The Second ComingCochin chickens were first exported from China in the middle of the 19th century. That breed’s giant size, magnificent feathers and calm disposition set off a chicken breeding mania in the US and Great Britain. Chicken livestock shows became big entertainment and investors speculated wildly in new breeds. After the craze ended in the early 20th century, thousands of breeds were consolidated to about a dozen.
At her Fox Hollow Farm near Elkhart, Tai Johnson-Spratt pointed at a Cochin who was strutting in a pen with a dozen other breeds of chicken, plus multiple breeds of ducks, turkeys and peacocks.
“He’s on the endangered watch list now, ” she sighed.
Johnson-Spratt shares history with the Cochin. In her previous career, she owned a giftware company in southern China.
“At that time, the last place I could have ever pictured myself was on a little poultry farm in Iowa,” she admitted.
About eight years ago, the Chinese government muscled in on her business and decades of sky diving took a toil on her body.
“I was recuperating from back surgery and I figured I needed a hobby for exercise. I bought some chickens and noticed how freakish the industrial broiler chickens were. I call them ‘white fatties,” they can’t even walk normally. That’s when I fell in love with all these beautiful endangered species,” she explained.
Today Johnson-Spratt raises a wildly colorful array of chickens, ducks, quail, geese, peacocks and turkeys. Most of the 30 or so different breeds she keeps at any one time are on watch lists for endangered status.
Johnson-Spratt launched Fox Hollow six years ago, selling eggs at the Ankeny Farmers Market.
“Things immediately blew up,” she recalled referring to the emergence of a new type of consumer who rejected industrial eggs and poultry because of concerns about animal welfare, biodiversity and personal health. Last year, Johnson-Spratt sold six tons of turkey in Iowa and fed her birds ate nine tons of vegetarian feed and flax seed every two weeks, in addition to the bugs and grass they scavenged.
She tends her flock maternally. Her menagerie sees no cages, ingests no antibiotics, and roams freely about her pastured paddocks and roomy shelters. Egg laying hens work just two years and then are moved to a “retirement home.” Her English Mastiff was adopted to protect the birds but his fear of turkeys made him a giant house pet.
Johnson-Spratt’s biggest problems are keeping water unfrozen in winter, segregating antisocial geese, and stopping large turkeys from collapsing the roofs of hoop houses. Her peacocks’ biggest problem is fanning out their tail feathers without being pecked on the butt by sneaky chickens.
Most of Fox Hollow’s free ranged heritage birds have darkly colored meat, deep flavors, and thin skins that crisp marvelously. Last year, its turkeys, ducks and heritage chickens (particularly Poulet Rouge) became so popular with top chefs that Iowa restaurants virtually cornered the market. This year Johnson-Spratt hopes to produce enough birds to sell them regularly at the Downtown Des Moines Farmers Market.
Most of Fox Hollow’s free ranged heritage birds have darkly colored meat, deep flavors, and thin skins that crisp marvelously. Last year, its turkeys, ducks and heritage chickens (particularly Poulet Rouge) became so popular with top chefs that Iowa restaurants virtually cornered the market. This year Johnson-Spratt hopes to produce enough birds to sell them regularly at the Downtown Des Moines Farmers Market.
Either way, she’s establishing a second craze in poultry breeds.
Where to Buy
Restaurants serving heritage breed poultry include: Bistro Montage, Centro, Django, Sbrocco, and Christopher’s in Des Moines; Devotay in Iowa City; and Lincoln Café in Mount Vernon. Fox Hollow eggs and poultry are retailed at Wheatfield Market in Ames and Gateway Market in Des Moines.
This story was first published in The Iowan
