Spotlight on Bonnie and Parker

Hi, I’m Bonnie and together with my husband, Parker we are Barretts Peckers!  We are members of the homesteaders cooperative; Undique, formed by Christian Graninger.  Situated right on the edge of the Ocala National Forest in Florida, we have a lot of wild creatures that visit us.  Some of which it is a pleasure to see, others, not so much.  We have a variety of birds in addition to the quail; chickens, ducks, pheasants, guinea fowl, and my favorites, the geese!
  

The geese were bought with the intention of using them for meat and eggs.  Unfortunately, no one warned us that they are just like feathered puppies and into everything, including pulling my washing off the line and leaving a trail of muddy goose footprints all over my clean sheets!
  

We initially started the business as my husband had always kept birds of one sort or another, and I had always wanted chickens.  I honestly didn’t envisage Quail.  Like most people, we started with a few but now have several hundred. Our initial birds were Jumbo Coturnix, we have had a few Bobwhites and button quail but always come back to the Coturnix as they are easy to raise.  We have several flocks of mixed colors, but we will be specialising in specific color variations more in the new year.  Predominantly; Pharaoh, Jumbo White, Jumbo Italian, Red Range, Falb Fee, Tibetan and an Egyptian Pharoah cross.  These all hatched out about a week ago and will soon be separated into their respective colors to keep their color lines pure and should be producing eggs in early January, so be on the lookout for new lines being introduced on the undique website.  In addition to all the birds, we have Chloe, our pitbull and Sammy the siamese cat, whom I brought over from England with me and actually has his own passport!  We are also looking at the possibility of making a range of dog treats in honor of our very special boy Skylar, whom we sadly had to say goodbye to earlier this year.  I am sure he would approve and Chloe will enjoy testing out how good they are I’m sure.

A row of fluffy geese butts in the evening sunshine.