All posts tagged: backyard chicken movement

The Making of Blue

🦋The Making Of Blue🦋
🦋Selective Breeding🦋
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Many people ask what kind of quail lay our blue speckled eggs. The answer is a domesticated coturnix quail. The blue egg layers come in a feather types and are the size of traditional coturnix pharoh quail you may have seen folks keep as pets.
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This photo illustrates how the blue eggs were achieved overtime with selective breeding. From left to right we can see the closest egg to us was laid with a heavy bloom, next is an egg with a blue tint followed by a white egg with a slight blue tint then more and more blue saturation of color as the line continues.
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I love playing with egg colors and and the quail allow me to achieve colors that could take a lifetime with chickens. It takes an average of 5 1/2 months for a chicken to lay. It takes 6-8 weeks from birth for a quail to begin laying.
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With every egg selected and incubated we are creating something beautiful. Our pairing with nature and gift to all of you!
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We are done shipping quail chicks for 2018 but we will be shipping fertile hatching eggs of both the blue and brown speckled quail eggs if you would like to try to hatch them at home! ❤️

alchemist_farmThe Making of Blue
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Community Support

We are committed to education and supporting our youth to be strong leaders of tomorrow. With elementary school aged children of our own we are inspired to give back to our community. 

 The issue of food scarcity for elementary school aged children has come to the forefront of our hearts and minds. Poverty in the United States is a larger issue than most of us realize because families and children in need feel the stigma of being poor and do not ask for help.

After some research we have decided to focus our efforts of community support through an amazing organization named End 68 Hours of Hunger. We chose this organization because it is making an amazing impact for how small it is.

 End 68 Hours of Hunger is completely volunteer run, every bit of money donated goes straight to feeding elementary school children who do not have food to go home to on the weekends. Many children in the US receive free breakfast and lunch through their schools but come the weekend they have 68 hours of hunger to endure. This organization equips every child identified in need with a backpack or bag they can take home so they have food to make it through the weekend.

 The organizers of 68 Hours of Hunger give all of us a few ways to support these children.

  1. You can donate directly to them and they will distribute the funds to groups that are already serving communities of children. Some communities have more children they serve than others and they need money to keep filling bags/backpacks to send the kids home with each week.
  2. You can start your own drop off site and pick a local school to help weekly. 68 Hours of Hunger provides excellent plans for how to start your own drop off site and help children right in your backyard that are invisible to most of us. The plans clearly outline how to prepare a backpack for a child with two breakfasts, lunches and dinners for between $5-$10 each weekend.

 Why are we so passionate about this?

We are a small family farm. What is the connection of breeding/hatching chickens and an organization like this? The answer is our children. In a world with so little we can control the one thing we feel we can help and put positive energy towards is food.

We know the power of nutrition and how it can sway the attention span, behavior and health of young children. Feeding children who are silently struggling over the weekends will have a lasting effect on how they perform in school. Education will help guide them toward a path away from poverty. Level blood sugar from having regular meals will lead to good behavior, keeping children out of detention and away from the stigma of “being bad”. No child should be punished for being hungry, so many issues can be stopped in their tracks with simple nutritional needs met.

Beginning in 2019 we will be donating a portion of our proceeds to this organization. We hope that you will join us TODAY in supporting them. In 2018 we will be contacting our local schools to see if there is a need in our immediate community near the farm so that we can start to create change on our local level as we support the national efforts. 

This is going to be an ongoing effort for us. We chose the name Alchemist for our farm because we are always transforming one thing into another on the land. Soil becomes pasture, pasture is food for the hens, the hens lay eggs, eggs turn into chicks, chicks turn into hens, the hens fertilize the soil and as the rain comes new pasture grows again and the cycle continues.

Will you become an alchemist with us? Will you help transform your local community or national community into a place where young children are fed? We hope so!

 

alchemist_farmCommunity Support
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The Colors Of Fall

🍃The Colors Of Fall🍃
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Each month the colors of our hatching eggs vary slightly. Some months we see heavy speckling and color saturation, other months heavy blooms and pastels.
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This basket of color was assembled yesterday after our collecting. The photos and colors are like a journal entry in the diary of our life here on the farm.
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Soon the hens will rest and all that will remain are the quail eggs. For now it is lovely to get to soak in nature’s egg rainbow.
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Our last shipment of chicks will go out October 2nd this year and we will continue to ship chicken and quail hatching eggs as long as the ladies allow through fall.
alchemist_farmThe Colors Of Fall
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This Months Colors

A Photo Diary
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I used to write in journals, these days I capture the happenings of our lives in images. Each image tells a story of what we have been working on and where we are headed with the farm.

Egg colors capture our imagination as we continue our breeding programs. Each season brings a new generation that yields new shades for your daily egg collecting basket. 

Little hands help sort and marvel at the different textures. 

alchemist_farmThis Months Colors
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Color Brings Us Joy

No matter how long the chores take it is the color of the eggs sorted at the end of the day that make it all worth while.
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I am continually tinkering on automatic coop doors, feeders and waterers for our 12 breeding groups spread out over our acreage. Sometimes I have little side kicks asking me to repeat the names of a breed or wanting to label eggs. Every moment on the land is a teaching moment with little ones and it all stems from the captivation these colors inspire. “I love the chocolate ones!” Will be followed by “I love the way the green ones feel”. Every egg is an opportunity for our children to connect to where their food comes from. Every label is a chance to practice letters and every feeder filled is a reminder that we must care for our animals every day.
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What does your rainbow inspire over at your place?

alchemist_farmColor Brings Us Joy
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The Egg Tooth

🐥Egg Tooth🐥

Did you know that as chicks form in the shell they create a special extra piece on the end of their beak called an egg tooth? This day old Ayam Cemani chick is modeling it perfectly.

The egg tooth helps them in the long journey out of the egg and falls off naturally after a few days time of hatching. If giving a baby chick to a broody hen it is best to give the chick when it is less than 3 days old. Looking for the egg tooth on a chick will be in indicator of that perfect age for mama hen/chick bonding.

The first time I saw a chick hatch out of an egg was a powerful experience. It is amazing how tight they are inside of the egg and how they are able to break out having no space to work with. Watching my first chick hatch changed my relationship to chickens, it gave me a new deep respect for how strong and versatile they are.

No matter what is going on in our lives, nature shows us that there is always a way forward – we may have to work for it, but it is there!


We have limited numbers of chicks of this beautiful and unique breed. If you would like to have some of these all black beauties strutting around your barnyard reach out! We ship nation wide 

alchemist_farmThe Egg Tooth
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