[Pecky & Ella above, with Amanda & Mark]

Our ex-neighbors did attain Amanda’s goal of having some chickens.  Mark got a dozen fertile eggs from a friend, and they incubated them with a warmer.  They hatched a day earlier than they were supposed to . . . .  Amanda could hear them peeping inside the shells, so she loaded them in a plastic bin with a rigged-up lightbulb warmer and took them on a business trip with her.  They ended up hatching in a Hampton Inn somewhere.

The warmer was insufficiently warm, so they didn’t dry off as quickly as they ought to have.  Luckily, Amanda had brought a hair dryer on her trip . . . Did you know that it’s not only possible to blow-dry a chicken, but that they also LIKE it (the warmth)?  I didn’t, either.  Sorry there are no pix of the tiny chicks being blow-dried.

The three more recent additions to the family [below] have not, to my knowledge, been blow-dried.  They were bought day-old, and guaranteed to all be girls.

Here are Plymouth Barred Rock pullets, posing outside their little coop, under their picture.