How I got into chickens

Hi this is OrpieLover31 here! I just want to show some of you chicken people out there my story

My first chickens

It all started when we moved to a 5 acre property. It was almost a year that we had moved in, but we all felt like we needed something extra to call it home. Then one day it just hit us, suddenly we all wanted some chickens. We mostly wanted chickens for their eggs. But before we could get chickens we had to build a chicken coop. The problem was that we had no materials to build a chicken coop, and we did not have the time to build one. Soon it was Mothers Day and we were in for a surprise! We got four chickens! We had to quickly find something to use as a chicken coop! We named the chickens Millie, Molly, Lacey, and Henny Penny. We got really lucky because one of the hens laid a egg that very day! But it wasn't long until we noticed that one of the chickens never laid any eggs. It was Henny Penny. We saw that she seemed to be very anti social. Before we knew it she laid down and never got back up

Now we had three chickens remaining.

This is Molly

Adding more chickens to the flock

It was maybe a month or two since Henny Penny had died, and we wanted to add on to the flock. We looked for some Orpingtons on Craigslist. It

didn't take long until we found two very pretty Blue looking chickens. We did not have a clue to what type of chicken they were. We ended up calling the people and asking if we could buy them, and of course they said yes! Later that week we went to go pick them up. When we

brought them back home we let them out of the box to free range! But one of our Toy Poodles got out and Attacked one of the new chickens!

Luckily she made it out alive, but she had trapped herself under the deck! We could not get her out from under there! That night neither of the new chickens came back on the chicken coop! We went looking out there for about two hours! We came back

empty handed.That morning I woke up and went o

utside to let the chickens out. I

couldn't

believe what I saw! I was looking at one of the new chickens, but she was dead

We think she fell down from a tree and broke her neck! But on the bright side we had found the other chicken not long after finding sister. One day I was on the internet and these chickens that looked a lot like the one remaining hen that we had got recently, they were called Blue Orpingtons! It turns out that I h

ad a Blue Orpington! We ended up naming her Henny!

This is Henny

We get chicks

After having Henny for a month we decided that we wanted chicks! We found some mixed breed chicks for $3 each! We ended up getting three. They were named Foxy Roxy, Minnie Penny, and Peppermint! It didn't take long for us to figure out that we had two roosters and one hen! Then we decided to add on to the young little chick flock... we got four more! We got a Buff Orpington, a mixed breed, and two Splash Marans! We named them Lou Lou, Zoe, Blondie, and Chloe! But sadly one night a young raccoon got into the coop that the little chicks were being housed in! That night that raccoon took two lives away

Months later we got rid of the three roosters. A couple months after that Lou Lou laid her very first egg. And only days after she laid her first egg, her best friend Minnie Penny was brutally murdered by a large family of raccoons!!!! So far Lou Lou is the only remaining first chick.

Lou Lou is the one on the left and Minnie Penny is on the right

Henny goes broody

Soon Henny goes broody!!!! We were so excited to get more chicks!!! This time we looked for Lavender Orpington chicks. Almost one week goes by and we are still looking for chicks to put under Henny! Finally I find some that are in Seattle! They were $7 each and we thought that was a good deal! Two days later we go to Seattle and get the chicks! We were so happy! We got to see the rooster and the hens the guy had. They were so pretty!! That evening we put the four chicks under Henny. I did my best to tell the gender of the chicks, I thought at first we had three hens and one rooster. But then I took another guess and this time it looked like we had two hens and two roosters! Three months go by and Henny still has not weaned them! So we had to wean them ourselves. It was kinda sad to see how desperate Henny was to get her chicks! It has been almost six months since we got them and now they are young adults! They are so much fun to have! And we have no plans on getting rid of ANY of them

These are the Lavender Orpington Chicks

My current flock

My current flock that I have right now include 1 Black Sex Link (Molly), 1 Black Australorp (Millie), 1 Blue Orpington (Henny), 1 new Buff Orpington (Lizzie), And 6 Lavender Orpingtons named Quincy, George, Ava, Ella, Lexi, and Lyla! Lexi and Lyla are fairly new to the flock like Lizzie. And they all get along just fine... I love my chickens soooooo much! I don't know what I would do without them in my life!!!