Going Chicken-Crazy, Part II (In With The New)

With the old flock rehomed, it was time to begin assembling the new flock. In late fall, it wasn't easy to find peeps available in the breeds we wanted, so we had to order from two different hatcheries. These commercial hatcheries typically have a 25-peep minimum in order to ensure that they have enough warmth during shipping. So, we ended up placing two orders, one with Xtreme Gamebirds and the other with Welp Hatchery, in order to get (most of) the breeds we wanted. We figured we'd sell the surpluses on craigslist. In this first group, we ordered Rhode Island Reds, Barred Rocks, Partridge Rocks, Black Australorps, Buff Orpingtons, Golden Laced Wyandottes, Silver Laced Wyandottes, Silver Lace Cochins and Buff Cochins.

In preparation for raising fifty peeps inside our cottage, we set up six large Sterilite plastic storage containers as brooders, each with a 100 watt red light suspended above it for warmth.

Here is one batch of peeps in their shipping box (hazy cell phone picture)...



peeps in the brooder...



By the time they were two weeks old, we used some cardboard boxes and pieced together a large brooder, approximately 3'x7', to give them all plenty of room to run and play. A couple weeks later, we redid this and enlarged it to 7'x7'.



The Rhode Island Reds were very outgoing and inquisitive from the start.





Here they are at six weeks...