out of the loop: freeloaders.

Quinn and venus

first, a quick hello to my grandma (my fancy grandma, mary nell, who my chicken nellie is named for). Grandma got her own ipad for Christmas and i hope she has figured it out enough to be reading this. hi grandma!!

my oldest chickens are 20 weeks and 5 days old today. the transformation from tiny baby chick to strutting hen has been amazing to witness. they change and grow overnight.

according to all my books about chickens, all of my breeds should begin laying eggs between 16-20 weeks. which means mine are overdue. their combs and waddles are growing and turning red, so i know they are close. we are anxious to finally see our first egg in the nesting box!

though the girls are not laying yet, they are up to some other new tricks: they have started clucking and making much more noise. though it is funny, it's not great for trying to keep chickens on the sly in a suburban neighborhood.

they have also started really challenging each other - i assume for pecking order. they don't seem to bicker much at all inside their coop. in the mornings i usually find them sitting peacefully on the perch in their run. the minute i open the coop door, they rush out and then spend the next few minutes vying for dominance. one chicken will run full speed at another. if the other runs away, the battle is over. if she holds her ground, the challenger stops short, stands up tall, stretches her neck, and fluffs all her feathers up. if this doesn't do enough to intimidate, they will peck at each other until one backs off. the winner puffs up and struts proudly until she chooses another member of the flock to challenge.

this morning i watched singer challenge four other chickens in a row. she's impressive, but she's mean. and she doesn't care too much for humans. i hope she does lay pretty blue eggs (as her breed is supposed to) so she makes up for it.

after those first few minutes they go on happily scratching for bugs and napping in the tall grass in our yard.

last, they have discovered they like cat food. unbelievably the cats are too lazy or too well fed to scare the chickens off of their breakfast (some hunters i have there). the main ingredient in the cat food is chicken. so i'm terribly disgusted. i'm going to have to start feeding the cats first thing in the morning and making sure the cat food is gone before letting the cannibal chickens out. bleh.

i still love having them around. we had a backyard full of neighbor kids today laughing, chasing chickens and side stepping chicken poop. it was great. but andy is getting impatient for eggs. i think he is doing the math to see if they can ever make up for in eggs what we've spent for the coop and the organic grain we give them...

i'm not sure they can. but i do know these fluffy little freeloaders better start earning their keep.

here are many photos of the girls. i've discovered that photographing chickens is much harder for me than even photographing 2 year old humans. at least i understand and can anticipate what a toddler might do. chicken photography is a whole new ball game. who knew i would ever want nice photos of chickens? i'm working on it.