Heritage Chickens

Press Release on Sugar Feather Farm

We love to be featured and talked about! Why? This spreads the news about our mission — preserving and sustaining rare and heritage breeds of fowl.

We tell the tale well on our website on our farm information pages. When people think of chickens endangered breeds does not come to mind. Chickens are plentiful right? Yes and no. Commercial and Hybrid birds are abundant, you can go down to your local feed store, peruse through catalogs, or now with a click of a button order those common breeds right from your computer. These are common chickens that with industrialization and science have become well oiled machines, weights and egg production accurately calculated. You can count on them. We thought what about the chickens and fowl  from the past that have been forgotten? Those too can be excellent layers, accurately weighed and predictable too. They are slower growing because this is the way they were designed.

When we first started we couldn’t wait to get a small coop with 6 chickens, knowing nothing about them really, just one of those items on our bucket list. We wanted that homestead we have always dreamed about and this was one of the first steps. Then we entered the feed store — the temptation is real people! We didn’t have this in Southern California, oh no not at all. We were immediately fascinated and asked the Tractor Supply employee what to get. He picked out 6 and there we were , brand new chicken owners!

After falling in love with them, the research began. We read everything, took classes, went to poultry shows. We then met some people who introduced us to other options, rare and heritage breeds. Some experienced mentors and here we are today.

We offer so much more

The fascination with rare, exotic and heritage chickens didn’t stop. We received some duck eggs and did buy our first incubator. We hatched our first ducklings and one of our daughters bonded with them. She immediately doted on them. Her favorite Saber the duck. We then had Shelly, Star, Jelly and Peanut Butter. After ducks we then got into turkeys, guinea fowl, geese and Coturnix Quail! All these breeds had a fascinating history and story to tell. Just like us.

Vermont Country Sampler Article

Check out our spread in the Vermont Country Sampler. This is a great Vermont newspaper and we are really so excited to be a part of the April 2021 issue. Check out the article here