Reporter Christina McDermott visited the farm with Shelby Wild of Route One Farmers Market to interview us for “The Hands ― and the Truck ― That Feed Lompoc,” published July 13, about food insecurity in Lompoc and the local food system that is feeding Lompoc by connecting small farms like ours to families that need it, particularly those using SNAP
Wondering when your chickens will finally start laying eggs? Learn what age hens begin producing, how seasons, diet, and health affect laying, and simple troubleshooting tips from Dare 2 Dream Farms.
Backyard chickens aren’t just good for fresh eggs — they’re an amazing way to teach kids about responsibility, empathy, the rhythm of daily life, and self-sufficiency. Whether your little ones are tossing scratch for fun or your teens are selling eggs and tracking flock health like seasoned farmers, there’s a role for every age in the coop. Here’s a simple
Thinking about starting a backyard flock in California? ☀️
Not all chickens handle the heat the same way. In this guide, we share the top 8 heat-tolerant, beginner-friendly breeds that thrive in warm climates, lay lots of eggs, and bring personality to your backyard. Whether you want colorful eggs, calm companions, or hardy hens that can beat the summer heat, this list will help you pick the perfect birds for your coop.
With interest in backyard chicken keeping ballooning amidst the Avian Flu and egg crisis of 2025, Redfin’s Content Marketing Coordinator, Pablo Alvarez set out to gather expertise from a wealth of farmers, ranchers, and chicken keeping enthusiasts to share with homebuyers. Megan Raff, Co-owner and Chief Chick of Dare 2 Dream Farms shared: While the initial investment in building or
KCLU’s Caroline Faraday visits Dare 2 Dream Farms to dish up the dirt on Dare 2 Dream Farms’ participation in Santa Barbara County’s Farm Day this year.
Lompoc direct-to-consumer farm the first in Santa Barbara County to accept SNAP/EBT payments online. Lompoc, California: Dare 2 Dream Farms today announced the launch of a new e-commerce platform that can now accept SNAP Online for customers using EBT/SNAP benefits. Their store launch in the GrownBy app offers a new way for SNAP/EBT customers to purchase locally grown produce and
When you purchase your chickens from Dare 2 Dream Farms, you can rest assured that we provide a Healthy Hen Guarantee policy with every purchase of standard chicken breeds. However, since sexing chickens is only about 95% accurate, it’s natural to wonder if you might have a young rooster, or cockerel, in the coop. Here, we’ll give you the inside
Nothing says “countryside” quite like the quintessential crow of a rooster in the early morning. These barnyard creatures are beautiful with their shiny and iridescent feathers and their confident strut, and can often be quite chivalrous with your flock of endearing hens. Although keeping roosters isn’t necessary to maintaining an egg-laying flock of hens, roosters are necessary if you would
California is experiencing an outbreak of Exotic Newcastle Disease, a devastating illness in chickens that has been dormant since 2003; a reminder that protecting our birds against diseases is one of the top priorities in good backyard chicken flock management. A comprehensive approach to wellness in chicken flocks includes not just biosecurity but a well-rounded diet, healthy living conditions, preventative
No matter how sweet, fun-loving, and friendly Lucy and Ethel are with you and with each other, as soon as you add new chickens to their perfect little flock, they will probably transform in front of your very eyes to bullies! The shock of this transformation in conjunction with your concern for the well-being of the new little girls may
Chickens love what’s your growing in your garden just as much as you do! And, because you love eating healthy produce, you probably want to offer your chickens the same fresh wholesomeness to keep them health! But, you might wonder, what are examples of safe fruits and vegetables for your chickens? Is anything off limits? Is anything essential? Let’s discuss…
Once you have all the gear you need to raise baby chicks, it’s all about the know-how. Yes, their tiny fluffy bodies, teeny feet, and sweet chirps will demand all your attention for cuddles and training; but baby chicks are also fairly sensitive and require specific conditions to thrive. Here you’ll find answers to the most common questions about caring
Planning ahead when you purchase baby chicks can save you from a lot of surprise and heartache. Before you think about how to buy baby chicks, we recommend thinking about how to prepare for them. Read Raising Baby Chicks for Beginners, Part 1: Gathering the right supplies and tools to learn more. Consider this First To enjoy the full experience
In addition to looking forward to scrumptious and beautiful eggs, as backyard chicken keepers, we also hope that our feathered, breakfast-making ladies will be our pets too. As you prepare to get chickens for your coop and backyard, there are a few important things to consider when you’re ordering your first chickens. These considerations will help you foster a flock
Raising a backyard flock is a joyful and rewarding experience and uniquely magical for children. Chickens are naturally sociable animals and enjoy human interaction, and as chicks, they are curious and loving. But even this idyllic-sounding experience comes with a lot of work and preparation behind it! Before you rush to your local farm to buy your baby chicks, learn
Deciding to keep chickens is a great move for many households and families that choose to live more sustainably, want to teach children how to care for pets and take on responsibilities, or need pets that offer affection but don’t bring dander and allergens into the house. With all the personality they pack into that tiny fluffy body, it’s nearly
Globally There are so many reasons to eat local, but one that many seem to oversee, is that it saves our planet! When we purchase produce at the grocery store, most of the produce is in packaging, shipped from states or countries away! When you think about all that goes into getting a bunch of bananas from Costa Rica, you must
Chickens have a natural way of keeping their feathers clean, healthy, and free of pests: dust baths! Rolling around in the dirt is a fun, social and preventative health measure that is important for all chickens. Description Watching your chickens take a dust bath can be highly entertaining. They scratch at the dirt, making sure the spot is just right.
Every November, when Halloween has come and gone, our neighbor Jim gives us all the picked-over pumpkins from his patch down the road. We load up the bed of our old Ford pickup and truck tons of free feed to our pasture for the chickens. The hens effortlessly devour the piles of pumpkins, pecking a hole in one side and
Of all the questions we answer regarding backyard chickens, coops, and urban farming, the most common question we hear is “Do you LOVE your job?” The cool thing about this question is that even on long delivery days or hot and grimy farmwork days, we get to say yes! We have a lot of reasons to love our job: we work with each other, with
Fresh eggs are a great way to eat healthy. As an egg connoisseur or as a backyard chicken owner, it’s important to understand what your eggs are telling you by their shape, color, texture, and size. These varied and unique qualities can be an indication of the chicken’s age, chicken’s health, chicken’s breed, and the quality of the egg itself.
Although double yolk eggs are not rare (about 1/500 eggs), they are still really exciting to find and they have been throughout history. Some used to believe it was good luck in general while others believed it was a sign of an upcoming marriage or death. Whatever you choose to believe, it is still fun to crack open a large
It’s already Fall and we received our first rain this week, but its still hotter than blazes here in Lompoc, California, and we’re looking for refreshing ways to eat. DIY tacos are always an easy meal to serve since we feed our work-stay guests and WWOOFers – everyone can put their own fillings, manage their spice tolerance, and easily manage
I’d say most people agree, spaghetti squash is delicious, but it doesn’t really hold a candle to actual spaghetti. When you add in tomato sauce, the squash doesn’t soak in the extra moisture from the sauce, making for a watery and sloppy dish. Pesto goes better with squash “spaghetti”, but it needs something more. Spaghetti squash does, however, make a
It’s back to school for many, and we’re ready with pens, calculators, papers and books for our reading, writing, and arithmetic. But teaching about agriculture and food systems is sadly not on many schools’ curricula. Whether your kids learn at home or at school, incorporating discussions around growing food, sourcing food, and eating healthy is a great way to encourage
Don’t forget your chickens during this year’s 4th of July or New Year’s Eve fireworks displays. Dogs and cats aren’t the only animals that experience extreme distress due to loud noises. While most chickens snooze right through the party, others may react with varying degrees of distress due to the loud noises, bright lights, and quick movements. The panic experienced
This week, the Raff Familia headed to Portugal to visit our 2014 WWOOF-USA guests that became dear friends. Kristen Kelley and Andrea Ribolla opened a pizzeria in Zambujiera do Mar in Portugal this year, where we will visit them, along with discovering Lisbon with them for a few days. In appreciation, we have shared a delicious veggie forward dish that
Since we have an abundance of vegetables around the farm lately, we’ve had to search out different recipes that will help us use them all up. We found this recipe for a pasta salad that used roasted vegetables and we were intrigued! Not only does it call for our current fall produce, but it adds goat cheese. After thinking about
Brussels Sprouts are probably my husbands favorite veggie. No, scratch that. They’re definitely my husband’s favorite veggie. He’s really a meat and potatoes kind of guy. He eats his burgers with just meat, cheese, and bun only. He loves growing veggies but he doesn’t really like a lot of them: peppers, hot or sweet, tomatoes, eggplant… nope, nope, nope. But
Description Rickets is loosely translated to “poverty of the bones.” It is caused by a deficiency of Vitamin D3, or by an imbalance of Calcium and Phosphorus in the diet. The result is weak or soft bones that are prone to bowing and inhibit mobility. Mycotoxins – toxins from mold or fungus – as well as some medication may also
What can I say? It’s fall, which is soup season, and I’ve been thinking about every kind of soup out there! My brain wants to combine soups? Sure, why not! I’ll clean the bowl with all our fresh farm style breads! It’s also, ‘holy cow, we have a lot of tomatoes’ season! And too soon it’s going to be… ‘where
Our shelves are filled to the brim with the years harvest of winter squash. While butternut squash is easy to sell in a creamy, sweet soup, or oven roasted with spices, or even in a salad; its not easy to sell spaghetti squash, on my family at least. But we all have one thing in common: we’d eat about anything
My father shared a meme with me this week… (Note: I never thought I’d use that sentence ever but it makes me quite happy). You may have already seen it floating around the interwebs. But I share this because it seems like this might be the uniting core value of our family. So for fair warning, this recipe calls for
Have you ever poured out the end of a bag of feed only to find what’s left is mostly dust? Or cleaned out the chicken coop to find that much of what’s getting mucked out is actually wasted feed? Do you ever wonder if you should be choosing a different type of feed? There is little education on the differences
We’ve had a really great year in 2018! It was leaps and bounds more productive and healthy than in recent years. The people we hosted were fun and inspirational, and we learned quite a bit together as a team, as humans, and as farmers. We hosted work-stay guests through WWOOF-USA and HelpX from across the globe: Canada, England, Japan, France,
Raw broccoli is here to help you ring in the new year! For any #newyearnewme resolution makers, and anyone feeling a bit drab after the back-to-back holiday party spreads, cookie trays, and See’s candy gifts, this salad has your name on it. It’s loaded with nutrient dense veggies, fresh flavors, and bright colors to keep you coming back for more.
“I would say an egg a day keeps the doctor away. It’s great protein. It’s a good way to start your breakfast and stay strong, keep your brain functioning at its top performance, and keep all your joints healthy and moving with all those omega-3 fatty acids. “Hi, I’m Megan Raff, co-owner of Dare 2 Dream Farms. We are located
When all the eggs have been washed and packaged up for sale at the farm each week, the house fridge ends up with flats upon flats of eggs that are unsaleable, because they’re either too small, too big, or have imperfections that don’t meet the grade requirements. At most, we get about 12 flats of 30 eggs, or about 360
Purple foods are a heavy hitter when it comes to raw nutrients and cancer-fighting antioxidants. Generally speaking, the brighter the color the richer they are in these properties. Anthocyanins are the antioxidant responsible for the beautiful deep red or purple color found in crops like carrots, radicchio, cauliflower, cabbage and kohlrabi pictured above. In addition to fighting free-radicals, these bright
We’re getting started on this year’s farm dinner and events schedule and our creative juices are flowing! If you didn’t know yet, we’re expecting baby #3 in April. We decided to give ourselves the surprise of gender at birth – really the last great surprise in our age! We have a boy, Wyatt (4), and a girl, Zoe (2), so
When our livestock manager, Rachel, takes a visit home to Riverside, she brings back bags upon bags of fresh citrus from the local farmers that sell at the California Citrus State Historic Park Farm Stand: oranges, tangelos, tangerines, and grapefruits. They’re so delicious, and so fresh and we’re always looking for ways to use them all up! I recently learned
So far this citrus season has been plentiful on the farm thanks to Rocking Chair Farms, Good Land Organic and Bautista Family Farms. Our Farm Box members can tell you first hand we have numerous varieties of citrus this winter from lemons to different oranges. But don’t get fooled, oranges are not just for breakfast, a snack, or juice, they
Lettuce starts this off by giving you a few amazing facts about this delicious, highly versatile, and nearly 95% water vegetable. This annual plant of the daisy family is the second most popular veggie in the U.S., right behind the potato. The average American roughly eats around 30 pounds a year. We can start by giving thanks to Christopher Columbus,
The first thing that came to mind after putting together this week’s Farm Box list was Asian. Throughout my 23 years career in the kitchen, I’ve cooked many different types of cuisines but my all-time favorite next to French is Asian. Luckily for me, Dare 2 Dream really gives me the freedom to express myself as a chef, not only
Peas are one of my favorite things to harvest, but I’ve got to be careful because they are so addictive I could easily eat the whole crate. These sweet and tasty little treats are a great source of vitamin A, C, B1, folate, iron, and phosphorus, they are also rich in protein and low in fat. Peas date back to
Despite what you may have heard, COUSCOUS is actually pasta made of semolina and wheat flour, not a type of whole grain, even though it does have a rice-like appearance. This North African staple is popular all over the world, the two most common varieties found in America are Moroccan and Israeli style or Pearl. Pearl is the one I’ll
Mushrooms are vital to life on Earth, fungi are all around us: in the air, soil, and even in our bodies. They have an amazing relationship with the food we eat by drawing nutrients and water from all over in exchange for the plant’s natural sugars. There are at least 350 species that are consumed as food, but today I’m
When it comes to root veggies parsnips are the most underrated of them all. Native to the Mediterranean, this taproot which was introduced to the Americas in 1609 predated potatoes by nearly 100 years, and was cultivated from the wild. Closely related to carrots, parsley, and dill, which are all part of the Aplacene family, parsnips have a sweet, nutty
One of the first things that come to my mind when thinking about a beautiful garnish for my next dish or a crisp, peppery flavored treat, I think of Radishes. These amazing edible root veggies which are part of the Brassicaceae family are a go-to for any chef or vegetable lover and have been for many years. Without any proof
