By William Koreluik
A Veregin couple, with roots that go deep into the rural lifestyle, has begun living their dream, having laid claim to a scenic acreage. It’s a place where her precious poultry, both rare breeds and the more common, can be raised with ease and the couple’s more traditional pets, including horses and dogs, can help them live the good life.
It has been nearly 10 years since Rick and Tracy Choptuik moved into their home in Veregin and about two years ago the couple purchased what they saw as being a piece of heaven: a former farmstead of about 11 acres that is located four miles north of the village.
“In a crazy world, this is our sanctuary,” Tracy said recently as she and her husband talked about their interest in raising poultry, producing eggs and their interest in their rural lifestyle.
“We came here from North Carolina,” Rick said. “I was in North Carolina for six years, working with an insurance company and when we decided to return to Canada, we moved to this place, sight unseen.”
Both originally from Winnipeg, Rick and Tracy have been together for 20 years.
“So how did you get into poultry?” they are asked.
“We both have been on farms all our lives,” Rick said, explaining that during his youth, his summers were spent at the farm of his grandparents near Russell, Man.
“The poultry is Tracy’s project,” he said.
“Have you seen the price you have to pay for a chicken at the grocery store, or for a dozen eggs?” Tracy asked.
“A while back I decided to never buy a chicken from a store again,” she said. “I decided I would raise my own. I had chickens in North Carolina.
“Coming to Veregin, we had decided we had wanted an ‘old homestead’ property so that we could start from scratch,” she said.
A couple years ago the Coptuiks purchased the 11 acres of the farm that had once belonged to Paul Morozoff. The property is the site of the former Morozoff yard.
Rick, who is a councillor at the RM of Sliding Hills, works for Murray Horkoff, an organic farmer in the area. He said that he and Tracy had wanted a farm home where they could first develop the outbuildings before turning their attention towards their own house.
So now the couple lives in Veregin, where they have a house and about five adjoining lots.
Choptuik points to the backyard and said that they had five rows of raspberries growing.
“It was insane,” he said of the raspberry bounty they have enjoyed. “We couldn’t keep up.”
“We also grew vegetables, including corn, beets, tomatoes, peas and the Alaska Giant cabbages,” Tracy said. “And we don’t waste anything.”
Returning to the subject of poultry, Tracy said that her interest in the birds is a hobby, not a business. She started a year ago after acquiring some laying hens and a rooster from a friend.
“The hens laid the eggs and boy they tasted good,” she said, contrasting their taste with that of store-bought eggs.
She acquired an incubator and bought fertilized eggs.
Currently, in their living room, Tracy tends four incubators, each with eggs. At one she explains that the Jiffy pen marks on each identify the eggs’ variety. At that incubator, she monitors the heat and humidity and regularly turns the eggs. The other incubators turn the eggs automatically. She explains that at a certain time in the pre-hatching process, an incubator is sealed to ensure proper heat and humidity.
“Now we have over 100 birds, ranging in age from day-old chicks to adults. We have about 15 breeds of chickens, including guinea hens, “naked neck chickens,” Russian Orloffs, Leghorns, Cornish and Rhode Island Reds.
“We’ve got about 10 turkeys and 11 ducks that are laying eggs.”
“So what do you do with all the eggs?” they are asked.
“We do a lot of trading and bartering,” Tracy said. “In summer, we get four or five dozen eggs a day.”
Tracy explained how they have been able to trade chickens and eggs for a horse.
“I’ve got three regular egg customers,” she said, adding that she has been willing to donate baby chicks, or eggs about to hatch to schools so that young students can learn to appreciate the process.
“We have five horses at the farm now,” she said.
And when visiting the farm she introduces the horses, including the one which she often rides.
The couple is careful to give their birds only organic feed, and in the conversation they are critical of other forms of farming practices and land management which are not respectful of the environment.
“I love animals,” Tracy said, adding that the couple, in addition to the birds and horses, shares their lives with five dogs and some cats. The living room also contains a very large aquarium containing large goldfish.
Tracy belongs to poultry groups on Facebook where one is able to become involved in egg and chick swapping.
She brings out a large Styrofoam box, a bit larger than a breadbox, and explains how it can contain six dozen eggs.
“We use Canada Post and in two or three days, the eggs, properly packed, can reach any destination across Canada,” she said, making favourable comments on how well Canada Post employees treat the boxes.
“But most of the eggs we use for trading.”
Tracy explained that she sells breeding eggs and depending on the breed they could sell for as much as $75 a dozen for a rare breed.
“For a backyard crossbred variety, one could get $10 a dozen.
“This is a hobby. When your heart is in it, you enjoy it.
“We don’t do this for the money. If we make enough for the feed, we’re happy.”
Tracy said that among her dreams for the future is to have additional breeds. She had tended exotic breeds in North Carolina and some of the birds that become pets are given names.
“If the bird has a name, it does not get butchered,” she said with a laugh.
On the tour around her living room incubation headquarters, Tracy explains how the eggs are moved from one incubator to the other, and then to the pen located in the centre of the room. She picks up one of the smallest of the several chicks pecking around under the heat lamp.
“This one hatched today,” she said.
Explaining their daily rituals with the animals, Rick said that in the mornings they go to the farm to feed and water the animals and spend time with them.
“They’re so used to us, they don’t scatter,” Tracy added. “And with all the birds on the farm, it is wonderful the way there are no bugs. You can sit outside in summer and not be bothered by the bugs because the chickens have eaten them.
“They eat the ticks too,” Rick said.
Discussing last fall’s butchering sessions, Tracy said that they butchered about 50 chickens which weighed between six and 10 pounds each, and 12 turkeys that weighed between 24 and 30 pounds.
“We have four freezers,” she said, adding that the people that helped with the butchering were paid with the meat.
“But the named birds are what I call the ‘lifers,’ they don’t get butchered. They’re the pets.
“We love animals,” she said.
“We both hunt and we don’t waste what we kill,” Rick said. “We believe in protecting the animals and the wildlife.
In addition to being an incubation room, the couple’s living room is also a trophy display room because on each of the walls is mounted a huge deer head, testaments to each of their hunting and shooting skills.
Asked about diseases or other hazards of raising poultry, the Choptuiks do not express much concern.
“The biggest thing is that they can catch a cold if not treated,” Tracy said, adding that they have purchased an antibiotic for their animals.
“We learned a lot by trial and error,” Rick said, adding that both he and his wife had spent their youths on farms as well as having tended an acreage in North Carolina.
“We want this to stay as a hobby, and we want to be as self-sufficient as is possible,” he said.
Asked what the difference is between the eggs with the brown shells and those with white shells or green shells as some of the breeds lay, Tracy said: “nothing.
“All eggs are the same, except when bought at the store, you never know how long they have been sitting in the carton.
“Store-bought eggs seem to taste flat. They have no taste. A farm-raised egg, if from a healthy bird, has flavour.
“In summer, all the chickens are free range,” she said, adding that friends and neighbours, after having been introduced to their eggs, have often said they don’t know how they were ever able to eat store-bought eggs.
On a tour of the farm, Rick and Tracy go first to the old farmhouse, which is now a large chicken coop. What was once a living room and a bedroom, are now two rooms of a large coop, enhanced throughout with two-by-four railings upon which birds are roosting. Adult birds are everywhere: on the floors, on the windowsills, along the railings and under foot.
Another bedroom contains drums of feed and another has pens, a heat lamp and more chicks, a few days older than the chicks still in their living room.
And then there is the old barn, which is now another large chicken coop. The barn has been augmented with a large chicken-wire outside pen, allowing the birds independent access to shelter or the outside, while keeping them safe from any wild predators. There turkeys and ducks parade around with the many breeds of chickens and, during the tour, Rick and Tracy occasionally stoop down to check a straw-lined nest to pick up a freshly-laid egg.
“Last year we found two wild duck eggs,” Rick said, adding that they are eager to see if the ducks that had hatched from them would return to the farm.
In the discussion, Tracy disputes, with a passion, the old supposition that turkeys are stupid and instead points to one large bird that is a pet, a “lifer” with a name.
“We love animals,” she said, acknowledging that the bales left for the horses are often visited by the deer in the winter.
Asked what breeds of birds are on her wish list, Tracy immediately said pea fowl, the peacock and hen, which she’s had in the past and says could do well here in spite of the cold winters.
“Also a red bourbon turkey or a blue slate,” she said, describing the attractive attributes of each.
