[Jake Cooke]

Stephen

I habe sourced chicks from 3 different breeders.

Deer Run Farm MD

Todd Morse NC

Erin Angulo CA

I started last year with the birds from Deer Run. I loved them. They were great body but lacked proper color.

For this year I started with 50 chicks each of the other 2. I think the West to East coast change for the birds from Erin negatively effected them and they have done quite poorly. In 14 weeks of grow out I have lost 14 to sickness. The birds from Todd are from a similar climate and they are going much better. Better growth, next to no sickness, they are very nice.

[Jake Cooke]

So I am breeding standard poultry right now(Delaware, New Hampshire, and Barred Rock). I came from an agriculture background but mostly livestock, (cattle, hogs, and sheep). Poultry was always an afterthought growing up. I did breed exotic fowl in highschool and did well enough to pay for college but after that I got out of it. I have recently partnered up with 2 cousins to run a farm to table operation where we sell beef, pork, and chicken direct to consumer. What drew me to the Breeders academy was creating a family of fowl that would allow me to cut off the constant buying of chicks from breeders and hatcheries and to grow my own fowl to market to the public. So I am excited to make that happen!

With that being said I did have gamefowl at one point in time but I knew ABSOLUTELY NOTHING when it came to breeding or anything of the like. I probably could have had something great by now as that was 12 ish years ago and had at that point what were called “Clarets” in the wheaten pattern, “Pumpkin Hulseys”, “Warhorse”, and “Morgan Whitehackle”. However I had someone approach me and wanted to buy everything I had and at 20 years old the offer was hard to refuse since I didn’t really know what I had. If I were to get back into gamefowl I would probably go back to the gingers “Pumpkin Hulseys” or spangled whitehackles. We will see!

Thank You for your input!

[Author]

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