Too Many Animals

While all four chickens have definitely had personalities from day one, lately they've been maturing and getting more interesting. Debbie, for instance, really like flying and perching. When we went out today, she was the first to leave the transport box (I've been letting them make their own way out rather than lifting them). She's also the most interested in hanging out with me.

She spent a bunch of time perching on the edges of the box before deciding to move on to the grass. It was a good opportunity for me to check out her new feathers.

Liza is also getting some interesting new feathers.

Carole seems to just be getting fluffier. She's also growing feathers on her head.

Here's more of Liza's head feathers. As you can see, they grow out attached to the chick fluff, so at the end of each new feather is a little tassel of fluff.

Debbie, here, is a little behind on the head feathering. But you can see that the fluff is loosening up and the darker head feathers are coming in. It's made her head kind of marbled.

Here's another look at Carole's head and neck. She's getting a nice caramely colour (well, buff, I suppose). There are still a lot of points where you can see her bare skin under the new feathers. But she's not looking quite as mangy as a week ago.

Everybody's body feathers are mostly filled in. On Debbie here you can see the last bits of fluff at the end of feathers around her shoulders. She's also a little bald around the legs, but I couldn't get her to hold a pose for the camera.

Check out Carole's awesome tail.

Another feature of today's exercise was peck-the-human. For some reason they were all very interested in pecking at me for about a minute. They're definitely aware of me and will come running to hide under me if something startles them, and Debbie flew up into my hand to take a ride for a few minutes.