People buy chickens for different reasons: Fancy feathers, maybe, or 300 eggs per year. The buff Orpington is pretty enough, but it’s no crested Polish or silver spangled Hamburg.

Sadly, though, Buff Orpingtons are generously proportioned chickens; not even the most lavishly endowed of the breed would’ve had a prayer of incubating so super-sized a clutch.

Baby chicks including Black Australorps, Rhode Island Reds and Buff Orpingtons huddle next to each other for warmth in their brooding pen. Kelly Rausch File photo With the rise in the price of ...

One of a 100 baby chicks that arrived at the Carr Hardware Store in North Adams on Wednesday afternoon warms itself under a heat lamp. While 40 chicks were preordered, 100 are available for sale.

This story is dedicated to a chicken. Her name was Abigal. Originally, I hadn’t planned to devote my tale to the memory of a Buff Orpington – a lovely, coppery-colored chicken.