Bo Birds and Bees

04/08/2026

First hatch of 2026!

They are all available. 😊

2 Polish - look to be buff color, possibly buff laced.

1 Polish x Cinnamon Queen - black with a bit of dark gold, this one is a little character!

1 Polish x Cinnamon Queen - golden brown, the biggest one

1 Sumatra x Polish/EE - black and gold with a white stripe on the crest. This one is the most curious and fun!

6 Black Sumatra, the rare breed I specialize in, they are such neat birds!

03/15/2026

🫣

I haven’t incubated eggs (on purpose) in a couple of years, after hatching thousands of chicks in previous years. Last year, I intervened with a failed broody, but other than that all of the chicks here lately have been created by broody hens. I wasn’t sure I was going to incubate eggs this year, either, but…

I just put some test eggs in an incubator, while dialing in the settings. Once things are stabilized, I’ll be adding more. In another week or so, I’ll set up a hatcher in preparation for, hopefully, new chicks in a few weeks!

On the left, the brown eggs, are from Cinnamon Queen hens and a Polish rooster. All of the white/cream color eggs are either purebred Polish or purebred Sumatra, with just two EE/Sumatra crosses (they are bigger, light brown eggs).

I randomly have two Sumatra cross roosters, out in the bachelor coop, that hatched last year (one from a Cinnamon Queen hen, one from an EE hen) and they are SUPER cool. I’m considering exploring those crosses more, on purpose. 🤔

Though I had decided to focus on only Sumatra, I keep hearing the siren song of other projects.. and Polish. 😆

02/20/2026

My little flock of ducks today, gathered around their “party pan”. That’s what I call the rubber pan that they have to splash around in during the winter. (The rest of the year they have a big pool)

They are Blue Swedish, about 10 months old.

02/11/2026

Here’s a quick picture of “Green”.

The summer before last, I had several Black Sumatra hatched from some broody hens. The young hens spent their first winter in the main coop. The young roosters, along with a few Polish cross roosters the same age, spent that winter hunkered down in a separate bachelor coop.

Come springtime, I let them out to roam again, as winter loosened its icy grip. I found homes for the Polish crosses and had 4 Black Sumatra boys left. I wanted to pick one, possibly two, as a backup for my head rooster, Oz.

After my drastic downsize, I decided that I wanted to focus on Sumatra, but Oz was the only rooster I had left. Well, aside from Ruff, but that’s another story for another day. So, I wanted a backup, a lieutenant for Oz. I decided to band each of the 4 boys with a different color band, so I could observe them for a while and make my pick.

You may have guessed it, this guy had a green band and he was my pick. His brothers were sold - two of them went to a man who drove here from over two hours away!

Green has proven to be a good pick. He’s growing into a beautiful rooster. He has a good temperament, is good to the hens, and Oz doesn’t seem to mind him. I’ve thought about giving him a “real” name, but at this point he responds to “Green” and I suppose that’s his name!

He’s a 1-1/2 year old Black Sumatra rooster. 💚🖤

02/09/2026

Another spring time is rolling around and I’m still here! Still in northern Minnesota, still have some chickens.

Bit of a catch up:

Summer before last, I did a drastic downsize. I got down to only 6 chickens. Then chicken math kicked in hard and a few weeks later I was up to 30.

You see, 4 of the 6 were broody hens, setting on eggs, and they bumped the numbers right back up. That was also the first year I decided not to incubate any eggs after all, but the girls said, “fine, we’ll do it!”

Same thing happened last year and, with the exception of 4 chicks I hatched from a disastrous broody situation, a few dozen more were added to the flock, via broody hens.

The vast majority of the flock now are Black Sumatra. It’s looking a lot like I could rename this place Black Bird Farm. There are a handful of Polish x Olive/Easter Eggers and one lone pair of pure Polish. Those are all descendants from my original flock of chickens. Plus I have a couple of other Sumatras and a couple of random other hens (longer story).

Oh, and, ducks. Last spring I impulse bought 8 Blue Swedish, a breed of duck I’d been interested in for years. They have certainly made life, interesting. 😆

About that name… of the farm. I’ve given that a fair bit of thought and, for now, I’m going to keep the name as it is: Bo, Birds, and Bees. Will I have bees? Probably not… but it occurred to me last summer that the wild bees are an important part of this place. Below is one of many pictures I took of one on a thistle flower, just inside the duck area.

They have reminded me to stop and admire the flowers, yes especially the wild flowers like this thistle I left up just for them. They remind me to take in the everyday beauty all around me out there. I look forward to seeing my little wild pollinator friends this summer. And I plan to keep “Bees” in the name of my tiny farm, as a thanks to them.

(Even if I have to keep telling people I don’t sell honey - ha!)

What comes next? Well, as always, I have plans. But for now I’m going to get outside and enjoy this rare February afternoon that is above freezing.

04/02/2024

Happy April and Happy Spring!

(no, this is not an April Fool's post - just felt like I needed to say that, here on Trust No One day - ha!)

I'm still here, still have a bunch of chickens, and have, possibly, now made it through the winter... Though we did just get over a foot of snow a week ago - after a very mild season. I've continued to downsize a bit, letting go of a few hens or a rooster here and there, as I dialed in what I want to work on this year.

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been setting up my breeder coops and setting up some groups with an idea to start hatching chicks soon. So far I have these breeding groups "underway":

Marans (Blue, Black, and Splash)
Polish and Polish/EE cross
Schijndelaar
Sumatra
Crevecour

This week I plan to set up additional groups for:

Polish
Sumatra
Crevecour

I'm also collecting some select orbs from the main flock, which would be Olive Egger moms and Polish or EE dads.

Undecided at the moment when I'll start incubating and how many chicks I'll be hatching. However, if you are interested in any of the breeds or crosses I listed above, do let me know. I'm still thinking I will be primarily focusing on my own projects this year, but I'm happy to take orders for local chicks. Limited hatching orbs will also available.

I hope everyone is having a good start to the week, month, and spring season!

Here's a picture of one of my Polish roosters. This goofy guy is Kazie; he is a very sweet toblunt Polish rooster that I bought as a chick from a breeder just last summer. He was telling me that he might have found a treat here. 😊

01/02/2024

Happy New Year!

Well, I'm still here. I've still got a bunch of chickens. Downsizing did happen, but I decided I couldn't give up - yet. Sometimes I still wrestle with it. Then just this morning, I collected 3 eggs from the "baby coop" and realized that they represent the next generation of three birds who were/are important to me: Percy, Toppy, and Fraggle. That's fun.

A quote I think of at times is, "If you want to hear God laugh, make plans". For many reasons, I'm hesitant to make any plans with my flock. Right now I'm just in "get through the winter" mode, then we'll see what comes next.

I've got around 100 birds altogether, still a bunch of different, cool, breeds, and some things I'd like to do this year. We'll see! For now, I'm thinking that I will be focusing on my own projects, not so much focus on making chicks or eggs to sell. I'm sure I'll have extra eggs, chicks, and chickens now and then, as always, but I'd like to get back to some of the interests I had to begin with.

High on that list would be rare breed preservation. Also, developing the next generation of some of my best birds. "Best" to me has not meant show quality so far, but hardy, healthy, pretty, productive birds, with good temperaments. I've got a loose interest in showing, more as something to do and to try, but we'll see on that, too. It's pretty far down on the list of priorities. It was a lot of fun sharing my flock with folks in North Dakota and I've been pondering what that might look like, here in our new home.

A lot of the last couple of years has felt more like being in survival mode. It'd be neat to have more fun with everyone again going forward.

Stay tuned.

10/08/2023

Snack time with some of the chickens! Please excuse the camera work, I was being overrun by a pack of wee dinosaurs while holding my phone and dishing out the treats.

Every once in a while I give some of the chickens a treat of Superworms. I wanted to show how Copper comes running when I call her, but she was already on t...

07/19/2023

This is Snuffle. He is a 2 year old purebred Lavender (or “Self Blue”) Ameraucana rooster. He’s been the father of my Lavender Sage Egger project and also had started fathering black s*x link Olive Eggers with my Cuckoo Marans hens. He is looking for a home.

He… does not like me very much. Throughout my journey with chickens, I have refused to tolerate aggressive roosters. Snuffle is different. He has his reasons and we usually have an understanding of sorts. Also… he has successfully protected his hens from a predator attack. Something ripped into their coop one night a little while back. In the morning, I found a bunch of lavender feathers, Snuffle with a bloody head, and a couple of the girls with some cuts on their faces, but everyone was still there and alive. So, yeah, he’s allowed to have opinions that are stronger than most.

Sadly, I have too many roosters, many will need homes, but I’m making a special plea for this guy. I don’t want him to go back into a bachelor flock or be fighting it out in the mixed flock. He’s too good at his job for that. In addition to being protective, eggs from his girls have always had the highest fertility when I’ve done hatches, and he’s gentle with his hens, no one is bald. His chicks have sweet temperaments. In particular, I have a son of his from last year who is a little sweetheart.

Even with his dislike of me most of the time, he’s been one of my best boys. I’ve struggled with the idea of letting him go for a while. Now that I’m downsizing, I just won’t have a place for him anymore. 😞

I’d like to find someone who will give him a chance.

He definitely deserves it.

07/19/2023

I have made the heartbreaking decision to find homes for most of my chickens. I just can’t do this anymore, it’s been so hard for so long. Lately, I’ve been having some predator problems. I feel like I don’t have the time or energy to turn the entire place into Fort Knox (it’s already pretty close). A few nights ago, one of my favorite hens was taken and now I’m just done.

If you are in the area and interested in anything, let me know. I want them to have good homes. Most are priced lower than I would normally ask for them - actually many are free. But here’s the deal: I do ask that if you are looking for chickens to eat, you keep scrolling. I’m a realist, I eat chicken, but not my own for some time. If that’s what I wanted to happen to them, well, we would be stocked up on chicken for a long time.

I’ve poured everything I have - and then some - into these birds over the years and I’d prefer they have chances at good homes rather than go right onto the dinner table.

There are chicks about two months old, young roosters, young hens, and adult laying hens and roosters from 1-3 years old. Many different breeds.

(Edit to add: I’m sure everyone will want laying hens, but please do consider the boys, too. I have a lot of damn good roosters here.)

I also have a handful of what might be considered special needs birds. They are some of the ones that are free.

Like ripping off a band aid, I’m feeling like I’d like to get them in homes asap, so please do let me know if you’re interested. This is breaking my heart, but I feel like it needs to be done.

Thanks.

06/20/2023

The main project over the past few days has been to move babies around. The battery brooder on the left was actually built as a quail cage. After rehoming the quail, a couple of years ago, I repurposed it as a chick brooder.

Well, it was full and I had the last hatch waiting to move out of their (big) baby box.

A little while back, I built the brooder/cage on the right, in the middle. I liked it as a next step for chicks, so over the last couple of days, I built two more of them and stacked them up. Late last night I moved everyone over from the little brooder stack to the big one.

Just now, I’ve finished moving the newest chicks into the original stack, after giving it a good cleaning. Part of moving them was to do another inventory, look everyone over, and change out their leg bands to larger size.

Everyone is getting settled into their new digs and they seem to be having fun. 😊

Yeah, they’ll all outgrow all of this, too. Next up are grow out pens or tractors.

Or… finding them homes? 😆 Want chicks? I have a ton of them right now!