Our Barred Holland babies!
And a boy, and another girl…2 dozen in all. Yes, we are the happy new parents of bouncing baby chicks!
Back in January we finally pulled the trigger on our much discussed plan of raising poultry. Once that decision was made, I quick jumped into chicken maniac mode and began analyzing breed charts. On my short list of preferred characteristics: Dual purpose bird (yes we plan to harvest the extra roos), cold tolerant, people tolerant and WHITE eggs. That last criteria a must have by Tom, my co-captain on this adventure.
It’s amazing how quickly I burned through the breed chart looking for that perfect chicken for our little homestead. Finally, I spotted our candidate, The Barred Holland chicken. Not only did it fit our basic criteria, but they had tons of bonus features and all the reviews concluded that these birds were perfect for the backyard farmer! Hallelujah! Ecstatic that the hard part was over, I simply had to select a hatchery and place an order.
A quick search turned up some interesting information. These birds are rare. Very rare. Critical even. More than one site said that the Barred Holland may very well be the rarest chicken in the United States!
What?
Well, ok. So it’s a challenge right? I wrote to a half dozen farms and hatcheries looking for a Barred Holland source. Lo and behold, I received one positive response! Ideal Poultry (www.idealpoultry.com) notified me that they would be happy to fill my order for Barred Holland chicks! Which brings us to our happy situation today.
We got the call from the post office at 6:37am on St. Patrick’s Day. The chicks had arrived!
Did they ever! Our modest order of a dozen chicks had been doubled by the hatchery. In order to keep our little group warm and happy during shipment, an extra dozen chicks were placed in the box. While this is a common practice, it was a little bit shocking once we realized our chicken coop plans were seriously inadequate to handle this size flock. On the plus side, the extra males would come in handy at harvest time.
So here we are at Day 4. They are growing up and feathering in at warp speed! Everyday is something new. Just like Spring, they are new and bursting with energy. Today they started getting tail feathers and some striping on the wings. We have to get busy and get the coop ready, the brooder won’t hold them for long.
Longer days and warmer weather are right around the corner. We look forward to our season with the chicks. I’ll be naming the hens…just as soon as I can tell them apart!
#1 by Bea on March 26, 2011 - 6:14 pm
congratulations on your new arrivals, they are very cute!
#2 by Deirdre on April 15, 2011 - 5:57 pm
Do you know what breeds Ideal sent as “packing peanuts”?
#3 by Pocket Farmer on April 15, 2011 - 7:37 pm
Actually, yes. They sent Rhode Island Reds. Males of course. We are raising them along with the others. We had already planned to raise meat birds and part of our original order was for this purpose, so we will just have a bigger harvest this fall.
#4 by Kris @ Attainable Sustainable on April 15, 2011 - 9:24 pm
I think it’s funny that white eggs were important! Most people who raise hens for eggs are after a colored assortment. Can you share why the desire for white? I’m curious!
Do you plan to try to hatch chicks and maybe sell them to help perpetuate the breed?
#5 by Pocket Farmer on April 15, 2011 - 10:03 pm
Hi Kris! Tom likes white eggs, it’s what he is used to. So when we looked for a breed we chose a white egg layer. We do plan to breed and hatch our own, so we shouldn’t have to order any more. Time will tell if we have good stock vs the breed standard. If not, we’ll work on improving our line until we have something more closely resembling the original breed characteristics. Quality seems to suffer when there aren’t that many genetic lines to choose from. In any case, we are happy with our chicks and can’t wait to see them running around in their coop!
#6 by crystal willett on November 22, 2011 - 4:14 am
Just curious if you are selling hatching eggs? I am searching for some and wondering how the hatchery did with the rare chickens and if they were, indeed, good quality Hollands.
#7 by Pocket Farmer on November 23, 2011 - 12:05 pm
Hi Crystal,
Our Barred Hollands have many of the characteristics I was looking for with this breed. They are docile, easy keepers. Great temperament, quiet, curious, great foragers. The roosters have not shown any aggression towards me and can also be handled. The eggs color isn’t pure white, more of a buff color, medium in size. Overall, I am very happy with our birds. We’ll be working on hatching eggs in the Spring, I’ll let you know when they are available, if you are interested in having some shipped out to you.
#8 by Cathy Hill on January 28, 2012 - 2:07 am
I’d like to be on your list for chicks or hatching eggs too. I’d love to add Barred Hollands to my flock
#9 by Pocket Farmer on February 2, 2012 - 2:32 am
Crystal and Cathy…I should have hatching eggs in the next month. Let me know if you are still interested and how many you are looking for. Thank you, Sue C
You can e-mail me at thepocketfarmer@yahoo.com