Hi There! Welcome to Sadie-Girl Farm!
I am Julie, the resident “crazy chicken lady”!
When Matt and I bought our first home together back in 2010, I immediately “made” Matt build me a chicken coop! I went to our local farm store to pick out our first 5 chicks, and I was hooked! One of the friendliest of those original gals, was my Buff Orpington “Sadie”. She would strut right into our kitchen to beg for treats, and would lay one ginormous egg every single day. That girl sold me on having chickens forever! Over a decade later, her legacy lives on through Sadie-Girl Farm.
I will never be without chickens and quail now that I know what they mean for my family…
I wanted to raise our own backyard chickens (and later, quail) because I wanted to do better…
After reading books such as ‘The Omnivore’s Dilema’, ‘Animal, Vegetable, Miracle’, and devouring everything written by Joel Salatin, I knew I had to make better food choices based on my new knowledge of our industrial food systems. I wanted our family to be more sustainable and self-sufficient.
I wanted our own little flock for eggs fresh from our backyard . I knew exactly what they were eating and how they were raised. They had names and different personalities! We especially love gathering outside in the evenings as a family, and watching their hilarious chicken and quail antics!
The eggs are unlike any I have ever purchased from a grocery store… the whites are firm, not runny, and the yolks are bright orange and stand tall. We are hooked 😉
We love the responsibility raising animals instills in our children as they feed the birds and collect their eggs. (Our son Beau is also an EXPERT egg peeler!) They are learning work ethic, problem solving, empathy, about life-cycles, patience and resourcefulness. We love watching as they gain knowledge of where our food comes from. THIS is the life I want for my family.
I love that I get to share the gift of raising your own healthy food for your family with hundreds of other moms and dads who are realizing the same thing I did. Food grown and raised in a way that is good for your kids, fair and loving to the animals, and healthy for the planet, is not a ‘want’… it is a ‘Need’. Sharing this gift with you all has become my life’s work and passion.
Our Breeding Practices
We strive to do the best by each breed we raise. We breed for friendly dispositions and natural heartiness (resistance to illness and disease) first. Second, we strive to improve egg color, especially since many of our breeds are known for their colorful eggs. And third, we breed toward the Standard of Perfection for each breed. We don’t want amazing eggs if it means we have a mean rooster… there is no room for that on a farm with kids! We also don’t want to lose sight of the breed standard as we are working on these lovely egg colors. So it is a balance, but we keep all 3 in mind as we select which birds to breed and which eggs to set in the incubators.
Our focus is on specialty poultry, especially those that lay colorful, unique eggs. We have Black Copper Marans who lay gorgeous dark chocolate brown eggs, and the “Super-Fluff Silkies”! These are SUPER fluffy, mini chickens who are basically the lap-dog of the poultry world!
We especially love our Quail. We breed two kinds of Coturnix Quail. The first are a variety who lay a gorgeous blue-speckled egg. We call them ‘Celadon Quail’ after the rare, recessive “Celadon” gene they carry, which causes their eggs to be blue! If you have never considered keeping quail, you MUST read about them here! They are incredible!
We also have our Jumbo sized Coturnix quail, which we call “Blue Ridge Jumbos”, as a nod to our incredible mountains here in Western North Carolina. They get quite large (for quail), very quickly, and lay huge speckled eggs, which my kids happily devour!
You can find all of our breeds under the “OUR BREEDS” tab. While pricing and ordering info is on the “FARM STORE” tab. We are NPIP certified and can ship both chicks and eggs anywhere within the United States excluding Hawaii.
So that’s us! Poke around the website and please feel free to reach out if you have any questions about anything! We love to talk poultry with folks!