Franchesca Duval wanted to raise chickens for her family, but when she found out that the industry practice was to euthanize excess male chicks upon hatching, the information weighed heavily on her heart. She knew she could not support that, so she began researching other ways of hatching and raising chicks.
The venture started as a few fertile hatching eggs and a six-egg incubator in her bathroom and has now turned into Alchemist Farm, located in Sebastopol, California. There, the Duvals hatch, breed, and sell chickens and do consulting on sustainable and environmentally friendly business practices.
“All of our breeding groups are able to free range on their own pastures, no warehouses or breeding cages, and we are 100 percent single-use-plastic-free and zero waste. We take great care and thoughtfulness with every step of our process here,” she told The Epoch Times via email.
She said the farm is the world’s first humane hatchery that runs on 100 percent solar power generated onsite.
She said “humane” is a fascinating word, because so many folks have different ideas of what humane treatment of animals is. For her, the definition is treating the birds as she would want to be treated.
Back in 2014, she was in completely uncharted territory when she took the stand to not euthanize any male chicks upon hatching, she said.
Chicks hatched at Alchemist Farm. Courtesy of Alchemist Farm
“I was bringing awareness to this issue with education and kindness. I decided to donate all of our male chicks to local folks who raise them for food,” she said. “Is it a perfect solution? No. But it is far better than what happens on the global scale, we are talking about millions upon millions of male chicks that are euthanized each year. In a time when folks are facing food insecurity, that just does not make sense to my mind or heart.”
Duval, head chicken wrangler at the farm, said she and her husband wanted to live simply and close to the land. They found their current home 13 years ago.
A child holds chicks at Alchemist Farm. Courtesy of Alchemist Farm
She said chickens have always been a part of her life since she was young, but running a chicken hatchery wasn’t her plan.
“I was apprenticing to become a midwife, but this work chose me,” she said.
After free-ranging during the day, the birds are tucked safely into their coops at night.
“They get to live their lives and move around in the way nature intended them to be,” she said. “Curious, having their own social interactions and sunbathing as much as they want. You will not find any breeding cages or traumatized birds here.”
A chicken at Alchemist Farm. Courtesy of Alchemist Farm
She said every shipment of chicks is shipped only when it is safe weather-wise, in 100 percent biodegradable packaging with 96 hours of heat and 96 hours worth of nourishment for the chicks. She said the industry standard is to ship chicks in boxes without food, hydration, or heat.
“Chicks do not need to eat for the first three days of their lives, but I have seen them come straight out of the hatchers hungry on day one,” she said. “Hatching is hard work, and I cannot imagine starving our chicks for three days while they travel.”
Chickens at Alchemist Farm. Courtesy of Alchemist Farm
Duval takes a more holistic approach to animal husbandry and breeding, and for her, that means taking into account each individual whole bird, the whole flock, and her family’s relationship to them.
“I sit with them and watch, wait and listen. How is the dynamic of the flock? Is it balanced? What are they needing nutritionally, spatially and emotionally (yes, chickens have emotions and are far more than ‘just chickens’ if you sit and observe them),” she said.
From that place of simply slowing down and watching, she said, she is able to make all sorts of adjustments to their pastures, such as providing more shade in summer and changing their bedding during rainy or dry seasons.
She said when she first got started, she had a lot of genetics from fertile eggs from other breeders who had their birds in warehouses and breeding cages, and the offspring had issues such as Marek’s disease, which they are commonly vaccinated for. They were fearful, and roosters had aggression issues.
Chickens at Alchemist Farm. Courtesy of Alchemist Farm
Stress takes energy away from the growth and healing that keep immune systems high, Duval said. Factory-farmed birds are in a constant state of stress, and it makes sense that they would be less immune to illness, she said.
“Slowly and steadily, I began to clean up the genetics through selective breeding. I decided to breed for temperament and remove any roosters that were aggressive, because the safety of my family was number one,” she said.
She decided not to vaccinate for Marek’s or any other diseases and began to breed for resistance. She boosted the birds’ immune systems by letting them roam all day in the sun and pastures and oriented the whole farm around providing a stress-free environment for the birds.
“The energetic shift with the birds was remarkable. Each year, as I would breed and hatch, the birds became more and more connected to us, they could feel they were well cared for,” she said. “Now, when a customer receives a box of chicks from us, they always comment on how different the chicks feel from other hatcheries; they can immediately tell that the birds are robust, healthy, and sweet.”
Chickens at Alchemist Farm. Courtesy of Alchemist Farm
Duval also offers different levels of education about chickens through free videos on social media, a recorded chicken-keeping master class, a hatching class, and a live monthly video Q&A for folks who like to chat live.
“The courses I teach are meant to empower people at all levels of chicken keeping; we have information for the beginning chicken keeper all the way up to the seasoned flock owner,” she said. “We cover ... how to select the best breeds for you, brooding chicks, coop designs, how to integrate new birds into an existing flock, hatching, and so much more.”
She said that in 2020, there was an uptick in new folks raising chickens.
“I got to hear countless stories about how chickens were changing people’s lives for the better. The birds got people outside in the morning and evening, they helped reset folks’ circadian rhythms. They allowed people to come closer to their food sources, and they provided companionship for all ages of people,” she said.
Chicks hatched at Alchemist Farm. Courtesy of Alchemist Farm
Regarding people who are looking to get started keeping their own chickens, she has seen folks do it on a shoestring budget and others go so far as to have their whole backyard re-landscaped specifically for a flock.
For people who live in residential and urban areas, she said her farm’s micro breeds, such as the Serama and Bearded d’Anvers, are good for those situations.
“There are so many ways to raise chickens, and I enjoy sharing information with people who would like to follow our model and have a deeper connection with their flocks because it is a really rich experience all around,” she said. “Chickens ask so little and give us so much! Nourishment from eggs, fertility for our soil, companionship, the ability to get outside and exercise and move around.”
She said her farm offers breeds that are standard size that can free range over large swaths of land as well as micro breeds that are great for urban chicken farming. She added that the world of keeping chickens is vast and wide; there are so many fun egg colors laid and so many interesting feather types and personalities.
Alchemist Farm and Garden specializes in laying hens that produce a variety of colored eggs. Courtesy of Alchemist Farm
“I believe there is a chicken breed for everyone just as there are breeds of dogs or cats,” she said. “A backyard flock invites us to slow down, connect with nature, and breathe in some fresh air.”
She said she monitors the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) closely because her livelihood depends on keeping her flocks safe. She said that every year, HPAI spreads from the east coast to the west coast from migratory birds; it is here for a few months and then goes away just like the human seasonal flu.
Additionally, she said there are no approved vaccines for it because other countries would not purchase meat or eggs as an export from us if they were from vaccinated birds, so in place of a vaccine, the industry standard has been to euthanize whole flocks that have infected chickens to prevent the spread of it.
Alchemist Farm and Garden specializes in laying hens that produce a variety of colored eggs. Courtesy of Alchemist Farm
Duval said HPAI is indeed serious and that the industry is trying to prevent it from spreading because it could mean a complete wipeout of our populations of both egg and meat producers.
“For our farm, I maintain extremely tight biosecurity to keep our flocks safe, no visitors come to the farm, to prevent the accidental transmission of the pathogen as well as others, because HPAI is not the only one to be aware of,” she said. “We have no ponds here to attract wild birds (particularly water fowl), and once a bird leaves our farm, it does not come back.”
She said the billion-dollar question here is if HPAI were to go unchecked, would birds who survived build up natural immunity?
She said that if the industry took that risk, it could indeed take out a significant portion of our meat and egg production for a time. Egg and meat prices would soar, and we would have a rocky few years as the industry waited to see if the birds with immunity would hold to the next year’s wave of HPAI.
“In theory, some would, but would those numbers be enough to repopulate anywhere near the amount of birds the industry needs to feed people?” she said.
A rooster at Alchemist Farm. Courtesy of Alchemist Farm
She said the current practices are to not keep industrial laying hens for very long; they are not in their factory farms for more than two years, so the whole model would need to change around how Big Agriculture works with, houses, and treats their birds to allow the model of letting it go unchecked to potentially work.
She said these are very large questions and gambles and that she thinks that is why the industry plays it safe and wants to keep a lid on it as it is.
“I know that producers are doing the best they can with the situations they find themselves in. No one wants to put down any of their flocks. I cannot imagine going through that experience,” she said. “Chickens outnumber humans on planet earth 3.5 to 1. Folks do not realize or think about the immense scope of how chickens feed humans with both meat and eggs, and that is what makes this situation so complex.”
Per capita, chickens are the most abused animal in the world, she said. She believes it makes sense when we reflect on the billions upon billions of birds that are factory farmed for meat and eggs.
“These models can change, and that is what we shine our light for, we are living proof that chickens can be treated better, can bring back fertility to the soil, can be robust and not need to live in warehouses,” she said. “Is it more work? Yes.”
However, she thinks it is meaningful work and that our views on chickens and interactions with them need to change.
“I believe this is slowly happening and the latest issues around HPAI are highlighting that for folks,” she said.
Chickens have been alongside humans for at least 8,000 years, said Duval, and the oldest evidence of them being domesticated is in Asia.
She said explorers would bring chickens along when they went to new lands because they could self-replicate quickly and are the only animal that can give us food without having to give up their flesh or become pregnant.
“Eggs are the most bioavailable form of food that a human body can consume,” she said. “They are like a gift straight from God!”
Alchemist Farm and Garden specializes in laying hens that produce a variety of colored eggs. Courtesy of Alchemist Farm
