Built On Roots Farm
780-312-4131
Which to pick?
We have a variety of birds that are listed with the Livestock Conservation. We have egg laying breeds, dual-purpose breeds, and meat breed ducks. We have a dual-purpose chicken breed and sweetgrass turkey. Dual purpose geese and fancy geese.
We are striving for quality over quantity and therefore we do have smaller breeding groups. Please check our Available Birds tab to know what we have ready to go.
On this page we hope to explain the characteristics and purposes of each breed to help you narrow down which breed would be best for what you want from your future flock! Please feel free to reach out through email or messenger if you have any questions about a breed or if you want help narrowing down what would be a good fit for your goals.
Ancona
The Ancona is a dual-purpose, medium weight breed. They have a market weight of 5-6 pounds, giving you a 4-5 pound table bird. They can lay up to 280 eggs/year.
They are unique in their spotty pattern and many people refer to them as the Holstein ducks. They have a friendly temperament and are good foragers.
They would be a great addition to families looking for egg layers and/or meat purposes for smaller families.
Aylesbury Exhibition Type
We are very excited that we have finally got the critically endangered Aylesbury ducks here on the farmstead! There is 2 classes or types of Aylesbury, the utility type and the exhibition type.
The exhibition Aylesbury has a carriage which is horizontal, the keel parallel to and touching the ground when the bird is standing at rest. They make an excellent meat bird, and have long deep keels. Females lay only between 40-100 eggs/year. They were the main meat duck before the Pekin breed was created. Aylesbury drakes weight 10-12 pounds and females weight 9-11, giving you a table bird of 6.5-9lb .
We are very excited to be working with this critically endangered breed. We are still building up our own flock and working on the breed but we hope to have larger numbers for sale in the coming years, right now we will only have very limited #'s of day-olds this spring and juveniles in the fall.
They would be a great addition for those looking to have larger table birds. Or those interested in helping the conservation efforts of this breed.
Buff Orpington
The Orpington, also called Buff Duck, is considered a dual-purpose, medium weight breed. They are between 7-8 pounds live weight, giving you a table bird around 5 pounds. They lay between 150-220 eggs/year. They have a friendly temperament, good foragers that tend to stay close to home.
If you can get a line that is on the higher end of egg production they would make a great addition for people looking for meat and eggs.
Cayuga
The Cayuga is a dual-purpose, medium weight breed. They are harder to clean but have excellent meat, they lay 100-150 eggs/year and are one of the only ducks to have a black bloom in the spring. They are one of the hardiest birds in the duck world, excellent foragers, and have a friendly temperament.
They are well known for the beautiful green sheen that is more visible in the sunshine!
They would make a good addition for someone looking for unique eggs and a beautiful bird to look at. We have butchered Cayuga but we prefer the birds that have lighter colors. They aren't the best egg layers but since they are so hardy they are usually one of the first breeds to start laying in late winter.
Indian Runner
We have a mixed color group of Indian Runners. Our females are silver, lavender, and black. Our drakes are silver and chocolate.
These birds are in the lightweight class, they are excellent egg layers laying 250+ eggs/year, great foragers, and very independent birds. The Indian Runners are listed as a Recovering breed.
Personally I feel IR's are one of the best breeds for running on a permaculture homestead/farm. You will not find a better forager/pest control for your orchard or around your garden/yard than an Indian Runner. They were breed for pest control in crop fields and their instincts to help out with bugs runs deeply in them!
Their foraging skills paired with their prolific egg laying makes them one of the top breeds I suggest for people just looking for egg production.
Saxony
Saxony is considered a dual-purpose, heavy-weight breed. They are 8-9 pounds at maturity, giving you a table bird of around 6lb. The females lay 190-240 large white eggs/year, they are active foragers, and a very friendly breed.
They would be a great addition for people looking for eggs and meat.
Silver Appleyard
Appleyard's are considered a heavy weight, dual-purpose breed. SA's don't just have meat to offer though, they are beautiful and good egg layers at 220-265 eggs/year. They are decent foragers that stick closer to home, and are a well-tempered friendly breed.
Both males and females are 8-9pounds at maturity, which gives you around a 6lb table bird.
With their outstanding egg laying capacity, good forage skills, and hardiness they are usually my top recommended breed for larger families looking for eggs and meat.
Welsh Harlequin
Our Welsh group carries the genetics for both color phases (golden and silver).
They are considered a medium weight breed and one of the best egg layers producing 240-330 eggs/year, along with their outstanding foraging skills, beautiful colors, and friendly personalities these birds will make a great addition to any farm.
I usually only recommend Welsh for dual-purpose homes that are smaller families they are a smaller bird so in my opinion they make a better egg laying breed than for dual use. If you did use them for meat you should expect around a 3lb table bird.
Sebastopol
We breed full-curly to smooth-chested in all our Sebastopol groups. All our groups are color carriers, but are white with the exception of a few splashes. Our geese carry the color genetics for lavender and grey, but colored goslings are rare from our groups.
Sebastopol's are a threatened breed and known for low-fertility. All our goslings are waiting list only and no guarantees on numbers/year. They are a medium sized goose and known to have a quiet and friendly temperament. They are most often kept as an ornamental bird, due to their unique feathers, but they are said to make a nice tasting table bird, however they are smaller in size.
I only recommend Sebastopol's to those looking for a vocal alert to predators and for those who want a beautiful bird to look at.
Embden
This is a German breed of domestic goose.
They are a hardy, long-living breed, that make excellent mothers. They can have a docile temperament that you can tame some. They can become well loved by their humans but ganders can be fierce if they are protecting a sitting female or young.
They are the most common breed used for meat production due to their white plumage, fast growth, and large size. Depending on age at butcher you can expect a table bird size of 10-20lb.
Chantecler Chickens
Chantecler is the first chicken of Canadian origin! This is a hardy, quiet, dual purpose breed that is excellent for pasture poultry farms and they make a great addition to homesteads.
Our Chantecler's spend the summers on grass and the winters in open-air coops and they have done beautifully in our setup. They lay a pinkish/brown egg, upwards of 220/year and are known to lay in the winter months! They are known to go broody and make good mothers.
Due to how they were bred they have little to no waddle or comb to get nipped with frostbite, making them a superior breed for our long cold winters.
They have a well-fleshed breast and can reach live weights of up to 9lb for males and 7.5 lb for females.
They can do well in confinement as well as a free-range lifestyle. They are gentle, calm, easy to get along with by other breeds/species, and are personable and friendly if handled often as chicks.
Sweetgrass Turkey
They are named after Sweetgrass Farms in Montana, where the breed was created.
They have a bold coloring, that breeds true, making them a popular heritage turkey. They are a large variety with a nice broad breast, making them an excellent meat bird that can breed naturally unlike the commercial meat breeds.
Ours have very mild temperament and have fit in well with the other animals and children here on the farm. We have enjoyed their presence as well as the meat they have provided for us.
We have not allowed our females to hatch their own but they are known to go broody and be great mothers.
