CUDDEBACKVILLE, New York—Cheryl Blaese had lost her job as an administrative assistant when Tractor Supply Co. in Chester, New York ran out of ducklings.
She had been raising ducks for ten years because, “My nephew said to me ‘Can you make me some ducks?’” she recalls. She had not forayed into chickens before but she decided to give it a try as a way to make a living.
“At this point I had lost my job so I said, ‘I’ll just take chickens.' And I cried,” she recalled.
That was 2010 and Blaese, having lost the job she had worked at since she was 18, needed to find other employment. She knew she had a choice—take another stressful job like her previous one that had put her on blood-pressure medication, or find another way to make ends meet.
“I needed something happy, something that’s just going to make me feel good inside,” she recalled.
That’s when she decided to start raising chickens to sell for meat, eggs, and eventually chicks.
The Chicky Coop
That was six years ago, and since then what she calls “chicken math” has happened.
She got her own incubator and her original flock of six chicks (three of them turned out to be roosters and had to be killed) now consists of around 22 birds.
She has a rainbow of varieties—Ameraucanas, Welsummers, Silkies, and Easter Eggers, i.e. mixed breeds—that produce eggs with a rainbow of colors.
