Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!

Why, hello.

The girls are growing like crazy!  They are getting taller, more shapely, and their wings are developing rapidly.  We can see noticeable changes every day!

They still huddle together a lot, especially around sleep time, but they also run and play more and more.  They like to flex their new wings, so there is a lot more stretching and flapping and hopping and wee bits of flight.  Oh, and there is a new jungle gym.

Jon and Abby collected some sticks to give the girls perches and play things.

The jungle gym is a popular hang-out.

So is the feeder.

I love this photo of the girls at the feeder.  It really shows the stages of wing development we've seen so far.  It started at the tips, and then we noticed a little row of tiny feathers at the tops of their wings.  You can see that they are all at various stages of development, even though they are the same age.  We call the one on the left "Little Wing" (for obvious reasons) and the one on the right "Long Wing" (we are not a fancy people).  Long Wing is the only chick whose wings actually reach all the way back to her rapidly developing tail feathers.  Little Wing, on the other hand, seems to be developing much more slowly than everyone else, though she is just as fun and feisty as her sisters.

I think they look like mythical creatures at this stage.  Think pegasus or gryphon.  The wings seem incongruous on to their fuzzy, fluffy bodies.  And yet they also seem rather majestic.

I know people say that chickens aren't very smart, and they probably wouldn't do very well studying Chaucer or Calculus, but they are definitely curious, active, and interested in each other and the world around them!

Look at those curious eyes!

One of the girls has taken a liking to Jon.  He calls her Annie because her head is more red-ish colored than any of the other gals.  After Jon held her for a few minutes, he bent down so she could hop off of his hand, and instead she stayed for a while.


Then she let him pat her while she was standing in the brooder!  So sweet!

That's the latest.  Time to go help with a brooder clean out!