Henrietta, the eponymous Urban Orpington

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Growing so fast!

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Meet the Peeps!

This weekend was a very special weekend for Trey and I; we celebrated our one year anniversary AND brought home these little beauties!  We have decided to wait on naming them due to the risk of peep mortality, but here are their head shots and their breed:

We picked up the girls on Saturday from a specialty breeder just outside of Louisville, KY.  Craig & Lindsay Akers of Akers Hatchery were so kind to give us a tour of their facility and it is just lovely!  They will mail chicks, so if you are looking for some special breeds (Lavender Orpingtons, Blue Laced Red Wyandottes, some Frizzles & Silkies to name a few) I highly recommend that you check them out!  We had decided to purchase a Blue Laced Red Wyandotte, a Wellsummer (because of their beautiful terra cotta colored eggs), and a Buff Orpington.  As an impulse decision, we added the Barred Rock.

The Barred Rock and the Wellsummer had hatched that day, but the Buff and Blue Laced are a few days older.  They had a pretty long drive home (about 4 hours) but we really enjoyed listening to their chorus of peeps whenever we hit a bump on the interstate!

Unfortunately the Blue Laced Wyandotte did not make it through the first night.  She developed a case of Pasty Butt and died as a result.  We tried the damp cloth method to clean the hardened poo from her vent, but had to result to softening it by immersing her bottom in warm water.  The warm water method was successful, but we feel that the process may have dropped her temperature too low and she was unable to recover from the process.  We feel so guilty that the cure may have been the final straw, but we also realize that sometimes this just happens.

The good news is that the other girls are doing just fine.  They are eating and drinking successfully and seem to have fun pecking at each other's toes!  The buff has been spied even trying out the perch in their brooder!

Do it Yourself Chick Brooder

This weekend we're adding three chicks to our flock.  Since they wont be ready to move in with Henrietta, we had to make a temporary brooder to give the kiddos a place to live.  We looked around online at different plans and, eventually, came up with our own. So, this is how we did it...in four shockingly easy steps.


Step 1: Buy a plastic storage bin.

Step 2: Use a 5/8ths spade drill bit to drill a series of holes into the cover of the bin.

Step 3: Drill a series of holes along the top of the bin for extra air flow.

Note: The sides might not be as strong as the top, be careful to avoid cracking.

Step 4: Install a perch by placing a dowel rod across one end of the bin. We just screwed it into each side of the box. Upon reflection, ours might be a little higher than we had intended it to be.

Final product:

I am by no means a what you would call a handy man.  I am blown away by how simple this was.  It looks exactly like I envisioned it in my head.