also decided to raise more meat turkeys! So we decided to buy our very first incubator and try our luck at hatching! One incubator turned into two, and two turned into so many babies we had to sell some! We got Cornish again this year (this is really turning into a habit). In August I entered 3 of my birds into the New York State Fair! Didn’t win and didn’t plan to, but it was good fun! While we were away one of our hens too the initiative by hiding and hatching her first batch of chicks without anyone knowing until we heard chirping above us (in the barn loft). Sneaky chickens. September was another story, at .25 cents a chick how could I resist bringing home Black Asians, Isa Browns and White Plymouth Rocks? Then came the infamous Lavender Orpingtons and Rhode Island Reds. At this point we were at almost 200 birds, we had to stop, right? EH - WRONG, another hen hatched out A few Easter Egger cross Jersey Giant chicks (face palm).
In 2019 we didn’t really do all that much. We lived in town and had to downsize drastically. My favorite boy stayed at a local farm (as I was not allowed any roosters) but fell ill and had to come home. My remaining chickens at the time were at a friends with her birds, until we were able to set something up in the backyard. I did hatch out some babies for customers who brought me their eggs, but they got the babies right after hatching. My boy felt better closer to summer and decided he wanted another family, so with some luck he had babies again! In mid-September our coop was up and ready for the ladies to come home!
Late April of 2020 we brought home more Cornish, raised and butchered them. Didn’t buy any other chicks that year. It was relatively boring until October when we moved into a more permanent residence- settled down for good and added some new additions to the homestead including a horse (Millie) and later a goat (Honey, who later did not work out as planned).
This website was posted in 2021 when we were adding some new additions inside the barn and/or around the property including a duck coop, and door to the concrete chick shack. We got ducklings, guinea keets, turkeys and too many baby chicks to count! We later rehomed the Guineas because they were much more noisy than we anticipated.
It is now late 2022 when I’ve finally been able to update this. We have since moved off the property and onto another (see contact page) due to some financial difficulties. The horses are still with us but we have drastically downsized on birds, losing some along the way. We’ll see what Spring of 2023 has in store for us. The plan is still in place to hatch out and sell chicks!