Why I Started Queen of Coops: From Rainbow Eggs to a Smarter Way to Hatch

I’ve been obsessed with chickens since 2009 when my children were just 3 and 4 years old. My then husband reluctantly agreed to help me turn an old rabbit hutch into a coop and covered run next to the garden.

I was hooked! And so were my kids who would “play” with our chickens every day. Our gorgeous Phoenix rooster Julius was their favorite who they would carry around like a trophy. Watching those adorable kids and cute little chickens wander around our 3 acre property made magical memories and left me drooling for more! So of course I began dreaming about what breeds of chickens to get next!

At that time I knew little to nothing about “chickening” so I began avidly researching different breeds in hopes of finding the perfect fit. This was right around the time Greenfire Farms was getting off the ground and importing Bielefelders — an autosexing breed from Germany. I was obsessed with the idea of a chicken you could sex at hatch… but at nearly $500 per bird, they were completely out of reach. Instead, I settled on a flock of Welsummers.

Chicken math is real… but so is divorce. Shortly after I acquired my flock of Welsummers, my ability to keep them vanished, and my life path took a detour from chicken farming.

Fast-forward nine years and I finally felt ready to get back into the chicken game — but wow, had it ever changed! Gone were the days of boring brown, white, and just “plain blue” eggs. Suddenly, there were blooms, speckles, olives, pinks, aquas, pistachios, spearmints, chocolates — and just like that, the fever was back. But I felt so far behind!

I invested hours researching breeds and dreaming of the ultimate rainbow egg basket. But knowing it could take years to develop olives, pinks, and heavy blooms from scratch, I realized I didn’t have the patience to wait. So I decided to invest in my chicken and egg venture by ordering hatching eggs from breeders across the country — determined to jump right into multi-generation olive layers and beyond.

And then… I hit another roadblock.

Everyone loved the eggs and wanted the chicks, but when it came time to sell them, I ran into the same question over and over:

“Are they female?”

I realized immediately that most customers — especially backyard keepers — don’t want to guess. They want guaranteed pullets—no crowing, no surprises, and no worrying about how to relieve themselves of a flock of young cockerels. So unless I could accurately sex the chicks at hatch, I had a problem. And like most small breeders, I didn’t have the skill, or resources to learn how to reliably vent sex chicks myself!

But I knew there was a solution: sex-linked chicks!

I took a deep dive into researching how to create sex-linked crosses through a number of articles (both free and available for purchase) from Tay of Silver Homestead How to Breed Sex-Link Chicken Chicks - Silver Homestead From these I learned about the kind of intentional pairings that make chick sexing easy by using feather color genetics. But the deeper I went, the more I realized that even those had limitations. Sex-linking works great for one-time hybrids… but what if I also wanted to develop amazing colors of eggs consistently over multiple generations and still be able to sex them at hatch? As great as sex-linked chicks are, they are a one-time shot and a genetic dead-end.

As I got further into the study of sex-linked and autosexing genetics an idea began to dawn on me, maybe I could develop true breeding lines that were not only beautiful birds, highly productive, and hardy — but also autosexing, producing chicks that could be visually sexed at hatch and continue breeding true for generations.

And so I fell down the rabbit hole of poultry genetics and re-connected with a previous passion from long ago that had never materialized for me when life, a divorce, and move got in the way: autosexing breeds! Unlike one-time hybrid crosses, these are pure lines that bred true generation after generation, with chicks that could be visually sexed the moment they hatched. It was like unlocking a secret code — and I knew I had found my long-term path forward.

And that’s how Queen of Coops was born.

We’re creating a new generation of chickens that combine egg color brilliance, high production, pasture hardiness, and intuitive genetics — with the goal of making it easier for small flock owners and hobby breeders to raise the kinds of birds they truly want. Whether you’re a backyard chicken lover, a farmstand seller, or a budding breeder, our mission is simple:

Give you the tools — and the birds — to build the flock of your dreams!

This journey started with a rainbow egg basket but has become something much bigger,and I can’t wait to share it with you! Please sign-up for my blog and follow along with me on this amazing journey.

~ Kimberley Aria