About Us

Meet the Farmers

Farmer Sam, age 14, 2020

Sam

Sam has been passionate about birds since the second grade, when he petitioned his parents to let him raise chickens and promised he’d do all the work. Although Sam was the energy and drive behind the initial business, these days the farm is definitely a family effort involving his three younger brothers, sister, and parents. We started with nine hens, but Sam always had his eyes on new birds and new breeds. Today, we raise several varieties of chickens, ducks, geese, quail, and turkeys and have even branched out beyond poultry to pigs, goats, and rabbits.

Jonathan

Jonathan is the "chicken guy" of the farm. He feeds the birds in the morning, can identify roosters and hens at a younger age than anyone else we know, and keeps track of their breeds and lineages. If you want to buy a rooster or pullet, he'll help find the perfect bird for you—and catch it, too. He loves making friends with each new generation of birds and is pictured here doing exactly that. He is also the website guy, which means he gets to write his own profile description in the third person if he wants to.

Jonathan, 2025, age 17

Kerry, adult, 2025

Kerry

Kerry's job on the farm is taking care of the goats and pigs. We first acquired the goats for purely utilitarian reasons—our family drinks a lot of milk. However, it turns out that Kerry adores having goats—they are clever and lovable, and Kerry challenges you to find a more handsome guy than our buck Oscar. She does note that it's a good thing goats are so endearing, however; they're also tireless troublemakers! In times of peak milk production, Kerry enjoys making a variety of cheeses.

Chances are if you call the farm, Kerry is the one you'll talk to. Also, if you sign up for any of our classes, she will be your primary guide; she loves sharing her passions and homesteading skills with others. She is our resident foraging expert and also makes a mighty fine loaf of crusty, European-style sourdough bread!

Zach

Zach's animal chores have shifted around over the years, but he has consistently been our rabbit tender. You have to pick up rabbits in just the right way to prevent their throwing their backs out, and we trust Zach and Zach alone with this skill. He is pictured here giving a treat to Oliver, our handsome New Zealand/Flemish Giant cross.

Zach, age 16, 2025

Annecy, age 11, 2025

Annecy

Annecy lets out our juvenile birds in the mornings and feeds them and is also one of our consistent goat milkers. However, visitors will be most familiar with her as a tour guide. Although we don't give official tours, if you come to buy an animal or pick up some hatching eggs and Annecy is available, you just might luck out. Annecy is also usually the one who washes the eggs before we package them for sale at our farm stand. Her favorite farm animals are the heritage turkeys.

Callan, age 10, 2025

Callan

We recently acquired a small number of quail, and Callan is our quail keeper. The one pictured here is full grown! Callan also helps with a variety of other farm tasks, including collecting eggs and stamping the cartons with the legally required info.

Our Mission

We're passionate about our animals and our food, and we strive to share that passion with our community. We're dedicated to raising happy, healthy animals and sustainable, tasty fruits and vegetables without all the chemicals. We want to be the farmer next door, where you can pop over for a dozen eggs or a bunch of carrots and see the ducks swimming in their pond on the way out. We're having fun, and we want you to benefit!

Our Story

Nothing beats the taste of a fresh egg, laid just this morning by one of our girls. Maybe in an omelet with some fresh-picked scallions and kale, or perhaps a little wild garlic mustard. Now that's good eating.

The Goose and Hen started with nine hens in 2015. Of course, it wasn’t called that then, but it was a beginning. Although Sam was only in the second grade, he was the driving force behind the chicken acquisition. Sam's been taking great care of the flock, which has expanded to include ducks, guinea fowl, heritage turkeys, muscovies, and geese, ever since. In the spring of 2020, he made his first foray into hatching his own eggs in a homemade incubator and became the proud "papa" of a small Cayuga-Welsh Harlequin cross.

Sam and his family know many of the birds by name and, if you care to listen, he and his four siblings will go into detail about their different personalities. The birds spend their days freely roaming in the woods and yard and around the bird pond. Happy, healthy chickens and ducks lay tasty, nutritious eggs and are a fun addition to the homestead.

Once we had that many birds, we figured, what's a few more animals? So we got rabbits, then pigs, then goats.

Alongside the animals is our expanding collection of garden boxes, which are slowly overtaking our yard. There's just something special about eating spinach or a pepper from your own garden, when you know where the food came from and can be sure it isn't coated with chemicals. What's more, we can experiment with interesting varieties that aren't available commercially.

But we don't grow everything we harvest. Nature grows plenty of nutritious, tasty, gourmet treats without the help of any farmer at all. One just has to know where and when to look. We harvest Northern bay leaves, wild nuts, sweet fern, mushrooms, autumn olives, Japanese knotweed, garlic mustard, and a multitude of other wild delectables to feed our family. Sometimes you'll find wild foods or herbs at our farm stand, and we love sharing our passion for foraging with others, so check out our class offerings.

Here at The Goose and Hen, we are committed to our animals, our gardens, and our community. We are passionate about raising nutritious, sustainable, delicious food. We hope you'll let us share it with you.

Meet the Birds

We have more than 200 birds, but here are a few of the more interesting characters on our farm.

Henrietta

Henrietta was the first bird to hatch on the farm. Sam built a homemade incubator and turned the eggs by hand three times a day for the 30-day incubation period. Two eggs ended up being fertile, but unfortunately the second chick made an ill-conceived turn mid-hatching and suffocated. As heart-breaking as this was (it happened in the middle of the night, but we caught it on web cam), Henrietta made a successful albeit lengthy exit 72 hours after pipping (24 hr is normal). She’s special not only because she was our first home-hatched bird but also because her feet were originally curled under themselves, so essentially it was like she was walking on her knuckles. Sam taped them flat with masking tape and changed the tape every so often until her feet were growing the right way. Because of her foot deformities, she had trouble learning to walk, but Sam helped her practice and picked her up when she fell. Not surprisingly, Sam and Henrietta formed a special bond; he because he put so much care into raising her and she because, well, Sam was the only other duck around. Or maybe it was the other way and she thought she was a person. In any case, we’re happy that she has finally conceded to living in the duck pen rather than in the house.

Alexander

Meet our head gander, Alexander. Alexander arrived by mail order and was supposed to have been accompanied by four friends, but unfortunately the company made an error and only sent us two goslings, one of whom sadly did not survive the shipping. So Alexander was all on his own with a bunch of new chicks and … Henrietta the duckling (see above). Alexander and the chicks were the same age, but of course he, being a gosling, towered over them. However, he and Henrietta, 2 weeks his senior, were just the same size. Henrietta had imprinted on Sam, as noted above, but Alexander imprinted on Henrietta. As they both grew, his size of course tremendously outpaced hers, but even today, Alexander will follow little Henrietta around the farm.

Garage Chicken

Hens are particular about where they lay their eggs, and once they find a spot they like, it can be hard to convince them to lay anywhere else. Garage Chicken somehow wandered into our garage and, for reasons known only to her, thought a trashcan full of garbage was a great spot to lay an egg. It took us a while and a few eggs to catch on, but at that point she really didn’t want to lay anywhere else, so we decided that trash can was no longer for trash but was her personal nest. We outfitted it with a plush red pillow for her laying comfort (not to mention the cleanliness and safety of the egg); if the pillow went missing, she would cluck up a racket. If the garage doors were closed when she was ready to lay, she’d come around the back of the house and peck at the sliding door to let us know she needed to get to her spot.

This was the situation for a couple of years, but now that our entire bird area is enclosed in an 8-foot-tall fence to keep our gardens safe from chickens and our chickens safe from our springer spaniel, Garage Chicken has found a new laying spot. Most likely, she's one of the chickens who lays her eggs in an empty feed barrel in the barn!

The Original Geese

After the unfortunate lonely arrival of Alexander (see above), we got a replacement shipment of goslings, who being younger than Alexander gave him the head spot in the gaggle. Pictured here are Alexander, Lily, Maya, and Duncan (counter-clockwise from bottom right).

The Muscovies

Muscovies are the oddballs of the duck world and of our farm. Unlike other domestic breeds of duck, they are not descended from the mallard. They are thought to have originated from South and Central America and Mexico and to be more closely related to geese than other ducks. Although they are tropical birds, they adapt well to cold climates. One of their more interesting oddities is that they don’t quack or honk. The ladies make more of a musical trill, and the males make a puffing sound like they’re learning to pronounce their F’s. If you visit our farm, you’ll be able to spot the male muscovies because of the prominent red knobs on their heads.

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