Our Homestead
Painted Canyon Homestead is our labor of love located in the beautiful high desert wilderness of southern California. The homestead sits at the mouth of a canyon with panoramic views of the San Gorgonio and San Jacinto mountains — the perfect desert meets mountain landscape that we always dreamed about!
Since 2020 we have been tirelessly working to improve the property through both restoring its natural ecosystem and planting and raising species that thrive in the high desert climate.
Now in 2024, the homestead is home to three cheeky miniature donkeys and five flocks of our favorite breeds of chickens chosen for beauty, temperament, and egg color. After years of raising, building, feeding, and wrangling we are finally ready to share with others what we have been working on!
Our Flocks
Our flocks of chickens are housed year-round in custom designed coops shaded by passionfruit vines and tombstone roses, and surrounded by mulberry and pepper trees, lavender, rosemary, sage, and native creosote shrubs. Each coop has been thoughtfully designed to balance shade and airflow with a minimalist aesthetic that compliments the desert landscape. Most importantly, our coops provide much needed predator protection from our local coyotes, bobcats, hawks, and rattlesnakes.
We raise our flocks on all organic feed and a house-made treat blend of dried mealworms, black oil sunflower seeds, scratch grains, sesame seeds, dried kelp, and alfalfa leaves. Auto watering systems deliver them fresh, cool water directly from our well, refreshing every hour. Every bird is wing tagged, weight-tracked, and regularly health monitored. Above all else we prioritize the health and well-being of our flocks, and are always aiming to improve their conditions and the hardiness of their offspring.
Our Breeds
We currently raise a small selection of heritage breeds and crosses with the goal of achieving the elusive rainbow of egg colors. Our primary pure breeds are Black Copper Marans (deep brown eggs) and Lavender Ameraucanas (blue eggs), which can be cross-bred to achieve a variety of egg colors including a spectrum of greens (mint, sage, and olive) as well as pink, purple, and grey if a heavy bloom is present on the egg! We also maintain a flock of buff Silkies for their unmatched comedic value. We have painstakingly sourced the genetics for our flocks from only the best breeders across the country dedicated to egg color and breed standard, and will continue selecting each generation to improve our flocks and seek a variety of egg colors.
Eating Eggs
There is nothing better than cracking open a fresh, home grown egg to reveal a deep yellow-orange yolk! Our eating eggs are a truly gorgeous mix of colors and sizes, a result of the heritage breeds we raise that are optimized for quality, not production.
We plan to begin offering eating eggs to our local community starting in May 2024! Eggs will be available for pickup at our homestead, or through a weekly subscription with delivery. Contact us for more details!
Hatching Eggs
Fertile eggs for hatching will be for sale on a limited basis depending on season and availability. We collect hatching eggs several times per day for cleanliness and freshness, and store them below 68F until incubation or sale. While the fertility of every egg cannot be guaranteed, we do confirm a high fertility rate prior to offering hatching eggs, and continue to evaluate both fertility and hatch rate throughout the season.
Chicks
Chicks are hatched in our GQF Sportsman 1502 and 1550 cabinet incubators and will be offered as we have them available. All chicks are unsexed, straight run (roughly equal probability of being male or female), and vaccinated for Marek’s disease.
Both eggs and chicks will be available for LOCAL PICKUP ONLY in Southern California (either at our homestead in Morongo Valley, or one of the other drop locations indicated in the listing).
Contact
Feel free to reach out to us anytime with questions!
Happy to chat via Facebook messenger, email, or text!
Ashley
(610) 750-1007
paintedcanyonhomestead@gmail.com
Located in Morongo Valley, California