Spring chickens

My chicks are big enough to be called cockerels and pullets now. They are growing fast and they are beautiful. I still have all eleven chicks. Right now, the girls are at that age where they are much like little doves. They are perching on my hand like a pet cage bird and listening to my every word. So sweet. If you look down into the little pullets tail feathers you can see big rounded, black marked adult feathers coming out already. The boys are running about looking for someone to bump chests with and boss around.

I had a worrisome couple of days when I witnessed a long thread going down the gullet of one of my prettiest little pullets I saw her wrestling with it, trying to get it out with her claws. I picked her up and tried to pull it out, it came out a few inches then it tightened up and I dared not pull any further. I let go of the string and carried her around to try to find my garden scissors, and when I found them and moved to snip and shorten the length of thread, the tippy end of the thread was disappearing into her mouth! She moped around for a couple of days, I felt I would loose her for sure, then one morning she was all well. She lucked out there because I saw around 15 inches of thread go down, it could have done horrible damage.

Sparrow, my once lone little EE hen, is enjoying their company immensely. She spends her days lounging with them under the forsythia and digging through the leaves and old daffodil plants along the fence in the front yard with them. They are still a little wary of her and they don't follow her. They are starting to warm up to her though. I saw one running to her for comfort once after all her buddies had slipped around the corner of the house while the little chick was busy scratching for bugs in the garden.

Their run is finished! It is gorgeous. As soon as the nights warm up a bit, we are going to move their hutch into the pen to give them a nice familiar place to sleep at night in the new run until they get a little bigger. Now I have to figure out a way to get them from the run back to the yard during the day. Maybe we can work out a routine where I feed them in the run at night and in the yard in the morning.

One of little 'girls' is most definitely a little boy. He didn't start to color out until after we had him a few days. He is colored much more subtly than his brother who was well colored when we brought them home.

Two of my girls have yellow legs. That is just as well, because hopefully I can sell them with one of the boys which might make it easier to find him a home. I will be loath to give up any of them, even the ones who loose breed type.

I am very happy with my chicks. They are going to be lovely eye candy when they get grown up. They are so sweet and tame. They are flying up onto my shoulder, sometimes so many at once that they jostle for position. The most flighty ones are very tame in comparison to most chickens I have had. One day, when a little pullet was startled by a barking dog, she literally jumped right up into my arms! They are so dear.

Two things have the power to transport me into happiness ... the sound of horses peacefully munching hay and the sweet chip-chip song chickens make as they scratch in the garden for bugs.