Heritage Breed Hens & Heirloom Seeds

Our flock is made up of a mix of heirloom chickens as well as a number of industrial laying hens rescued at auction.

We raise Buff Rocks, White Rocks, Cuckoo Marans, Araucanas, Speckled Sussex and Dark Cornish breeds. Our mixed flock gives us a lovely assortment of eggs in a variety of colours and sizes, from small pale white to dark terracotta even green and blue!

We'll be raising hogs for the first time this summer. We're trying out a couple of varieties to see which ones we like best for temperament, ability to forage, flavour and whatnot, but no matter what, we won't be raising the familiar pink pigs we all think of when we think of pork. Some of the hog breeds we are considering are actually critically endangered species.

We have a deep passion for heritage breed animals & heirloom vegetables here on the farm.

More and more of us are becoming aware of the loss of biodiversity due to rapidly increasing extinction of species caused by climate change and human activity. Unfortunately, many people don't know that our current industrial food system has caused an alarming decrease in the biodiversity of the plants and animals we rely on for our nourishment. 

The lack of diversity makes our food system brittle and vulnerable to a myriad of threats; climate change, severe weather, drought, disease, corporate monopolies, reliance on harmful pesticides and herbicides and antibiotic resistance, to name a few. Maintaining older varieties of plants and animals helps protect them from extinction, makes our food system more resilient, and brings a host of flavour and joy to our tables that the industrial food system just can't provide.

But wait, if they're endangered, we shouldn't eat them, should we?

It seems counter-intuitive, but yes, choosing rare breed meat and veg can actually help a species recover from the brink of extinction. If there is consumer demand for a particular type of meat, farmers are more likely to take the extra time and care required to raise them - and the more farmers raising them, the better off the whole breed will be. We even raised a breed that had been thought to be extinct! The Chantecler is the only Canadian chicken breed and is incredibly hardy and resourceful. Lucky for us it survived!