Baby Bear Farms started with a rooster. For years we had been growing culinary herbs and heirloom tomatoes, first in Maryland and then, since 2019, in Concord, California. At the end of 2021, our next door neighbor passed away, and we offered to help his family care for his backyard chickens. We took six baby chicks, one of whom was an Old English Game Bantam rooster that we named Mr. Pickles.
Mr. Pickles fell in love with us, and we fell in love with chickens. We built a bigger coop and chicken run, and rescued the rest of our neighbor’s flock- a mix of Brahmas, Phoenixes, and Copper Marans, with a half dozen other breeds thrown in for good measure. Once word got out in the neighborhood that we were such big softies, we were bombarded with requests to take in roosters, ducks, quail, and doves.
In 2022 we found a beautiful property off of Highway 128 in Napa, and now we’re working hard on improving the soils through regenerative agriculture, nurturing the native trees and removing fire-killed vegetation, and of course providing our flock with lots of delicious bugs and grasses as well as plenty of room to roam.