Hatching season is here!! 🐣🐥
We will have a variety of chicks hatching throughout the spring and summer.
Our website will be updated weekly with the current and upcoming chick selection.
Please message us on Facebook, via the chat button below, or email chickens@hilltoholler.com if you’re interested.
CLICK HERE TO VIEW OUR CURRENTLY AVAILABLE CHICKS (UPDATED WEEKLY)
⬜ Light Brahma Chicks
Full blooded Light Brahma chicks. Brahmas are a large, dual-purpose, cold-hardy breed of chicken that’s known for its friendliness, calm and docile demeanor, and plump fluffiness with feathered legs.
🔳 Dark/Light Brahma Chicks
Full blooded Brahma- these chicks are a mix of a Light Brahma rooster over a Brahma hen who is light/dark mix. Chicks have a medium to dark coloring, and generally grow to have a lightly penciled feather pattern, dark or penciled head, and dark down. *Limited Availability*
🟧 Malaysian Seramas *New for 2024*
Seramas were developed in Malaysia by crossing Malaysian and Japanese bantams. They are one of the world’s smallest chicken breeds- a full grown Serama rooster can be picked up with one hand- but they make up for that small size with a big personality.
*Availability is limited*
⏹ Blue & Splash/Blue Silkies *New for 2024*
Silkies are known for their black skin, five toes and fluffy, poofy feathers (which is due to the feathers lacking the barbicels that hold feathers together.) Our silkies are blue, or a mix of splash/blue color. Cat not included 😉
*Availability is limited*
🟫 Pure French Black Copper Marans *New for 2024*
French Black Copper Marans are a chocolate laying, cold-hardy, feather legged breed.
*Availability varies. Pure French Black Copper Marans chicks are available for reserve, but very limited, and currently on a wait list.*
🟫 Copper Rock Marans / Mystic Marans *New for 2024*
The Copper Rock Marans, also known as a Mystic Marans and Rustic Rambler, was derived in the Czech Republic, from crossing a Black Copper Marans rooster with a Barred Rock hen. The CRM is cold-hardy and a prolific layer of large, copper to cocoa colored eggs.
*Limited Availability*
🟪Easter Eggers & Olive Eggers- an assorted mix of chicks hatched from blue & green eggs
Currently, EE/OE chicks are the product of a Light Brahma rooster over the following blue/green color egg laying hens-
Crested Cream Legbar (blue), Ameraucana (blue), Easter Egger (teal), Easter Egger (pink), Olive Egger (green/olive). These breeds are friendly and cold hardy, with fluffy cheeks, beards, and/or crests. Female rainbow layer chicks will grow to lay teal, green, olive, brown, or pink eggs.
*Rainbow Layer chicks later in the 2024 season will be fathered by a Leghorn/EE rooster over the aforementioned hens to improve “cheeks” and egg-laying characteristics. We will update this post at that time*
🟥 Pink Eggers – chicks hatched from pink eggs, with parents from our pink-laying flock *New for 2024*
We have been working on expanding our Pink Egger flock- these chickens lay eggs that appear various shades of pink and mauve.
Pink layers are mixes of Buff Orpington, Brahma, Easter Egger, ISA Brown, Speckled Sussex
🟫 Cocoa & Copper Eggers – an assorted mix of dark-laying breed chicks
Currently, cocoa & copper layer chicks are the product of a French Black Copper Marans rooster over the following chocolate laying hens-
French Black Copper Marans, FBCM/Welsummer mix, Welsummer, Cuckoo Marans
🐣Our Working Girls chicks are barnyard mix chicks who have been hatched from the eggs of our “working girls” flock- the ones who keep the bug population down and put eggs on our table all year long.
If you are looking for some great backyard chickens to provide you with eggs, smiles, entertainment, and some pest control, Working Girls are the way to go. These chicks will be a mix of friendly & docile, cold-hardy breeds, and have mommas who are strong layers and have egg colors ranging all shades from light pink to medium brown.
Currently, Working Girls chicks are the product of a Light Brahma rooster over the following hens- Australorp, Barred Rock, Buff Orpington, EE/OE, ISA Brown/Buff Orp, Brahma/Barred Rock, Silver Laced Wyandotte.
⏹ A mix of Pearl, Pied, Lavender, and White Guinea keets
Guineafowl are interesting- they’re a little crazy, kind of noisy, and incredible alarm systems- if a predator comes around during the night, the guineas will be sure to let you know. They’re also amazing tick eaters- after adding a guinea flock, we went from pulling ticks off of ourselves nearly every day to only a few the entire season.
*Available starting late spring, will take pre-orders*
⏹ Bourbon Red Heritage Turkey Poults *New for 2024*
The Bourbon Red is an American heritage breed of domestic turkey, named for its reddish-brown plumage and area of origin in Bourbon, Kentucky. Mature toms can reach 33lbs and hens around 18lbs.
*Available starting late spring, will take pre-orders*
All chicks are straight-run unless specified otherwise. Chicks are social and don’t do well alone, so there is a 3 chick minimum. Local pickup only, we will meet within reason in the greater Summersville WV area.
We also have hatching eggs! 🥚🐣
All hatching eggs are clean but unwashed, collected multiple times daily, properly stored and rotated, and laid within five days of purchase.
Hatching Egg Availability is updated weekly.
Please message us on Facebook or email chickens@hilltoholler.com if you’re interested.
Do you keep track of how many eggs your hens lay? Or even more specifically, which hen lays on which day? If you do, or if you want to start, and would like an easy-to-use system, here’s a look at what we do (and some useful printable fill-in charts to help you get started!)
For the most part, we can tell the eggs apart by color, shape, and size, but when we first started tracking egg production, the coop cam was an invaluable tool to help learn which egg was laid by which hen. It’s especially important when there are multiple hens of the same breed, laying very similar eggs. The nuances between them will become more noticeable over time, as one’s eye becomes more trained to seeing the small differences between each egg, but even now, we still verify by referencing our coop cam.
In the first column, just fill in the current month, and each hen’s name. The days of the month are in the first row across, and can be marked with a check in the subsequent rows for each hen on the day that she lays. The second column gets filled in at the end of the month, to tally up each hen’s total. The last column holds the flock’s monthly egg total, and has room for notes such as weather, feed changes, flock disruptions such as predators, molting, or other events that may affect egg production.
We use the single-month large flock sheet in the spring and summer, when the girls are laying very regularly and frequently. In the winter months, when the girls are molting and taking a break, we switch to the smaller, medium-sized flock sheet to conserve paper. Feel free to try them all and use whichever one works best for you.
Click here to check out our other infographics & informational resources .
The Mayor earned her name when she was just a few days old.
Being one of the early hatchers of the bunch, she was moved from the incubator to the brooder a couple days before most of her siblings. She quickly became the leader of the brooder, and any time we opened it, would run out to investigate what the commotion was all about, leading us to dubbing her “The Mayor”. Whenever new chicks were added, she would immediately take those new additions under her wing- showing them where the food and water were, and making sure to wrangle up any little peeps that strayed too far from the heat for too long.
The Mayor’s mother is Stella, one of our OG Light Brahma crew, and her father is Troublemaker, our main man in command. Stella’s grandmother was a Dark Brahma, so that dark gene pops up periodically in her chicks, with The Mayor being one of those dark chicks. Sometimes the darkness sticks, and sometimes, as in The Mayor’s case, it will transition to light feathers with penciling as the chick feathers in. She hatched a medium to dark gray, but as her fluff turned to feathers, she slowly became more white. Now, as a grown hen, she’s mostly white with a few penciled spots on her back, a black and white mottled cap, dark gray down, and a mix of black and white leg and foot feathers.
Martha is our Cuckoo Marans, and without a doubt, her favorite time of day is snack time.
She could be out foraging anywhere on the farm, but has a sixth sense to know when we come outside with food, and will magically appear first in line at every single bowl. Martha doesn’t cluck like a normal chicken, but instead makes a high-pitched hum, and will stare and hum excitedly and impatiently while waiting for food to be scooped into her dish.
Martha lays a rich, cocoa brown egg, and is the first of our flock to actually follow through with hatching a clutch of them, most will sit for a few days and then get bored, but not Martha. Once she goes broody, there is nothing that will break that broodiness except for some babies.
For the most part she’s shy and avoids conflict with us or anyone else in the flock, unless that someone is doing anything that’s related to her eggs or chicks (even once they’re grown), in which case she will turn into a puffy, humming, mama bear.
Have you ever cracked open a farm fresh egg and wondered why the yolk was so much more vibrant than the eggs that you buy at the store? Or, do you have chickens and are curious why sometimes their yolks are bright orange, or maybe even a strange looking green or brown? And just what *are* those weird spots that are in some eggs?
Most often these are a result of an egg laid by a young hen being a new layer, or an older hen who’s nearing the end of her laying cycle. However, breeds that are heavy or prolific layers such as Buff Orpingtons and Rhode Island Reds do have a tendency to lay double yolk eggs regularly as well. The double yolk eggs are fine to eat, although each individual yolk may be smaller than a normal single
Click here to check out our other infographics & informational resources .
PeepPeep is, by just a couple of days, the youngest member of our original Light Brahma flock.
She was a tiny yellow fluffball that would run around the brooder, happily chirping a double peep whenever anything exciting (so basically anything) happened. Once she started growing, that yellow fluff turned into striking white feathers, and she quickly shot up to become taller than her siblings.
As a pullet, PeepPeep would always hold her tail peculiarly high, which, along with her extra fluffy leg feathers, just added to her cuteness and emphasized her size. Now as a grown hen, PeepPeeep towers over the other girls in the flock. She’s not quite as tall as Troublemaker, our Brahma rooster, but is at least eye to eye with the other roosters.
PeepPeep is somewhat of a loner, she’ll hang out with the others, but is perfectly content wandering off to scritch around for bugs on her own. As one of the best layers of our Brahma bunch, she lays large, creamy-tan eggs with an occasional white speckling, nearly every day. Hatching those eggs results in extraordinarily adorable chicks, all taking after their mom in size, fluff, and cuteness.
Toes, along with his brothers Parrot and Heddie, joined our flock in February of this year as a tiny hatchling.
Ever since he was a baby, Toes’ unique look has been apparent- combining traits of his Leghorn mom and Frizzle Silkie dad. He’s white, with a Leghorn shape, but due to his Silkie genetics, Toes has blue earlobes, feathered legs, and an extra toe on each foot- giving him 10 toes total instead of the usual 8, which immediately inspired his name.
As he grew, Toes’ puffy little beard and cheeks started filling in, and he began to develop a crazy little mohawk on the top of his head. At first we thought that his mohawk would grow into a small crest, but it didn’t stop there- it kept growing until he had a glorious mullet, one that even Joe Dirt himself would admire! Toes’ comb has been growing equally as wildly, he’s currenlty just a few months old and it seems to get larger and develop new points every day.
An interesting combination of skittish and a cuddler, Toes will happily spend a good while napping on a lap, but will leap into the air with a high-pitched shriek and run around maniacally when startled. His crow is just as high pitched, second only to the squeak of the Seramas.
Bella is everything that you’d picture a Brahma to be- plump, fluffy, and friendly.
She’s one of our OG Light Brahma flock, and along with Sniper, is one of the the first to come charging over whenever we come outside (for no reason other than to bring snacks, of course!) Bella is calm and quiet, happy either mingling with the others or off minding her own business, and easygoing- she never causes any trouble with others in the flock. She lays a large tan egg, decidedly pointed at the top, and her chicks always hatch out looking just like her- super round and feathery as soon as they pop out of the egg.
We’re excited to now offer hatching services, as well as hatching eggs, and custom chick orders! 🐣🐥
Please message us on Facebook, via the chat button below, or email chickens@hilltoholler.com if you’re interested.
🐣 Incubation & Hatching Services starting at $15
🔲 Light Brahma Chicks
Full blooded Light Brahma chicks. The Light Brahma is a large, dual-purpose, cold-hardy breed of chicken that’s known for its friendliness, calm and docile demeanor, and plump fluffiness with feathered legs.
🔳 Dark/Light Brahma Chicks
Full blooded Brahma- these chicks are a mix of Dark & Light Brahma with medium to dark coloring. The Brahma is a large, dual-purpose, cold-hardy breed of chicken that’s known for its friendliness, calm and docile demeanor, and plump fluffiness with feathered legs. Limited Availability.
🌈 Rainbow Layer Mix Chicks
An assorted mix of chicks hatched from blue, green, teal, and cocoa brown eggs.
Chicks are the product of a Light Brahma rooster over the following color egg laying hens-
Crested Cream Legbar (blue), Easter Egger (teal), Olive Egger (green/olive), Cuckoo Marans (cocoa). These breeds are friendly and cold hardy. These chicks will likely grow to lay teal, green, olive, or cocoa colored eggs, with a possibility for pink or pinkish/brown.
🟫 Brown Layer Mix Chicks
An assorted mix of chicks hatched from cream, tan, light brown, and medium brown eggs.
Chicks are the product of a Light Brahma rooster over the following brown egg laying hens- Black Australorp, Barred Rock, Buff Orpington, Silver Laced Wyandotte. These dual-purpose breeds are great foragers, calm, friendly, cold hardy, and prolific layers of large eggs in varying shades of cream, brown, tan, and pinkish/brown.
All hatching eggs are clean but unwashed, collected multiple times daily, properly stored and rotated, and laid no more than 5 days prior to receiving.
Our hatch rates have been over 90% with our own eggs using a GQF cabinet incubator. However, we cannot guarantee hatch rate for others due to: jostling during transportation, improper handling and storage after the eggs are out of our hands, inconsistent temperature and humidity during incubation, and other variables that are out of our control. For optimal results, please wait 24 hours before incubating to allow hatching eggs to settle from movement incurred during transportation.
All chicks are straight-run unless specified otherwise. Local pickup only, we will meet within reason in the greater Summersville WV area.
Incubation service, chick, & hatching egg pricing is valid through December 31, 2023. Rates and availability for hatching eggs and custom hatches may vary based on season.
Please message us on Facebook or email chickens@hilltoholler.com if you’re interested.