It seems like every day when I go look at the chickies, they have all kinds of new feathers. Today Joan started showing her bars (from which they got the name Barred Rock).
Also starting to form are the combs. All chickens have combs, not just roosters. But roosters have big combs, and that's one of the signs that you may have a boy in the group (they're sold as pullets, but chicken sexing is an art rather than a science, and there's a 10 percent chance that a bird may actually be male).
This is Debbie, showing me her pretty comb. (You can tell because her wing feathers are tipped with white, and also you can just see the black dots on the back of her head. I'm getting good at this.)
For some reason, Debbie felt the need to sort of drape herself over the retaining block like this.
Lately the chicks have been doing a lot more dust bathing and general wallowing in their bedding. I had to put their water jar up on a stand to keep it free of kicked-up bedding from their more enthusiastic moments. I wonder if growing feathers makes them feel all itchy.
Most of today's exercise hour was spent in an extensive, all-chick dust bath right next to me. As you can see, they kicked quite a lot of dirt up over my foot and leg.
The photos I took of the dust bath are almost disturbing. Without motion, the chicks appear sprawled out dead with their heads at unnatural angles. And, of course, they are all very gray because they were covered in dust.
Carole dug herself a nice little wallow to bathe in, and was often joined by one of the others. The chicks really do spend a lot of their time right next to each other.
And every now and then, they would just sort of pause, roll over, and lie there as if this was the most wonderful thing in the world. Chickens definitely like dirt.
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