A chicken update

Picture 1: the big kids hanging out on top of their house like Snoopy. Front is Olive, middle is Miss Kitty, left is Muffin, right is Liz Lemon, back is Skittles
Picture 2: Roxie, Flea & Marc

If you had asked me a few months ago if I thought chickens had wildly unique personalities I would not have thought so-- however my seven do.

The "big kids"
Liz Lemon: the leader of the pack, the biggest and the bossiest. She also has recently developed very large dark "eyebrows" that bear a strong resemblance to groucho marx's making her look rather menacing. She is definitely the top of the pecking order.

Muffin: definitely the noisiest. She makes this funny sound to announce everything she does, kind of like a little kazoo. She talks constantly and was the reason the chickens had to be moved to the back bedroom when they were inside because she is so loud! She is also my favorite as she talks to me and doesn't mind being held (once she gets over the trauma of being picked up). Muffin also seems to eat twice as much as the others and is a very enthusiastic digger, wiggling her chicken hips to get deep into the earth in search of bugs and worms. We also call her the bulldozer because she will barrel through whatever the other chickens are doing in an attempt to participate, including sometimes jumping on their heads or into my lap.

Miss Kitty: Is Muffin's sister but really has much less personality. She is often the last one eating after everyone else is asleep. Her adult feathers are half grown-in on her head making her look a bit like she has a mullet.

Olive: is the phoenix and the dainty girly-girl. She doesn't make much progress when she digs in the dirt and daintily wipes her mouth on the grass after she eats a worm. She is like the little girl on the playground in the party dress that doesn't want to get dirty and sits primly on the sidelines while the other kids play in the mud.

Skittles: is the baby of the big kids-- by far the smallest but she makes up for it by being the smartest and the best hunter. She is the only one that doesn't run away when I refill the food dish and she finds more worms than any of the other chickens. She will sit nicely beside me and let me pet her and is the easiest to catch.

The little kids:

Flea: is into everything. She has no fear and is constantly looking for ways to escape her box. The few times we have let the little chickens out with the big ones she immediately goes flying up to (or into) Liz Lemon which results in her getting pecked on and everyone getting yelled at. I'm not sure if she thinks she is challenging Lizzie, or just wants to make friends, but Liz does not appreciate it! She is also lightning fast which makes me nervous when she is outside because she's hard to catch.

Roxie: is the tagalong little sister. She goes wherever Flea goes and tries to do whatever Flea does, but she's a lot smaller and more fearful so she is not always sucessful. If Flea gets more than a foot away and Roxie can't see her Roxie freaks out and starts crying and searching for her.

So those are my kids. They are very entertaining.