Chickens

We've had chickens for many years now, and have tried quite a number of breeds. We've been selecting from our mixed flock to create a hybrid chicken that forages for most of its own food, lays a good amount of medium sized eggs, hatches and raises its own chicks and is super hardy. Winter laying and laying longevity are especially important. Essentially what we're trying to do is create a Wyoming landrace breed: a hybrid breed that combines the traits of numerous purebred chickens to create a new strain specially adapted to our climate. To that end, we've begun incubating eggs from hens who fit that picture to help bring their traits into our flock as a whole. A number of birds in our current program are multi-generational hybrids that have been slowly adapting to our environment here in Wyoming. There are a number of pure breeds that have had the strongest impact on our flock, and we will highlight those breeds and their benefits before going to the gallery.

Third year of our Wyoming Winter project is underway!

For 3 years now, we've been hatching eggs from hens that lay in the winter. Every winter our laying rate increases, and this year we didn't even use supplemental lighting and the hens were laying strong enough that we were able to do a good hatch in January! We're really excited to see where this hatch takes us!
These eggs are from hens that came out of their molt (or were pullets who started laying) the earliest, during the shortest days of the year.
We will have a limited availability of pullets and cockerels available from this hatch in a couple months. Get in contact with us if you'd like to get in the lineup! Once I start listing pullets, they tend to go pretty fast!

Our Foundation Breeds

Easter Egger

We first got into the Easter Eggers because they laid blue and green eggs, but they've definitely been more than that. The Easter Egger crosses are thrifty, broody, and quite hardy. The muff has proven to be a bit of an issue with lice, which is a bummer, but the rest of their traits have been consistently good. They are average layers, but tend to express great longevity. They are also very gentle. Our oldest rooster (going on eight now) is an Easter Egger, and has earned the right to stay until he dies of old age due to his gentle nature and diligent care of his hens. He can't compete with the younger boys anymore, so he lives in the hospital ward and takes care of any girls who need special care and all of our broody mamas and newly hatched chicks.

Bresse

The Bresse is a french breed of chicken known for the unique trait of developing marbled meat. That is a useful trait for free range chickens since they can tend to be tough compared with grocery store cornish crosses who never had to forage for a thing in their entire 7 weeks of life. Besides being delicious, they are hardy, good foragers, and actually lay very well. One of our main flock roosters is a purebred Blue Bresse, and besides being a great example of the Bresse traits we like, he's also an incredibly gorgeous boy!

Standard Old English

Though "standard," the Old English are quite a bit smaller than other chicken breeds, and lay a smaller egg, but they're very smart about finding their own food, lay pretty consistently in the summer, mature quickly, and raise their own chicks without difficulty. One hen sat on twelve eggs and effectively managed to get them all up to their hatch date, despite her small size (at which point we found her, and split the eggs with a second hen).
The SOE crosses I have are quite impressive, and I'm excited to see how they continue to perform.

Maran

To be honest, the purebred Marans aren't the hardiest or healthiest breed on their own, although I do like the Midnight Majesty Marans I have (a crossbred Maran developed to lay more). We were decidedly disappointed in the purebred Marans that we got, but the roosters that we kept have thrown some very nice offspring. One of our current flock roosters is the result of a Barred Maran cross, and he's an incredibly strong and hardy rooster. One of our Maran cross hens broke her leg a couple of years ago and laid an egg every day throughout the entire healing process!
Many of our dark egg layers owe their beautiful egg color to Maran genetics.

Black Australorp

Australorp genetics are in many of our crosses, and they bring a lot of stability. The purebreds are tough, generally have good laying longevity, brood and raise their own chicks with remarkable consistency, and lay very well. They are known as one of the best heritage free range brown egg layers, and definitely live up to that name. The Australorps in particular seem to pass consistency and winter laying to their offspring.

White Rock

White Rocks are some of the best chickens we've had when it comes to longevity. We had one hen who was one of our top ranking layers until she was five, which is saying quite a lot when most breeders and egg producers recommend butchering chickens at three after they've passed their optimum laying potential. The White Rock is another well rounded breed: consistent laying, cold and heat hardy, and good foraging traits. They aren't particularly good brooders, and their coloring isn't ideal, but the longevity trait is vital and hard to find.

Brahma

Initially, we didn't think the Brahma would be the best fit (we just got them because we liked them and the numbers just barely worked out, but don't tell anyone that, lol). As it turns out, they were pretty good! They were definitely cold hardy, laid fairly well for their first couple of years, and went broody. The results of the Brahma crosses are what drew our attention. The Brahmas throw a slightly lighter build, but great winter hardiness. The chicks do take a bit longer to reach maturity, but once they do, they are surprisingly stunning layers! The light dusting of feathers on their feet adds some winter protection, but doesn't get in the way of foraging.

Icelandic

The Icelandics originated in... can you guess? Iceland! When Norse Vikings brought chickens with them to the Icelandic settlements roughly the 9th century AD. Developed as a landrace through natural selection and survival of the fittest, they became an incredibly hardy breed that is thrifty and a strong forager.

Note: While I'm crossing them into my hybrid to bring those perfected characteristics I mentioned above, I'm watching how they preform and may decide to keep a pure strain.

Wyandotte

Created in the 1870s as a sustainable dual purpose chicken that withstood northern winters, Wyandottes were a very popular chicken for a number of years. After small family farms started being replaced by commercial production farms, Wyandotte's lost favor because they didn't produce in commercial quantities. Since I'm not looking for super commercial production, I value the traits they were originally created for.

Snapshots

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