About Us

Winding Springs Farm is in a small valley in the mountains of central Perry County, PA. We raise Cotton Patch Geese and Welsh Harlequin ducks. The Cotton Patch geese are our main focus to hatch eggs and raise the Philadelphia Line of geese.

In addition to our birds, we have 3 horses and one little pony. Our horses spend 9 months of the year in our 4-plus acres of pastures drinking from natural springs. We have 3 acres of hayfields and we make hay twice a year to feed them over the winter months. When at home our relaxation is riding in our eight acres of woods. We have over a mile of riding and foot trails. We also go horse camping with them riding up to 20 miles a day and camping overnight.

We never intended to raise anything but grass and hay for our horses and maybe a few chickens. Where we used to live we’d had an artificial pond with fish and plants. I’d always dreamed of adding ducks. So when there was a little pond at the house I was delighted at the thought of having a natural fish pond. I found 3 Welsh Harlequin ducks. What may have been obvious to others was waterfowl destroy all plants. A year later I saw a duck eating a black and orange salamander. That’s when I realized that the small black water snakes that had hounded us the first year had disappeared due to ducks eating reptiles including fish. Thankfully, I never got the fish. Ducks will always be permanent on our property.

The next challenge was the two-plus acres of grass that needed mowed each week. In 2016 I discovered geese eat grass and we had another tiny pond to put them in. Through a Facebook Homesteading group, I learned of the Livestock Conservancy website. It lists heritage breeds of farm animals, with their status of being endangered, including a variety of information about their temperament. I found the Cotton Patch geese. There was a link to the Facebook group Cotton Patch Goose Society. I asked a million questions, well not quite. I tried to decide between an endangered species where the closest goslings would be 6 hours away or just go with the Pilgrim geese that weren’t endangered and more available to me.

At length, I decided the Cotton Patch would be best because I liked the idea of a landrace goose that wasn’t required to meet exact standards to be a good bird. A landrace has to meet general standards with some arbitrary requirements but not always in looks and size. And I wanted to help preserve a goose that was severely endangered.

The second job was convincing my husband which took nearly a year. But with me being handicapped and having a hard time mowing all that grass, the job fell too often to him. But he still didn’t like the twelve-hour hour round trip to get some Cotton Patch geese.

Then in 201, I found someone who was only two hours away. I proceeded to board him with questions. By early 2018 my husband agreed to get on Brandon Everette’s waitlist for his rare line of Philadelphia geese. I was over the moon. But due to some challenges Brandon had he wasn’t successful in having young until August 2019. He had 2 pairs of geese for us.