Excited to Share My Future Backyard Chicken & Rescue Farm! 🐔🌱

[Beau plus penny]

Hi everyone!


I’m thrilled to share my plans for my future backyard chicken and rescue farm! My goal is to create a safe, happy, and healthy environment for rescued chickens while also raising free-range birds that are well cared for and loved. I'm so excited I've been thinking about this for a very long time.


Part of my vision includes a sanctuary for rescued chickens, where they can live safely and happily. Rescued birds will have plenty of space to roam, nutritious food, and lots of care and attention. For people who love chickens but don’t have time to raise chicks, we’ll offer rescued birds for adoption, giving them a second chance in loving homes.


I’m also excited about the breeds I’ll be raising and breeding:


Sussex: Speckled, Red, Buff, and Light
Wyandottes: Blue Laced Gold, Blue Laced Red, Silver, and Gold
Orpingtons: Chocolate Laced, Silver, Lavender, Buff, and Molted
Cochins: Blue, Black, Splash, Black & Lavender, Gold Laced, Silver Laced, and Molted
Bantams: Silkies in Buff, White, Black, and Blue, plus a variety of Bantam Cochins


My focus will be on raising healthy, happy chickens, preserving the unique traits of each breed, and producing show-quality birds for fairs and exhibitions. I also hope to educate people about proper chicken care, responsible rehoming, and the joys of backyard flocks.


I’d love any advice, tips, or stories from fellow chicken enthusiasts — especially those experienced with rescues, breeding programs, or adoptions. I can’t wait to connect with other chicken lovers and share this journey!

 

[Debbie292d]

This is awesome!

My only advice would be is to maintain two separate sections far from each other. One section is yours, for breeding, and the other section, nowhere near these, is for the adopted ones, and where you will have the public entering. Inevitably, you'll be taking in a chicken or chickens that are sick or diseased. You'll want them far from yours.

Good luck! Sounds fun!

 

[Beau plus penny]

This is awesome!

My only advice would be is to maintain two separate sections far from each other. One section is yours, for breeding, and the other section, nowhere near these, is for the adopted ones, and where you will have the public entering. Inevitably, you'll be taking in a chicken or chickens that are sick or diseased. You'll want them far from yours.

Good luck! Sounds fun!

thank you i didnt even think about that

 

[Beau plus penny]

do you have any other ideas like about how im going to seperate the different color varities of the breeds im raising

 

[Reave]

Lots n lots of project pens is how you separate your colors and patterns out!

For example, Black/Blue/Splash can all be one pen, but you'll want a separate line of pure blacks with as few other colors carried in the line as possible for breeds you also want to sell in the lavender color; blue and lavender can both express on the same bird and it's not desirable (for anyone thinking about showing, anyway, as it "blues" up the lavender color significantly).
You'll want to be back-crossing the lavenders to the "pure" line blacks every few generations to help somewhat with the feather-shredding that plagues a lot of lavender lines, and then leaving the black-heterogeneous-for-lavender birds with the lavender pens (the ones not sold or otherwise culled from the breeding project) to make sure they don't accidentally get tossed in with the pure line of black birds.

The pure line blacks will also help in the blue pen, both because you don't want lavender in there either, and for helping to keep the blue color nice and dark if that pen starts throwing a lot of light, washed out blues after a few generations.

Another thing to think about is how you are gonna manage culls on a rescue farm; if you don't intend to eat some of 'em, you are gonna be feeding more poor-quality birds you don't want to use for your projects for as long as it takes them to sell, and some are just not gonna be the quality you want to have your name attached to.

If you are breeding in numbers high enough to sell many breeds in many colors to the public and attach a brand to, you'll wind up with way more freeloaders than you can afford to feed. Sell at a steep "pet quality" discount locally and hope that doesn't ding your reputation when people hear where they are from? Take 'em to auction so you aren't the one pulling the metaphorical trigger, even if that seems kinda counter-intuitive to the whole rescue thing? Hard-cull but donate to pet owners, wildlife rehabs/rescues? Gotta figure that out before you start, maybe even before figuring out the project pen situation.

Which does not mean you shouldn't do it, far from it! I think a lot of people are quite tired of how some of the bigger name hatcheries operate nowadays, especially as the quality of the birds seems to be going down at the same time as their prices keep going up. But it's important to think what you wanna do about that well before it's actually relevant, especially as it seems like the welfare of your birds is very important to you.

 

[Beau plus penny]

Lots n lots of project pens is how you separate your colors and patterns out!

For example, Black/Blue/Splash can all be one pen, but you'll want a separate line of pure blacks with as few other colors carried in the line as possible for breeds you also want to sell in the lavender color; blue and lavender can both express on the same bird and it's not desirable (for anyone thinking about showing, anyway, as it "blues" up the lavender color significantly).
You'll want to be back-crossing the lavenders to the "pure" line blacks every few generations to help somewhat with the feather-shredding that plagues a lot of lavender lines, and then leaving the black-heterogeneous-for-lavender birds with the lavender pens (the ones not sold or otherwise culled from the breeding project) to make sure they don't accidentally get tossed in with the pure line of black birds.

The pure line blacks will also help in the blue pen, both because you don't want lavender in there either, and for helping to keep the blue color nice and dark if that pen starts throwing a lot of light, washed out blues after a few generations.

Another thing to think about is how you are gonna manage culls on a rescue farm; if you don't intend to eat some of 'em, you are gonna be feeding more poor-quality birds you don't want to use for your projects for as long as it takes them to sell, and some are just not gonna be the quality you want to have your name attached to.

If you are breeding in numbers high enough to sell many breeds in many colors to the public and attach a brand to, you'll wind up with way more freeloaders than you can afford to feed. Sell at a steep "pet quality" discount locally and hope that doesn't ding your reputation when people hear where they are from? Take 'em to auction so you aren't the one pulling the metaphorical trigger, even if that seems kinda counter-intuitive to the whole rescue thing? Hard-cull but donate to pet owners, wildlife rehabs/rescues? Gotta figure that out before you start, maybe even before figuring out the project pen situation.

Which does not mean you shouldn't do it, far from it! I think a lot of people are quite tired of how some of the bigger name hatcheries operate nowadays, especially as the quality of the birds seems to be going down at the same time as their prices keep going up. But it's important to think what you wanna do about that well before it's actually relevant, especially as it seems like the welfare of your birds is very important to you.

im actually thinking about scrapping the different breeds and rescue and turning to something im more passionate about COCHINSSSSs
my buisness is goign to be called

cloud 9 cochins

my slogan

made in heaven

 

[Beau plus penny]

and my logo