Actually, week nine. I’m a little derelict in my documentation duties. But, who’s counting?! Because we have pullets! Erm, I think we do. The definition of pullet is a little vague. It’s a “female chicken under one year old”. When does that start? When they lay their first egg? Well, we ain’t there yet (unfortunately). Or when they are juvenile delinquents? In which case, we are in! Pullets, I declare!

Here’s our Cherie Chicken, 50% +/- grown up.

She requires two hands to hold now, as opposed to just one.

Keeping with the comparisons, because those are fun…

At Week Six.

Week Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

Almost a real chicken now. Sigh. They all are. It’s my own pack of dinosaurs.

For whatever reason, I find their evening roosting very entertaining. So many chickens trying to squeeze onto the top location. Shuffling and hilarity often ensues. It gives me a good excuse to check on them just before bed.

The walk is a little longer than to the laundry room. The Ladies have been living outside for weeks, with no supplementary heat. If that doesn’t say “Big Chicken” I don’t know what does. The only throw-back to babyhood, is the “peep peep peep” I still hear, amongst an occasional “bock bock be-gock”. Chicken voices cracking? Also hilarious.

This is usually what I find in the mornings.

Oh, Hi.

They migrate from their roosts en masse to hang out together on top of the nesting boxes and take advantage of the sunlight. Apparently, we are all working out our morning rituals.

Gaga performs a little early morning Chicken Yoga.

We are not without out our coming of age challenges, however. This is another area in which we are perhaps pushing the definition of Pullet. As in, never mind the age, is Suzie a Roo?

The “girl” in question.

Our girl Suzie is a little bigger, a little bossier, (although so is Cherie and no one is questioning her sex), with a distinctly larger comb and waddle than the rest of the flock. She also tends to lead the way in eating, foraging, and going in and out of the Coop. Things that make you go hmmmm…

If it turns out we have a boy named Sue (we asked for that), I can deal. Unfortunately, Sue is not the only chicken subject to this suspicion. There is also a lovely lady we’ve taken to calling Not-Madge, as in she looks very much like our Chicken named Madge, but is… not Madge.

Not-Madge suffers from many of the same afflictions as our Suzie. Plus, there’s been a little tension between the two “girls”.

By all accounts, I can’t be certain whether Suzie and Not-Madge are boys or just pushy broads until/if their voices emerge in earnest. In other words, you don’t know until they crow. That could happen any time now. Crowing starts betweens two to four months. So far, these two have been tight beaked. They aren’t outing themselves either way.

Two Cockerels!? Two? This would mean out of my original ten girls, I’ve two boys and one bantam (let’s not forget Little Bird). That’s only 70% chicken as advertised. It also brings up some chicken ownership concerns (Read: butchering), I was not planning to address for some time. Housing options for boy chickens are limited, especially in the city, especially for two such boy chickens who won’t be happy living together for long.

Think girly thoughts with me, wont you?