Chickens: 2020 I made the difficult decision to stop breeding chickens. This is in response to climate change first and foremost, and the difficulty of raising chickens in the hot desert, in addition to the desire to travel more. The remaining Black Copper Marans I had went to a friend and breeder in Globe, Arizona. I kept 6 crossed BCM/Ameraucanas for eggs and nothing more.
Turkeys: In 2019, after a tremendous year of hatching and working with the Self Buff turkeys, I was forced to cut back drastically due to lower back issues aggravated by lifting/moving too many 50-pound feed bags. I kept a few of my favorite colors: Blue Narragansett, Fall Fire, Royal Palm, Self Buff, and Sweetgrass.
In 2020, it has become more and more clear that birdwatching is taking a priority over raising poultry. Plus we had the hottest, driest summer in the 40 years I've lived here, with less than 1.5" of rain during the summer which usually gives us more than half of our annual average 12". In spite of this, I did some limited breeding this year, but exclusively for my own projects.
However I anticipate selling the remaining turkeys before next summer. My mind could change if our current caretaker is brave enough to stay through the hot summer. With this in mind, I did sell my trio of Blue Narragansett (such beautiful birds) to a local friend.
Self Buff project continues: see summary on that page.
Turkeys: In 2019, after a tremendous year of hatching and working with the Self Buff turkeys, I was forced to cut back drastically due to lower back issues aggravated by lifting/moving too many 50-pound feed bags. I kept a few of my favorite colors: Blue Narragansett, Fall Fire, Royal Palm, Self Buff, and Sweetgrass.
In 2020, it has become more and more clear that birdwatching is taking a priority over raising poultry. Plus we had the hottest, driest summer in the 40 years I've lived here, with less than 1.5" of rain during the summer which usually gives us more than half of our annual average 12". In spite of this, I did some limited breeding this year, but exclusively for my own projects.
However I anticipate selling the remaining turkeys before next summer. My mind could change if our current caretaker is brave enough to stay through the hot summer. With this in mind, I did sell my trio of Blue Narragansett (such beautiful birds) to a local friend.
Self Buff project continues: see summary on that page.