Please excuse the mess!

We hired a contractor a year ago by the name of Alan Sommerville (A Sommerville Contracting) to build a carport and a front fence.

We paid him a deposit of $15,750.00 March 15, 2021.

Long story short. Though he guaranteed it could be built in the style we wanted and in the location/position where we would like it (because, as he put it, he is the contractor, knows the by-laws and knew people at the city hall), a carport could not be built due to a variance being required and building permits not forthcoming. We asked for a free standing Gazebo to be built behind the house in place of a carport, never got that either. He tried to push his idea of attaching a lean to to the back of our house instead, which we flatly refused which made him angry (again). He went so far as to bring a nice young man with him (he said was an engineer from the city of Chilliwack for a permit) to look at the gazebo project. The young man rolled his eyes over Alan's persistence of trying to force me to change the project from a stand alone gazebo to his idea of this attached lean-to roof.

He told us that a half load of concrete would cost more than a full load so we added the front fence project to the scope of the work. The cement would have been for the footings of the carport (now gazebo) and the driveway pillars and 3' tall fence walls between them (to be topped with metal fencing we already had.

The driveway gates and installation were through a separate company unrelated to Alan Sommerville, with a third company providing the medallions and artwork and custom building the pedestrian front gate.

Allan sent a small crew that spread out gravel (which we ourselves purchased) in our driveway that had been dug up for drainage to be installed. His small crew dug holes for the carport footings, all in a single day. Alan then sent them back to fill them in, when a carport was not allowed and we ordered him to stop. This was when we learned of Geoff's medical problems, and brain issues. This information was shared with Alan Sommerville, whom should have simply refunded the difference at that time. He was unwilling to do that.

Next Alan Sommerville sent two men out at a time to dig the trenches (two separate occasions) and once or twice a single man came to do some work. They put in "forms" for concrete and rebar in the front trench between the pedestrian gate to the field on the right side of the house (when you look at the house from the front). The rebar was adequate for a 1' tall wall at the most. The rebar was not positioned correctly either.

They moved the already professionally installed front driveway gate posts over to accommodate the trench between us and the adjacent property to the left (in our driveway!), and to our chagrin, it was not done correctly, the posts didn't have enough concrete (they only used a single bag of our concrete on each post - concrete we had purchased, and had sitting around) so both posts would wiggle and sway and didn't stand a chance of supporting the gate.

The posts had to be re-positioned and cemented in properly and securely by our gate company, the underground electrical that went from the driveway gate to the pedestrian gate "disappeared" when the trench was put in between them so that also had to be re-done. It cost us an additional $1165.95 to correct just these issues.

I confronted Alan on the driveway gate issue and he refused to take any responsibility nor compensate us financially.

After this project dragging on and on, after many times setting up meetings on-site with Alan who most of the time would not show up or make excuses as to why he couldn't come, the times he did come he just didn't listen or pretended to not understand what I was asking for to be done. I resorted to texting him inclusive of links to suppliers and products and pictures to get my point across. Still, no progress. He kept on being passive aggressive towards me and trying to blame me for not making a decision.

I asked him multiple times over months for a written estimate, an invoice at the very least to see where we stood moneywise on the project. He never provided one until.... after word got back to him that I had told another person (who told him) that I was not impressed and was considering taking Alan to court. He sent me a threatening email which included his final invoice. He came and removed his wheelbarrow that had been left here and took away the wood (very little of it left over from the forms). His invoice is extremely inflated, really the things fairy tales are made of.
Here it is:

STATEMENT
ALAN SOMMERVILLE CONTRACTING CELL:- 6049972438 EMAIL :- alans2867@gmail.com
1589 MAPLE CRESENTAGASSIZ V0M 1A2

QUOTE TO :- ANGEL BEE
SITE ADDRESS :- 50526 YALE RD CHILLIWACK BC

WORK THAT HAS BEEN DONE
1, TO DIG OUT FOUNDATIONS FOR GAZEBO AND COVER WITH PLY $955.00

2, TO FILL IN SAME FOUNDATIONS AND COMPACT $720.00

3, TO REPLACE ORIGINAL ELECTRICAL DUCTING AS DAMAGED $644.00

4, TO INVESTIGATE RAINWATER DIVERTER $342.00

5, TO LEVEL GRAVE TO TIDY DRIVEWAY FOR FARM OPENNING $989.00

6, TO DIG FOUNDATIONS FOR FRONT WALL $2760.00

7, TO SUPPLY AND INSTALL FORMS FOR FOUNDATIONS $1955.00

8, DELAYED BECAUSE CITY WERE CALLED TO MOVE WATER BOX $345.00

9, TO SUPPLY AND INSTALL REBAR FOR FOUNDATION AND WALL $1120.00

10, TO MOVE MAIN GATE POSTS 2FT $897.00

11, TO EXSTENED DUCTING FOR MAIN GATE POSTS AGAIN $92.00

12, TO SUPPLY AND INSTALL FORMS FOR FRONT WALL WITH BRACING
$1020.00

13, TO REMOVE FORMS FOR FRONT WALL AS POSITION WAS CHANGED $667.00

14, TO STRIP WALL FORMS COMPLETELY AS MORE GATES ARE BEING INSTALLED $322.00

15, TO DIG OUT FOUNDATION FOR NEW SIDE WALL $1438.00

16, TO SUPPLY AND INSTALL FORMS FOR FOUNDATIONS $978.00

17, PAY FOR ENGINEER FOR SITE VISIT $552.00

18 TIME ADDED FOR SITE VISITS BECAUSE OF SO MANY CHANGES $150.00

TOTAL FOR COMPLETE WORK $15,946.00 GST

So please look around for yourselves, see what you can get from Alan Sommerville Contracting for a mere $15,750.00!

Alan has also not paid his bill. He has conveniently forgotten that one day he purchased four brand new unused bins from our company that he has never paid for.

Today (Nov. 23) we said goodbye to our dear Skylar. Skylar crossed the rainbow road today. He had been a beloved member of our family for over 14 years. He would have been 15 next year in June. Skylar lived an exceptionally long and happy life. The Mottled Houdan is a breed that is known for it's longevity, but Skylar exceeded everyone's expectations in lifespan. He loved to crow to greet people, it was always one of is favourite tricks to crow on demand.

Many of you will remember him for his big crazy mop top of a crest, others for his entertaining crow. Some may even remember one or both of his lady friends who crossed the rainbow road before he did, Shilo being his close mate and best friend whom lived the longest of the two Houdan hens, Suzette having crossed the rainbow road before her.

Now Skylar, Shilo and Suzette are all free-ranging together in rainbow fields.

All are deeply missed.

It looks like we will only have one guaranteed hatch date for waterfowl for the entire 2021 season. Typically we limit waterfowl to April each year, but on occasion we are able to bring in special orders for individuals in other months so long as they are available. The cost of a special order (one that can not be combined with any of our regular hatchery orders) can be substantial and must be passed on to our customer(s). Each import requires a month lead time for the legal import and veterinary documents to be prepared and the documentation and shipping fees are very costly.

Last year's strains on the industry and the ongoing battle with contagious poultry diseases in the USA has crippled some of the breeder flocks and reduced the availability and selection of fertile eggs to the hatcheries.

Order now if you can. There will be a very limited supply of ducklings and goslings and not all varieties will be available for distribution. We will do our very best to work in your behalf to secure whatever you have on your 2021 waterfowl wish list but can offer no guarantees.

Don't email Santa, email us as soon as possible with your wish lists. We have already placed our orders with the hatcheries and still have time to add to them, until they run out.

Stocking stuffer? Can't put a duckling into a stocking so...If you know someone you love is planning to purchase any type of poultry or poultry supplies next year, we do offer gift certificates in any amount.

August 5th brings forth the last of the day old poultry for this year, and it too has sold out at record speed. We are now taking orders for 2021.

This year, due to the COVID-19 virus causing havoc in the world, we all had to face a whole new set of problems.

With agriculture being an essential service, because we all need food. We stayed open because we felt we had to do our part to continue our service.

There is little doubt that next year will bring about a "new normal" that will include many changes, some that will carry on from this year to the next and possibly further into our future.

We had to implement many changes to the way orders were fulfilled both for pick up and for shipping. There was also the required sanitizing between every visitor to the farm, the scheduling and countless emails it required.

There were also growing pains. With the uncertainty many felt due to the virus and the effects it had or may have on the food supply chain it drove many more people to explore chicken keeping.

The demand for poultry soared in 2020. The hatcheries sold out for the entire year by April. Costs were driven up by the exchange rate and new border fees. Hatcheries had to increase prices as more demand and competition for breeder stock eggs went up, hatcheries could not secure enough of them to hatch.

Our base orders, placed in December and January made it possible to supply the needs of most this year, with the exception of when the hatcheries themselves could not provide due to the shortages they experienced.

We had 4X more orders and many extra measures including booking of appointment times to deal with this year. All in all, we are very grateful that most people were understanding and patient with us.

March and April we took a hit financially as we honoured our old pricing. We were forced to increase our prices, but did so only marginally, and we managed to break even for May - August. Most of the agriculture sector has struggled or is struggling this year. From difficulty finding seasonal workers to packing plants and processors having to close down, markets have been changing...there are many new challenges in getting food to the tables of Canadians.

The last of our chicks and older started chicks will be available beginning Sunday August 9th from 1:30 to 4:30 on a first come first served basis.

We thank you all.
Stay safe and stay healthy.
Geoff and Angela

We now have a live auction facebook group page: BeauPeep Farms Fans... any unclaimed or extra poultry at the end of each hatch cycle is posted there. Some may be already be older and no longer require the brooders! This group page has no space between Beau and Peep. It has a picture of Skylar as the header.

If you have not already visited our regular facebook page, come check it out! Beau Peep Farms on facebook.
We post all kinds of great information there and a lot of fun things as well. All of our order pick up dates and times are also posted to this page.

Now that we are closed for the 2019 season we are not gone. We are still here answering email and taking requests for next season's chicks.

With 2020 being a leap year we hope to be open to our order ticket holders on leap day, February 29th 2020!

Get a jump on the new season by ordering as early as December and January to reserve what you really wish for.
Leap right in to avoid disappointment!

We closed up poultry sales in September as scheduled, and the store is also now closed until next year, with the exception of mail order merchandise and gift certificate sales. We are now working hard to winterize and sanitize.

We are looking forward to working with the Chilliwack Community 4-H Club which is now offering a poultry keeping program! We hope to see lots of young faces learning the right way to raise poultry in the upcoming years.

Looking forward to our 2019 season!
- Geoff and Angela

We still have started and hardened off birds available. including turkey poults, sexed large fowl chicken breeds and unsexed bantam chicken breeds. There are also a handful of cockerels listed on our Rooster Roster page each hoping to find a flock of their own.

If you are looking for 100 - 150 sexed layer chicks for you to raise over winter so as to have a fresh young ready to lay or point of lay flock in spring we can supply with a full months notice.

We are now accepting orders for the 2019 season. We recommend ordering waterfowl by no later than February 2019 in order to get your waterfowl babies in April 2019, our waterfowl month.

Skylar turns 11 years old on June 18th... but his party will be held on Saturday June 23rd from 11am - 2 pm.

Join us in wishing him a happy birthday! There will be free hotdogs, pop and cake as well as give-aways!

See you then Skylar fans!

Skylar enjoyed Christmas very much this year, we made a big fuss over him. The old boy has been keeping a close eye on the workers doing construction around him in the barn and has been finding it quite entertaining indeed!

For those of you who are regular visitors to our farm you may notice that we make improvements during our off season each year. Some but not all of our changes are noticeable to the public. Many of the improvements we make are to upgrading safety and bio-security, keeping up with the advances in poultry care, housing and security as well as the latest in technology.

One noticeable change you will see this year is the brand new viewing window.

One of the less noticeable upgrades is the addition of brand new brooders for the day old poultry. These are a little more advanced technology wise and are also a little larger for those bigger babies like goslings, ducks and turkey's. After all, we do want the babies entrusted in our care to have the very best, and most comfortable stay.

As always, Geoff and Angela use some of the off-season to hone their skills and upgrade their education in poultry management as well. So they will be better able to serve you and have more answers to your questions.

Our first chicks hatch for us on January 31st and we will be open beginning on February 3rd to pick up your per-ordered chicks. See you then!

Skylar celebrated his 10th birthday on June 18th in style! He had a nice seed cake and an extra lot of love and attention from all. Thank you to all of you who remembered to send along your birthday wishes. We read each and every one to him.

It saddens our hearts so that our lovely and much loved Shilo has passed away this evening at the age of 9. She would have made it to 10 had she had lived until June 18th. She is survived by Skylar, her loyal life long companion and best friend. Skylar is the same age and oh so lonely and heartbroken.

Those of you who have visited the farm have seen the pair of these majestic old friends perched contentedly in the barn. They have been exemplary models of the Houdan breed and as we raised them from babies we will never forget our Shilo.

It pains us to think that Skylar will not be far behind his Shilo. Skylar is the same age and is now so lost without her. He is still perching on his side of the perch tonight.

Our last major batch of chicks will be hatching for us on August 10th and will be available on Saturday August 13th. We are still taking orders for this batch, and have some hard to get rare breeds/varieties still available such as the Black Copper Marans, Blue Laced Red Wyandottes and Red Orpingtons. If you are looking to raise chicks of any breed/variety to have them ready to lay in the early spring of 2017 now is the time to place your order!

Wow! There was a nice variety at the show again this year and over 200 entries shown! We brought a few (14) specimens, mainly young birds from June 3 hatch of this year, all but 1 was hatched this year. It was nice to hear all of the positive comments from the other exhibitors, fair participants and the public. We hope to see everyone there again next year! Keep it up!

There are no longer any specific nor general movement CFIA permits required. This has been a great relief to all bird fanciers in BC. Thank you to all of our customers for their patience and understanding throughout the past 3 months. Especially those who picked up birds from us and had to wait a few extra minutes and fill in an attestation form.

There is still a ban on importing birds into Canada from several different States in the USA and some countries. This has been affecting the numbers and varieties of fowl, especially waterfowl, that we are able to provide at this time.

We are open for business as usual with the addition of new Specific Permits by the CFIA.
We do all the paperwork for you to ensure you are legal.

We like to keep things simple for you our customer :)

Our farm is located in the CFIA's Primary Control Zone, more specifically in a "Secure Zone". The chicks are all from CFIA "Free Zone" locations.

We continue to provide the best possible selection of quality purebred poultry and look forward to serving you at our farm.

Not many birds left to sell now. Those that we do have are either laying or close to the point of lay.

Then there are the cockerels, lovely young boys getting their crows... and they are all up near our house. It's a good thing we like the sounds roosters make! We have a page dedicated just to them (the Rooster Roster).

We will be done for the season and the farm will be closed to visitors as of November 14th (if not a little sooner). The time has flown by even with extending our season beyond the usual September or October deadline.

Once all the birds are gone we will begin the annual sanitizing making necessary repairs as we go. I am looking forward to the upgrades we plan to make during this off season. We can hardly wait to get started!

We took a few young hatchery birds down to the Fraser Valley Poultry Fanciers Show at the fair again this year and brought back a few nice ribbons/wins again this year. We also entered a few dozen eggs and were delighted to win first place on our dark brown eggs and to receive the honour of Best in Show on our Rainbow eggs for the second year running! Looking forward to entering again in next year's fair.

Our first day of the season SATURDAY MARCH 1ST was a busy one! It was nice seeing all of you. There were some new faces and many we have seen before. We know that at times some of you had to wait and for that we wish to thank you for your patience and understanding.

We woke up this morning SUNDAY MARCH 2nd to a snow storm with at least 4 inches of snow on the ground and more still falling. The roads are not great and we expect that many of you who planned to pick up your orders today may be delayed due to the weather. We will be open for you tomorrow MONDAY MARCH 3rd if you cannot make it here today.

We will be OPEN TO THE PUBLIC beginning WEDNESDAY MARCH 5th.

We will be at the Pet Lover Show. We will have many new and unique products with us for all poultry fanciers! We are busy preparing the farm for the new season, the barn is looking better and better. We hope our returning customers will enjoy the changes! A lot of effort/time/sweat has gone into the upgrades during our off-season. We will be open for business March 1.
Hope to see you at the Show or once we are open!

As things wind down we find we have very few birds left. A few cockerels and a couple of more mature roosters that still have not found homes. A few Guinea Keets in the brooder. Three hens, a Turken (won a first place ribbons at this years Chilliwack fair), a Salmon Faverolle and one Buckeye (a very good layer with a cataract in one eye) that is waiting to find just the right people to give her a home. And a couple of nice big Christmas Turkey's.

We may have need for one more batch of Freedom Rangers as late as October... maybe.

As usual once the barn is completely empty we will be doing a major scrub down and winterizing of the water system followed by yet more improvements.


Year after year our repeat customers have been surprised by the changes they see. We are pleased by the comments we receive but even more pleased about the changes that our customers don't see. I speak of the upgrades we make each year in the brooder areas that are strictly quarantined for bio-security. We have expanded each year and updated the equipment including feed, water and heating systems as well as manure management. We keep the chicks entrusted in our care as happy and comfortable as we possibly can. A happy comfortable chick is a healthy one!

Looking forward to the hard work ahead in our off-season... and to all the peeps to come next year!
See you then!

We have been asked when we would have ready to lay pullets available. This is not something we do as from season's beginning (Feb/March) to season's end (Sept.) we simply don't have the space available to raise day old chicks to that stage.

A couple of years ago we had a batch of layers left over in September, and we over-wintered them and sold them when the doors opened for business in February. These pullets were at the ready to lay stage and sold for $20 each.

We are considering doing the same this year, but do not want to do so on speculation as we need to guarantee the birds are gone and the barn is empty and sterile prior to the arrival of the first hatch of the year.

If you are interested in "early birds" let us know! If enough people want them we just may over-winter a batch for 2014! A fresh ready to lay pullet for February will cost $25 (the cost of feed has gone up that much).

Sadly the flowers are gone. The Volunteer program we sponsor has been put on hold for now. Beau Peep Farms is a proud sponsor of "HOW we HELP Chilliwack" and we look forward to sponsoring the volunteer program again once they have found a new "garbage disposal" sponsor.

We get asked about the flower stand often...

Fresh cut flowers are available for sale by donation at the driveway entrance. These flowers are donations of "seconds" (flowers that may not be perfect or not as fresh as those you would buy from your favorite florist) to benefit the food salvage and re-distribution program we run out of Beau Peep Farms.

Proceeds from the sale of these flowers is put towards the fuel, trucking and misc. expenses (such as the "Pit Stop") that the volunteer food salvage and re-distribution program requires.

For the past 5 years Beau Peep Farms has been running a non-profit organization from our farm location. It takes a lot of space and a lot of time, and often gets in the way and gets messy. This year we have moved operations to the back of the property, where our volunteers spend time three days a week sorting out truck loads of donated fresh produce. The produce from green grocers and greenhouses is re-distributed to several local organizations that help to feed the hungry in Chilliwack.

Thank you to all who volunteer and all who continue to donate to the program! We couldn't do it without you!

Well, we have done many improvements to the barn for both the birds comfort and our own, we ran out of time and had to forgo installing flooring in the store front since the birds have arrived! Now we will have to wait until the brooders are all empty again at the end of the year before we can seriously look at any more construction. We will not put the chicks through the stress and noise that would be involved.

Beginning March 2 (opening day at the farm) we will be able to accept payment by Visa, Mastercard and Interac! The machine is installed and we are hard at work making improvements to the barn and getting ready for the first chicks to arrive! In the office we have been answering emails, taking orders and getting our orders placed with the hatcheries. We are updating out website and looking forward to helping everyone find the poultry of their desires again this year!

This year's clearance sale meant that we were able to clear out the barn by the first of October, with the exception of Quail and Guinea's nearly all of the poultry has been sold. The few remaining chickens are being housed outside now so that we could get an early start on the self-waterting system for next year! Thank you everyone for making 2012 a great success. The sale continues as we still have some poultry to move out this month! It's now first come first serve on all remaining poultry, no holds or reserves.

2012 has been a very busy year for placing the cockerels and roosters we have "taken under our wing". We have homed a great deal of these boys this year, all of the surrendered birds have found homes and most of the others as well! We still have some nice young cockerels available, so if you or anyone you know is looking to add a cockerel to their flock please check out our Rooster Roster page!

Our Poultry photographer had entries in photography at this year's fair also. She did well winning ribbons for her work. Two of her photo's on display were of our "peeps". We hope to be able to post more about them in our blog soon!

The fair was an "eggcellent adventure". Over the 3 fantastic days we met quite a few other fanciers / breeders and had a great time just talking turkey (and chicken, duck, guinea, geese ....).

We had 11 entries in the fair with 8 ribbons. Seven 1st place ribbons for Variety or Best of Breed (or both) and one 2nd place in the Heavy Commercial Duck class (A very young Ideal Poultry Roen).

We are extememly proud of our very young Buckeye from June 6th (also from Ideal Poultry); she finished 1st in variety and was the Reserve Champion in the American class.

Most of the birds we exhibited were hatched in March through May of this year, and all of them were imported from hatcheries in the USA. They did very well considering their lack of maturity and that they were competing with birds that were just shy of their 1st birthday and some that were older than that.

We are happy with our entries and look forward to doing it again next year!

We have 50 Japanese (Coturnix) Quail in now!

We also have adult White Coturnix Males, Tuxedo Quail mixed sex.

Mature Italian Quail.

We have several beautifully coloured male Button Quail to choose from! Males are on sale for $10 each regularly $15, pairs when available sell for $40, females when available sold separately for $30.

The Better Back-yard Broiler Bird!

We have received a lot of great feedback on these birds. Everyone who has tried them has told us they love them!

Beau Peep Farms has just aquired an automated plucking machine. We will be making it available on loan to anyone purchasing 25 or more Freedom Ranger Broiler Chicks from us that wishes to use it come processing time!

We will have a variety of birds entered at this years Chilliwack Agri fair. They will be on exhibit Aug 10 - 12.

We are seeing more and more chick orders being shipped from our hands to destinations throughout Canada including the Islands (Vancouver Gulf Islands and Queen Charlottes), BC Interior, Northern BC, Yukon, Alberta and beyond.

The barn was expanded this year to include an outdoor rearing coop.

We are in the process of upgrading our water delivery system to a nipple system. This is sure to decrease the amount of labour time while ensuring a non-stop ever fresh water supply for all of the birds!

FOWL! Farming Only With Love.

Treat all living creatures with love and respect, they will reward you.