Wish Upon A Farm

Wish Upon A Farm "Wish Upon A Farm" is a small farm project in Verona, MO with a focus on rainbow eggs, and fibromelanosis. Hey, I’m Olivia. This isn’t a big operation — not yet.

Our Flock:
❤️ French Black Copper Marans
🧡 French Black Marans
💛 Cream Legbar
💚 Olive Eggers
💙 Ameraucanas
💜 Easter Eggers
🖤 Ayam Cemani I run a small chicken breeding farm project here in Missouri with my husband and our two kids. We started Wish Upon A Farm in 2024, but it’s been in the works for longer than that. After a rough falling out with a former partner and losing our home in a fire, we

were starting over with nothing but two hens and a whole lot of uncertainty. Some friends gave us a place to land when we needed it most, and eventually invited us to stay and build a life on their land. We moved our home here in early 2025, and we’ve been working hard to get our feet under us ever since. Right now, we’re working with what we’ve got: a closed flock, small-scale hatching, and a setup that lets us be directly involved with every part of what we do. That means our chickens get real attention. They’re fed a solid, well-balanced diet. They’re handled from the moment they hatch. We’re out there with them every day, checking, feeding, talking to them, just being part of their world. We care about these birds. That includes the ones that go on to lay colorful eggs and raise chicks — and the ones that end up feeding our family. We don’t take any of it lightly. My flock right now includes:

❤️ French Black Copper Marans
🧡 French Black Marans
💛 Cream Legbar
💚 Olive Eggers
💙 Ameraucanas
💜 Easter Eggers
🖤 Ayam Cemani

I’m working toward four main goals:

🟥 Keeping purebred Ayam Cemani with proper structure and strong fibro traits

🟧 Breeding true French Black Copper Marans for egg color and consistency

🟨 Developing darker blue-green egg layers from Olive and Easter Egger lines

🟩 Creating my own fibro-based birds with rich black skin and colorful plumage — especially gray, splash, and cooler-toned patterns

I’ve always been drawn to genetics, especially fibromelanosis — the trait that causes black skin and tissue. It’s tied to a duplication near the EDN3 gene, and I’m fascinated by how it works and how it can be passed on. I want to see how far I can take it — not just with black birds, but with color, too. Most of my breeding work is still in development. I’m not shipping anything at the moment, but I do occasionally sell chicks here in Missouri when we’ve got extras. I use this page as a kind of journal — sometimes to share eggs or birds, sometimes just to talk about what’s going on here as we build things from the ground up. If you’re into chickens, genetics, farm life, or just seeing how someone works their way through it all — welcome. I’m glad you’re here.

What's that a new addition to the farm!?I haven’t owned a horse since I was 18 years old. I’m 35 now, so somehow sevente...
08/05/2026

What's that a new addition to the farm!?

I haven’t owned a horse since I was 18 years old. I’m 35 now, so somehow seventeen years passed between the last time I really lived that life and now.

I started riding when I was around six. Horses were most of my childhood, honestly. I rode, showed, trained, bought project horses, sold project horses, and spent a lot of time helping with other people’s horses too. Then I sold my last project c**t, moved away from Missouri, and life went somewhere else for a while.
I never stopped missing it.

There were plenty of times I looked up barns nearby and thought about finding somewhere to ride, but I never quite made myself do it. The longer I stayed away, the more aware I became of how rusty I was getting. There was a little shame mixed into it too, I think. Like I had walked away from this huge part of myself and let too much time pass to simply walk back in like nothing had changed.

And, well... a lot had changed.

I’m not 18 anymore. I’m not in the shape I was then, and I know getting my strength and riding legs back is going to take some work. Lord, don’t I wish seventeen years had been a little kinder to my knees 😂

But the love of horses never went anywhere.

A lot of that love will probably always be tied to Montana, my Appaloosa mare, registered name of Skip’s Queen. She was my heart horse. When she went lame (due to previous owners barrel racing her too young) and I was forced to sell her, something about horses changed for me. I kept riding afterward.

I worked with Quarter Horses, Paints, Appaloosas, and many, many more. I trained, rode, showed, and kept trying. But every horse after Montana felt a little like another horse I couldn’t find her in.

Eventually, after I had to sell my grullo Paint project, I was just tired. My heart wasn’t in it anymore, and life was already pulling me in another direction, so I let horses become something I used to do.

Now, after all these years, I’m back in Missouri. I live in the country again, on a farm, raising animals, and somehow there was finally room in my life for a horse. After a whole lot of talking, planning, dreaming, worrying, and relying on some very good people around me... I took a chance and messaged someone about an Appaloosa in Beaver, Oklahoma.

I knew the distance might be a problem. I couldn’t just decide to drive that far on any random day, especially since I needed a friend who could haul for me. It has been a hot minute since I’ve pulled a trailer with a live animal (that size) inside, and I wasn’t about to pretend otherwise.

There was also another buyer ahead of me, so nothing was guaranteed. It took almost an entire week before we really knew he was going to be ours.

His owners could have told me at any point that they weren’t willing to wait. They could have moved on to someone closer, someone who could show up faster, or someone who made the whole thing easier on them.

But they didn’t.

They sent me videos, pictures, then more videos and more pictures. They stayed in contact with me every day and kept me updated on what was happening with him. When the other buyer fell through, they gave me the chance to make it work. They even fit us into a day they had originally told me they couldn’t, and met us in Newkirk so we didn’t have to make the full twelve or thirteen-hour round trip.

I am genuinely grateful I found the people I did, because they seemed to care where he ended up. That mattered to me more than they probably realized.

His name is Varric. He is a four-year-old Appaloosa gelding, a dark bay or brown-based varnish roan with dark points, mottled skin, a heavily roaned face and body, and darker spots scattered over his hindquarters. His coloring will keep changing as he gets older, which is one of my favorite things about varnish roans.

Of course I bought an Appaloosa. I don’t think anybody who knew me when I was younger will be surprised by that. I have always had a soft spot for their smart, stubborn, opinionated little selves.

Probably because I am not much different, if we’re being honest
It took me, my husband, and a few friends an entire weekend to get the pasture ready. We cut down overgrown grass and weeds, pulled old fencing, put up new fencing, and replaced an old cattle panel.

And now there is a horse outside. My horse.

He isn’t Montana, and I don’t expect him to be. That was part of what took me so long to understand. Loving another horse doesn’t take anything away from the one who came before.

I’m older now. I’m rusty, out of shape, and starting again from exactly where I am instead of where I used to be.

But after seventeen years... I have a horse again.

TL;DR: Cute chicks hatched. Incubator off. Clean, scrub, reload. Chirp, chirp. (Turns out keeping 26 tiny dinosaurs ali...
05/26/2026

TL;DR: Cute chicks hatched. Incubator off. Clean, scrub, reload. Chirp, chirp. (Turns out keeping 26 tiny dinosaurs alive requires an ungodly amount of math, science and stress, but they're cute, so whatever.)

--
I set eggs on May 4, 2026 at 5:24 PM and this morning the first incubator was officially powered down so it can rest, be cleaned, and loaded again. The second incubator is still finishing up. One egg is actively pipped, one chick just hatched, and the rest are fluffy, dry, and waiting to be moved out once the hatch fully wraps up.

This hatch was split across two separate incubators with 22 eggs set in each machine. The first incubator was entirely Ayam Cemani and Zombie crosses. Out of the 22 eggs set, 5 were removed before lockdown because they were clear or non-viable, leaving 17 eggs at lockdown. In the end, 13 healthy chicks hatched and are now in the brooder. Four eggs did not hatch. Three turned out to be clears or extremely early quitters that could not be identified sooner because dark shells make candling difficult. One chick was fully developed but failed to pip correctly and drowned because of a positional issue and air cell complication.

The second incubator was a split batch consisting of roughly 4 to 5 Ayam Cemani/Zombie crosses and 17 to 18 Cochin or Silkie rooster crosses. Out of the 22 eggs set, 5 clear eggs were removed before lockdown, leaving 15 eggs going into the final stage. So far, 12 chicks have fully hatched, one egg is actively pipped, and two eggs remain unpipped but are still being left alone until the incubator is finished because dark shells can hide development surprisingly well.

At the moment that brings the hatch total to 25 chicks, with a possible 26th still on the way. Honestly, it is lower than I hoped for, but it is still a much stronger outcome than my first hatch of the season. Once these incubators are cleaned out, eggs will be set again almost immediately. There is at least one more guaranteed hatch this season, and depending on how the next round goes, possibly one more after that.

For anyone unfamiliar with hatching, the process is a lot more complicated than simply putting eggs into a machine and waiting three weeks. Fertility, genetics, nutrition, shell quality, humidity, temperature stability, handling, and even chick positioning all affect outcomes. Poultry embryos are extremely sensitive during the first week of development. A large percentage of hatch loss usually happens very early, before the chick is even recognizable inside the egg.

Across both incubators, 10 out of 44 eggs were lost before lockdown because they were either not fertilized or experienced very early embryonic death. That sounds harsh, but it is actually one of the most common stages for loss in poultry breeding. Early development failures are often tied to factors like breeder age, stress, nutrition, environmental conditions, or simple genetic incompatibility. Once viable embryos made it to lockdown, the hatch rates improved significantly.

Using the dry hatch method again worked very well for me this round. Humidity was intentionally kept lower during days 1 through 18, usually between 30% and 45%, then raised above 60% during lockdown after the turners were removed on day 18. The purpose behind dry hatching is to encourage proper moisture loss from the egg during incubation. Eggs naturally lose water as chicks develop, which helps create the correct air cell size needed for hatching. If humidity stays too high for too long, chicks can struggle to pip or drown internally because the air cell never develops properly.

The numbers actually tell a better story than the raw hatch count does. From the first incubator, 13 chicks hatched out of 17 lockdown eggs, which works out to about a 77% lockdown hatch rate and roughly a 93% success rate among confirmed fertile developing eggs. The second incubator is currently sitting at about an 80% lockdown hatch rate, potentially reaching around 87% if the active pip finishes successfully. Combined across both machines, 25 chicks out of 32 lockdown eggs hatched successfully, giving an overall lockdown success rate of about 78%, potentially climbing to just over 81%.

What I am happiest about honestly is the low number of late deaths. Losing chicks right before hatch is usually the hardest part emotionally and often points to humidity or incubation issues. Out of 32 lockdown eggs, only one fully developed chick was lost at the very end due to positioning problems. That is still sad, but from a hatch management standpoint it means conditions stayed stable overall.

Breeding enough birds every season matters more than many people realize, especially with rare breeds and projects involving traits like fibromelanism. Chickens are not permanently productive breeders forever. Hens are usually most fertile during their first two to three years of life. They can continue laying eggs much longer than that, but fertility and hatchability often decline with age.

Roosters also lose fertility as they get older. Many remain active breeders for several years, but s***m quality, hatch rates, and successful fertilization percentages can gradually decrease over time. In smaller breeding programs, skipping a season or producing too few young birds can create major setbacks genetically because you lose future breeder options, diversity, and progress toward traits you are trying to preserve or improve.

A lot of people only see the cute chicks at the end. What they do not see are the weeks of monitoring temperatures, checking humidity, candling eggs, adjusting airflow, cleaning equipment, tracking fertility, and making difficult calls on what stays and what gets pulled. Every hatch teaches something.

Every season is different. Sometimes you do everything right and still lose eggs. That is just part of working with living animals.

The ladies have not disappointed with the gorgeous color range this season! In love. 😍
05/09/2026

The ladies have not disappointed with the gorgeous color range this season! In love. 😍

Have I been incredibly inactive on Facebook? Yes! Have I been inactive in the chicken world? No. The first hatch of the ...
05/04/2026

Have I been incredibly inactive on Facebook? Yes! Have I been inactive in the chicken world? No.

The first hatch of the year didn’t go the way I had hoped. The rooster that had been covering the main coop didn’t pass the fertility check, and most of the eggs weren’t fertilized. Waiting the full 21 days just to realize nothing ever started developing is always a rough feeling. We did figure out part of the issue, though. He turned out to be older than we originally thought, which would explain the drop in fertilization. Roosters can look active and still have reduced s***m viability as they age, so it lined up once we put the pieces together.

He’s since been replaced with one of my younger Cemani and a Zombie boy from my October batch, so I’m feeling a lot better about the setup going forward.

On the bright side, my other little roo in a different pen came through and we did end up hatching two healthy, vigorous chicks. I only ended up setting two of his eggs, next batch will be more.

I usually candle around day 7 to check for development, but this batch was rushed and I just let them go without checking. No pulling clears early, just let them run their course. It’s one of those things that comes with the territory, even if it leaves you thinking about what you might have done differently.

We’ve got another incubator to replace the one that died last year, which should help a lot with consistency. I will be setting eggs today at some point, but with this little hiccup I may end up hatching into August/September at this point. Just part of how this all goes sometimes.

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Verona, MO

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+14176696392

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