First, we want to welcome you to our homestead!  We have learned so much over the last many
years and we would like to share that with you. 
There were many lessons that were literally reinventing the proverbial
“wheel” in the poultry world. 

Secondly, we want to thank and acknowledge our wonderful
mentors.  Without you, we would not and
could not have arrived at our current status as the primary breeders of White
American Bresse and developers of the NORTH STAR GAUOLISE line.  Of special note is Jeff Mattocks of the Fertrell Company and his efforts to develop special feed recipes for our breeding program.  Without Fertrell’s direct influence, our breeding efforts would have been quite futile: the birds are
literally what they eat!

If you have not taken the time to visit Poultry Keepers 360 on YouTube, we highly recommend that you do so. Many of the changes made to the North Star Bresse infrastructure, breeding program, nutritional aspects, overall farm management and husbandry
skills come directly from the ideas.  We would like to thank Rip Stavley, Mandolyn Royal, the Bresse Breed Club, and our many friends, customers, and companions in this poultry breeding journey.  Without you, we would truly have been
shooting into the darkness hoping to find light.  You have lit the path with honesty, transparency, and hope.

Another special thanks belongs to Living Traditions Homestead.  Kevin and Sarah.  Your input, honest reviews, and continued friendship has truly blessed us in so many ways.  To all our other YouTube acquaintances, thank you for continuing to help us see from your perspective, grow our flock, and focus on our main goal: to feed the People, the Homesteads, and the Families of America.

Our journey started when we started to research a poultry breed
that would be sustainable, lay a lot of eggs, and provide a steady supply of meat for our big family.  We found a few options and decided on Speckled Sussex as our first breed of choice. They were amazing, big fluffy butts, sweet as pie.  Our rooster of choice we affectionately named Chief.  He was lord of the yard, protective, people friendly, smart as a whip, and fertile enough to keep 20+hens laying hatchable eggs for me.  The
Sussex excelled in mowing the yard, stirring up the pine straw and eating every single bug in sight.  They challenged me in the breeding department however, since they were “just” hatchery birds.

I soon found that they did not meet a SOP, where far too small, and had been bred for egg laying only as per money making hatchery business model.  To be expected.  Not tossing any stones at hatcheries, mind you, but I wanted to have meat on the table.  So, I did my research and started a breeding program to improve type and meat carcass weight.  I soon found that a
few generations later, I did have a bigger, wider bird.  However, the necessary breeding was going to
take many years to fully reach the potential of the Speckled Sussex.  I was unable to find a breeder that had already put in those years, much to my disappointment!

Enter Swedish Homestead! 
Now listed on YouTube as “Simeon and Alex, Formerly Swedish Homestead”!!  It was a true God moment.  As I watched Simeon Fause with his white Bresse (his lines were from Germany), I was stunned by the sheer size of the
birds!  They had the most beautiful,
regal gait, wide bodies, sure footed and stately manner, and bonus!  They laid a LOT of eggs.  I devoured every video with gusto and we
decided as a family to find some good quality breeding stock.

We went straight to Greenfire Farms and ordered 10 straight run chicks. 

After the experience with the Speckled Sussex, I knew I was
going to have to cull (ouch) even that small of a ‘batch’ of birds for the best and grow from there.  We ended up with two or three reasonably decent hens in body type and one rooster.

Enter CASPER!  He was
favored from the moment of his first crow, his first peck and scratch, and his very first flirtation with the ladies. He was a gentle giant, with big orange/yellow eyes, dark legs, and a hefty body.  He topped out at 9.5lbs after 1.5 years.  He had not a mean bone in his body (which at the time we had not equated to low vigor), took care of his little flock with a watchful eye, and provided us with our first chicks.

We were SO proud!  We
were chicken breeders again!  (well… sort of LOL!)

Again, I kept learning and gathering any and all sources for help making decisions on which to keep, who had the best laying, and what I
wanted to change going forward.  Casper kept the eggs fertile, the ladies were joined by their daughters, and our flock
grew to 20 or so.  I began to notice that the birds were still exhibiting the “hatchery” standard: narrow bodies, lots of eggs, low body weight, and flighty behaviors.

We were greatly blessed to meet our mentor at that time by
“chance” and he happened to have a rooster that he considered too big for his hens.  I gladly accepted said roo into the flock in hopes of seeing an increase in the size of offspring.

Enter PRESTON!  12 solid pounds of awesome sauce, Preston of the Yukon was a beast.  He was flightier than I liked, but soon calmed down.  (I’m pretty sure the ladies had something to do with that, lol!).  We
put him with our very biggest and widest ladies.  This flock we called the B2 group, since they were in our Bresse 2 coop, pen 2.

Our mentor Keith Loeffler graciously gifted us with an enormous group of eggs from his private flock. Thus was our first “grow out” group of over 200 chicks.  Now that was a learning experience!  We knew that having his direct genetics was
going to make a big difference, that we would need to cull like mad (or else pay the feed bill), eat well, and move on from there.  Keith was kind enough to make a drive several
times for consultation, observation, and advice. 

Our first order of business was obvious flaws such as angel
wing, knock knees, narrow birds, non thrivers, and those that did not make weight by 16 weeks.  We determined that we would write out our own NORTH STAR FARMS rubric and follow it as closely as
time, energy, infrastructure, and cost allowed. Keith was amazing in all that he did to help us choose birds, look at them objectively, and to encourage us to “trust our eyes.”  He taught us many things, including how to brood properly, how to pack chicks for shipment, clean water, fresh feed, nutritional basics, and overall poultry care. 

Moving forward, we decided that we would focus exclusively
on his line, since he knew it so well and introducing the other birds was going to make for genetic messes we didn’t care to repeat or fix.  So, starting in 2018, we kept his birds as
pure as we could.  Casper had a separate flock than Preston.  And we continued to find that the “B2” birds were the very best ones.

Unfortunately, we made the mistake of selling off a lot of the first hatches trying to cover our increased feed costs.  If I had it to do over, I would not have done
so.  Hind sight is always 20/20 as they say!

We received more eggs and chicks from our mentor and kept on
truckin’.

Rinse and repeat. Each generation had improvements. We were focused exclusively on the body type, size, weight gain, nutritional needs, and egg production of the birds.  We knew full well that feather color, comb size, comb points, and any other aspects that were purely ornamental were not going to be our focus.  We are and will never be “show” bird folks.  We needed
meat and a lot of it.  We needed 4-6
dozen eggs a week for our large family. We did not eat combs or feathers, lol!

Enter FERTRELL!  Wow.  That is about the sum of it.  Nutrition changed EVERYTHING.  We “happened” upon a video of Jeff Mattocks chatting about poultry nutrition, amino acids, and the importance of the first week of life for chicks.  We were shocked.  We had been doing “everything”wrong.  Well, sort of.  We examined our feed ingredients, age of feed, nutrient levels, fat levels, animo acids, and protein source/amount.  Sadly, our fat content was at 3%, not the
optimal 5-8%.  Our aminos were non existent in the presently used homemade local mill feed. 

Just as we had with first the Sussex and with our very first grow outs, we decided then and there to make the swap to better nutrition.  What could possibly go wrong?!  After all, we “are what we eat” right?

Jeff warned us that it would take approximately 21-30 days to see a change.  It was molt season, so
the birds looked pretty drab at the time anyhow.  We were not prepared for what happened next,
to say the least! 

The first thing we noticed was that the birds had darker blue legs.  Then we saw that our formerly
“snow” white hens now had what appeared to be cinnamon colored dusty feathers across their shoulders, and a few grey feathers.  We promptly emailed Jeff.

He was apologetic; “It’s the amino acids.  When you have the right balance, ALL of the color genetics are turned on so you are seeing everything that has been hidden
in the mix over the years.”  To his
surprise, we celebrated.  He had just saved us a decade’s worth of headache. We were glad to discover the color genetics earlier rather than later! 

Now, recall that we were not focused on strictly “paint on
the barn” in our flock.  A few yellowish roosters did not bother us one bit if they met our 5lb live weight by 16 weeks.  However, yellow or green leg color was
disconcerting.  A few of our customers emailed us regarding off colored legs, to which we shared our genetics journey and nutrition information.

The best news was that we started to see a drastic change in chick fuzz color from hatch.  Not only
were our hatching eggs now mostly the proper shape, with wonderful, silky shells, they were hatching easier.  Our hatch numbers were improved.  The chicks thrived with fewer overall faults such as umbilical defects, shrink wrapping,
etc.  It was at this time that a good
friend suggested adding peroxide to the incubator/hatcher water and that also improved hatch numbers.  We had reached 90-100% fertility on our eggs, and an overall hatch rate of 80-90% in a GQF set up.

The chick fuzz color opened our eyes to an entirely different realm of feather genetics.  We began to grade the chicks based on their more “orange” or “yellow” color and
did a few test grow outs.  We discovered that the more color the chicks had that deviated from “white,” the more often they exhibited greenish/yellowed foot color, yellow beaks, or other undesired coloring.  And the longer that we worked with the chicks and separated them, the more we found that the very white, pearl gray legged chicks not only had the whitest feathering as adults.  These chicks also tended toward the darkest legs, the darkest eye color, and to present more fully a “show quality” look such as the French standard required.

I continued to research and found poultry feather genetics was a massive subject with no small amount of unknowns.  I was torn. 
We had customers that desired to have Instagram/Facebook photo shoot birds, bragging rights on a “perfect” rooster, or such.  But in general, the majority of our folks
simply wanted what we had originally made our goal: a sustainable homestead
bird that produced a meaty carcass in a timely fashion with the side benefit of 5-6 eggs weekly from the hens.

It was at this time that we decided to offer our chicks based on feather coloring and grade them. The chicks with the optimal, white chick fuzz and the pearl colored legs
were rare.  The middle of the road chicks with yellowish/off white coloring where more common.  The dark yellow chicks with more yellow to the leg color were most common.  At the time, the choice was to simply cull out those lower “grade” chicks or to sell them at discount.

I have and will never enjoy culling chicks.  So the natural course of action was to offer them at a lower cost.  We were very transparent about everything we knew. 
Including the fact that by default, the darker colored chicks tended to
be higher in rooster to hen ratio.  It
was our desire that these chicks would not be used for breeding, but for those folks that wanted to do a meat grow out group or to simply investigate Bresse as a breed. 

Our kids were involved in every step of our process.  They helped gather eggs, feed birds, clean coops, run water lines, build runs, maintain fence lines, and a multitude of
farm chores.  With their input, we named the three groups of chicks.  Daniel loved that fact that he had the ‘most’ chicks, so he chose the yellowest chicks.  Abigail was all about having the rarest, so
she selected to adopt the whitest chicks for her name.  I laughed and took the middle-graded chicks
and named them Jenn’s Gems.  Our other kids choose between the hatching eggs and the farm themed merchandise.  Irwin decided that since he was in charge of
gathering eggs, he would take on Irwin’s Eggs.  Paul and Morgyn loved the shirts.  They proudly wear them everywhere.

We were happy to make a few videos showcasing our decision
and why.  It seemed customers truly
appreciated having options.  And when we had “too” many of our yellowest chicks, we grew them to 5-10 weeks old and made
a test run of butchering them quail style. Again, they surprised us with not only incredibly succulent meat, but the ease of limited tools to have a meal. The added bonus?  Quality
control!  When we did use our handy dandy air frier to make up a batch of 8 week old, ‘fried’ and breaded chicken, we
knew we had hit a kid friendly jackpot! Miriam and Abigail and Daniel each got to have their own tiny chickens, covered in breading goodness, complete with mini drumsticks.

Fast forward to 2024. 
The last year has been incredible. 
We made the decision to focus on bringing our poultry to the restaurant, food truck, and farm to table market. 

Unfortunately, the FDA facilities in North Carolina do not allow for sales directly to restaurants. Nor does the exemption option allow for anything beyond local farmers market sales.  We were stumped.  We had come so far to find such roadblocks.  6 hard years of breeding had
proved out to create a stable supply of meaty, wide, beautiful birds.  I researched other options, such as taking them across the state line.  No doors opened. 

I had a passion to find another market.  I truly wanted to entire the Halal and Kosher markets as we had recently made local friends that be very interested.  This also was not an option here in North Carolina, sadly.

We had a longstanding relationship with our friends the Wickersham family whom began AZ CHICKENS. Though from Phoenix, Arizona and helping the folks in Arizona who have limited access to poultry, they moved near Tyler, Texas for the growth of their poultry goal of supplying meat with AmericanBresse.com . They, like us, had a passion for poultry raised right on pasture, agroforestry, rotated and feed the people.  Colwyn was instrumental in our early beginnings helping me (Jenn) set up the website and simplifying my office life.  Many conversations about breeding, nutrition, and general poultry knowledge had gleaned us a great friendship. Texas became the obvious move forward. Not only has USDA and FDA facilities, a diverse and demanding meat market. We have many amazing customers in Texas, as our summers for the last few years
had been spent planning our delivery routes specifically centered around Texas.  Buddy had family there.  My very best friend lived close to Houston, as well as a brother. 

So, we jointly made the decision to move our flocks to Texas.  The long process of Colwyn and family made the drive and helped us dismantle our infrastructure, move the hatchery
equipment and our adult stock. We loaded as much equipment as we could into our trusty
“chickiechickiebangbang” Caravan and headed for Texas with joy. 

I knew full well that Texas weather was a thing to reckon with.  I expected the birds to struggle
in their new location.  However, Colwyn’s set up on pasture, under trees, and with chicken tractors proved the birds fair very well.  Now we have pastured and agroforestry poultry, provided with customer fed options.  Buddy spent a wonderful couple trips visiting with the
wonderful Wickersham family and assisting with infrastructure. 

We very proudly maintain complete ownership over NORTH STAR FARMS, our breeding program, genetic decisions, and husbandry practices. Colwyn and family
proudly handle our shipping, 'the hatchery', infrastructure and 'the farming'.  We are exceedingly overjoyed to see our flocks thriving in Texas. This partnership combines friendship and business perfectly! We are so thankful for the blessings the Lord has brought to our families in this venture!

Why MEAT, of course!  Would you
like to try our pasture raised, non GMO Bresse? 

Interested in chicks, hatching eggs, a small breeding flock, or a large
grow out group for butchering at your location/homestead?  Have a restaurant that would appreciate
sustainable, traditional poultry raised right? Own a food truck, bbq pit, or simply want to have a gourmet Sunday meal? 
Give NORTH STAR FARMS a
holler!  We can ship nationwide. 

We proudly honor our Veterans and offer a 20% discount on all chick orders.  Just ask!

Thank you so much for visiting us here at NORTH STAR FARMS
and the Lord continue to Bless you Abundantly in all you do!