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About Michowa Acres:
We are "late-onset" farmers, owning a small farm or large acreage 6 miles south of Battle Creek, a half-mile west of Highway 121. We have always had a passion for agriculture and particularly livestock. We started raising chickens in 2010 and have really enjoyed it.Selling meat chickens and eggs is only part of our plan. We're also starting breeding flocks of rare or extremely rare heritage breeds. For 2015 we have many breeds you may have never heard of including; Norwegian Jaerhons and Silver Grey Dorkings are our white egg layers and brown egg layers include Delawares, Russian Orloffs, heritage Rhode Island Reds and Iowa Blues. 2015 also brings new breeds to Michowa Acres. In our chick brooder we have Barred Rocks, New Hampshire Reds, Dominiques, Buff Orpingtons and soon Dark Cornish, White Capped Blue Polish and Silver Penciled Iowa Blues. By the end of the summer we hope to have over 200 layers on pasture once our chicks grow up.
Last year we had to shorten our broiler chicken season due to our processor going out of business. This year we plan to process our own chickens in our basement in a licensed facility. Our main meat chickens will still be the Corish Rock hybrid. We will also be hatching many of our own chickens and plan to raise unneeded roosters as Heritage meat birds.
2015 also marks John going full-time on the farm. We will be organically raising a variety of produce, some common like green beans, some not so common like Artichokes. We are starting all of our own plants and will raise them without psticides or other chemicals. We will be using efficient drip irrigation. We also plan to build a high tunnel to hold strawberries, sweet potatoes, some greens and tomatoes. We have selected most of our produce to be heirloom varieties when possible.
General Practices:
We raise our broiler chickens on pasture (once old enough) so they get to enjoy the sunshine, fresh grass, bugs and lead a typical chicken lifestyle. The broiler chickens, once outside, live in a "chicken tractor" a small portable coop in our pasture. These tractor have access to the ground and are moved daily to fresh grass.We feed a all natural diet with no antibiotics. Our layer chickens have daily access to the great outdoors where they help keep the bugs down and get their daily "greens."We get our broiler chicken chicks from Central Hatchery in Madison. This is the third year we have tried to gain sustainability by hatching our own layers. Soon we will start developing our own slower growing meat bird, and may have some available by late summer of 2016.
We are starting to specialize with our laying chickens. Our goal is to breed several rare and extremely rare chickens breeds. We currently have Russian Orloffs, Norwegian Jaerhons, Rhode Island Reds, Iowa Blues, Delawares, and Dorkings. We now have decent size breeding flocks in place. When we hatch our own layers we do not cull roosters at hatch. We either keep our roosters, sell them to someone raising chickens or raise them as meat birds. All of our breeds except Norwegian Jærhøns are considered dual purpose, meaning eggs and/or meat.
Meet Our Heritage Chickens
White Egg Layers Keeping with our farm's mission of preserving rare and endangered heritage breeds, our white egg layers aren't the typical commercial breeds. We feature Norwegian Jærhøns and Silver Grey Dorkings.
The Jærhøn was the principal chicken breed of Norway until imports of foreign breeds began in the nineteenth century.
One of the earliest known mentions of the Dorking was by the Roman agricultural writer Columella during the reign of Julius Caesar. We also have the exceedingly rare Silver Grey Dorking Bantams.
Brown Egg Layers Our brown egg layers stay with our farm's mission. Like our white egg layers our brown egg layers aren't the typical hybrids you find in commercial brown egg producers barns.
The Delaware is a breed of chicken originating in the U.S. state of Delaware. It was once of relative importance to the U.S. chicken industry, but today is critically endangered. It is primarily suited to meat production but also lays reasonably well.
For most of its history, the Russian Orloff was considered to be a product of Russia and Count Alexei Grigoryevich Orlov, but modern research has discovered that the breed first appeared in Persia, and was distributed across Europe and Asia by the 17th century. However, Count Orlov was a key promoter of the breed in the 19th century, and the breed became known in the West following his efforts.
The Rhode Island Red is an American breed of chicken. The non-industrial strains of the Rhode Island Red we raise are the original larger dark maroon variety listed as "recovering" by The Livestock Conservancy. The Rhode Island Red is the state bird of Rhode Island.
The Iowa Blue is a breed of chicken that originated near Decorah, Iowa in the early 20th century. Despite its name, the breed is not actually blue according to poultry standards. It is an exceedingly rare fowl. The almost folk like story of these birds is that a White Leghorn hen went broody and hid under a building to brood her chicks. When she finally came out she had a group of chicks that were unlike any chicks in the area.
Soon we will introducing several new Heritage breeds to our farm. Currently in training :-) are New Hampshire Reds, Dominiques, Barred Rocks, Silver Laced Wyandottes and Buff Orpingtons. All rare and endangered American Breeds.
Michowa Acres' principal purpose in featuring these breeds is to preserve their great traditions as well as breeding these fabulous creatures to expand their presence in the world.
Highlights:
Happy Spring!!Winter and age has decimated our laying flock. We have more layers in the brooder and on order. Unfortunately it will take a while for them to start laying. Meanwhile we have this year's broilers out on pasture and they will be listed in May.
John and Mary Johnson
Michowa Acres
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