Pipd’s Peeps:
The Dorkings

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In the spring of 2013, I eagerly awaited my annual chick order. This was the year that I decided to try out various white egg laying breeds and decide which was a good fit, personality-wise, for my flock. I wanted white eggs for the variety in my egg basket, but also so that my niece and nephew could have white eggs from my flock to dye on Easter rather than getting those insipid store-bought white eggs. I had ordered a Campine, a Lakenvelder, a Fayoumi, an Ancona, a couple varieties of Leghorn, and my very first Silver Gray Dorking, the breed I was most looking forward to raising. On the way to pick them up, however, tragedy struck—I got the call from the hatchery that the Dorkings hadn’t hatched well, and there weren’t enough for my order.

By 2014, I had raised the remaining white egg laying breeds and had mostly resigned myself to having crazy, flighty birds in my flock if I wanted those white eggs. But I had desperately wanted a Dorking, in love with their beautiful feather pattern and the idea of a docile white egg layer, and so I gave it another go, this time ordering two. The trip to pick them (and their broodmates of other breeds) up was a long one, with the nagging fear that history would repeat itself and I would again be Dorking-less. We soon arrived at Meyer Hatchery, and there, waiting in their little box with the air holes punched out, were my Dorkings—four of them. Somehow, my order had been doubled.

If I had known then what I do now, I would have taken all four of those babies happily. However, I didn’t want to push the number of birds I could fit in my coop at the time, and so rather than accepting those extra two Dorking pullets, I declined, taking just the two I had ordered. This is possibly the biggest regret of my chickening life! We arrived home with those two precious Dorking pullets and the few other chicks I had ordered along with them, and it didn’t take long at all before I was head over heels for Dorkings.

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Kit and Elda, my first two Dorkings

What do I love about Dorkings? I love that they’re big into cuddling! I love that they make me laugh every day with their quirky vocalizations and random antics. I love that they are absolutely gorgeous! I love that they’re so calm and laid back about pretty much anything. I love that they always know when I need to be cheered up with some hugs. And, of course, I love that I can collect white eggs from my flock without having to keep buying crazy birds! Hands down, after more than a dozen years of chickening and having raised many, many other breeds, Dorkings are my favorite!


Elda

Elda is the bird that started it all. She and her sister, Kit, were my first two Dorkings. Elda was always the cuddlier of the two of them, though Kit spent plenty of her own time getting pampered and hugged. Elda has always been a solid bird, and is referred to as my primary therapist in the flock. She has time and time again proven that she knows when I need her. Regardless of what she is doing at the time, if I’m the least bit upset about anything when I enter the chicken yard, she will hurry over to let me hold and hug her.

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Elda, waiting at my feet for me to pick her up, and enjoying some cuddles.

Elda is a very laid back bird and doesn’t seem to be overly fond of any type of food or really anything in particular other than cuddles. Over the years, there is just one thing I have seen Elly express complete dislike of, however, and that’s my call duck, Crash. When Elda was ill in the fall of 2015, she and Crash were roommates, and Elda hated every moment of it! To this day, she gives Crash dirty looks whenever she’s around.

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A staredown: Elda versus Crash

Sadly, it was during that winter that we lost Elly’s sister Kit, to a hawk, the first daytime predator I had ever lost a bird to. Kit and Elda were very close, even in the end, and Elly’s never been as close to any other bird in my flock since.

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Elda (sitting) and Kit during their first winter.

A summary of Elda:
Hatch Date: May 18, 2014
Origin: Meyer Hatchery in Polk Ohio
Variety: Silver Gray
Personality: Sweet and cuddly, of course!
Likes / Dislikes: She likes cuddles, and dislikes Call Ducks
Eggs: White and pretty round



Callette and Lydda

The year after losing my Kit-Kit to a hawk, I decided I needed more Dorkings. I didn’t just want them, I needed them. Since I adored these birds so, I decided to get a trio to attempt hatching some at home. In the spring of 2016, I brought home my three new Dorking babies: the girls Callette and Lydda, and a young cockerel named Don. Donnie was a sweet little guy, not too pushy and shaping up to be a decent flock rooster, but another chick of a different breed had been missexed, and that young cockerel was a bully. One hot summer day, having been bullied away from the water source in the chick pen, Donnie succumbed to the heat and sadly, I was unable to revive him.

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Callette and Donnie

Callette and Lydda lived on, however, and they fully lived up to my expectations for Dorkings. Of course, they distinguish themselves in personality from Elda; Callette is bold and curious, while Lydda is quirky and reserved. Callette is often flying up to new heights to poke around. She acts as if she wants to lay an egg in an exciting new location, but when it comes down to it, she always hurries right back to the coop to lay after all! I’ve found her everywhere from the wood pile to under the empty feed bags, and even on top of the AC condenser!

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Lydda, meanwhile, could be described as… hungry. Okay, she’s not an overeater, but many of the times I catch her on camera, she’s eating something!

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Lydda is a bit more reserved than the other Dorkings, but that doesn’t mean she’s not just as cuddly. She’d just prefer to hang back until the other birds have cleared away. She’s never been the bold type, and she’s a bit jumpy about squatting for me even when I’m just walking by. Lydda is always muttering in her funny little voice, while the other Dorks tend to say it loud and proud! Of course, if Lydda has an egg to lay, all bets on volume are off!

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A summary of Callette and Lydda:
Hatch Date: May 16, 2016
Origin: Meyer Hatchery in Polk, Ohio
Variety: Silver Gray
Personality: Callette is bold and curious; Lydda is quiet, but quirky
Likes / Dislikes: I’m not sure they have dislikes! But Callette loves poking around in new places, and Lydda loves food.
Eggs: White; both are more traditionally egg-shaped than Elda’s, but quite similar to one another’s, though Lydda’s tend to be larger




The Sand Hill Dorkings

Since falling in love with the breed, one variety of Dorking has always stood out to me as something I want to see walking around my yard, and that is the Colored Dorking. In 2016, I decided to finally send an order into Sand Hill Preservation Center, including Colored Dorkings and Red Dorkings, for 2017. Like my first experience with Dorkings, unfortunately, those Colored Dorkings just weren’t laying early in 2017. Instead, I was sent a refund for them, and Dark Gray Dorkings to fill out the order along with my Red Dorkings.

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The Dark Gray Dorkings when they arrived. Tessa and Echo are the two with eyeliner.

To be honest, the Dark Grays are not my favorite. They are visually beautiful birds, but they are lacking basically everything about Dorkings that I love. They’re smaller than my Silver Grays and differ in body structure. Rather than round, deep-bodied birds, they are trimmer in appearance, though quite heavy for their size. Worse yet is their personality, shy and skitterish with no intention at all to be around humans. Still, they are pretty birds and make for nice yard candy. From a distance, of course!

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Tessa and Echo. They made telling them apart easy with their combs; Tessa's falls to the right,
while Echo's falls to the left.

A summary of Echo and Tessa:
Hatch Date: April 3, 2017 (estimated)
Origin: Sand Hill Preservation Center, Calamus, Iowa
Variety: Dark Gray
Personality: Distant and skittery, particularly Echo
Likes / Dislikes: They definitely dislike people…
Eggs: White, with just a slight tint to them that makes their eggs distinguishable from the other Dorkings’




The Red Dorkings, on the other hand, are lovely, big birds with the sweet personalities I had come to expect from my Dorks. Unfortunately, of the six I ordered, only one was a pullet, my sweet Perdita. And, even more unfortunate was that she had been trampled by her broodmates during shipping and this had injured her leg, an injury that never resolved itself. Perdita gets around fairly well, hopping on her good leg or limping with her bad one, but she’s quite fond of being held so she can rest that bad leg and relax for a bit.

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Perdita, as a baby and now.

Out of the many roosters, I kept only two. Dante didn’t feather in the appropriate coloration, but is otherwise healthy, calm, and gentle. Darwin, on the other hand, is colored correctly and perhaps a bit full of himself compared to Dante, but also fairly calm, if a bit excitable. Darwin also isn’t exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, having proven this on numerous occasions of flying into things or tripping over his own feet. What can I say, he got his name for a reason!

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Darwin (on the left) and Dante

A summary of Perdita:
Hatch Date: April 3, 2017 (estimated)
Origin: Sand Hill Preservation Center, Calamus, Iowa
Variety: Red
Personality: Quiet, but sweet
Likes / Dislikes: She loves being held!
Eggs: White, and the smallest of all my Dorking hens’ eggs


A summary of Darwin and Dante:
Hatch Date: April 3, 2017 (estimated)
Origin: Sand Hill Preservation Center, Calamus, Iowa
Variety: Red
Personality: Dante is calm and quiet; Darwin is a bit of a show off, but also quite calm
Likes / Dislikes: Darwin looooves crowing, because he’s so impressive when he does, right? Dante likes quiet walks with the ladies along the fence row.




Myrna and Kita

Myrna and Kita (who was named after her late sister, Kit) are the youngest additions to the Dorking squad, a moment-of-weakness addition to a moment-of-weakness chick order from Meyer Hatchery. In the late spring of 2018, I had had a poor hatch with my own bantam Cochins and was afraid that all three were cockerels. I decided to get a few more Cochin bantams to brood with them with the hopes of acquiring at least one or two pullets. Since Meyer doesn’t sex their bantams, and I was expecting only to get that one or two pullets out of the lot of them, I figured I may as well get some guaranteed pullets as well. A few weeks later and it became evident that I had gotten a lot more pullets than expected—7 total in the brood, when I expected only 3 or 4 at the most including the two Dorkings!

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Kita and Myrna, along with their Cochin broodmates Sylvie, Bryony, Roxy, and Vira,
perched on a fallen branch.

Still, I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to get more Dorkings, and Myrna and Kita certainly don’t disappoint. They’re young still, but so far Kita seems bold and adventurous like Callette, while Myrna is more the quiet and reserved type, ironically a rather lot like Kit-Kit was. Both love their cuddles, though, and are happy for lap time if they can get to me before the rest of the Dorkings do!

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Myrna and Kita enjoying some cuddles before going outside to play.

A summary of Myrna and Kita:
Hatch Date: May 21, 2018
Origin: Meyer Hatchery in Polk, Ohio
Variety: Silver Gray
Personality: Myrna is quiet and reserved, while Kita is bold and adventurous
Likes / Dislikes: None are evident so far, other than they definitely don’t like being around the Marans pullets that were added to the flock a few months before them!
Eggs: To be determined!



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