Quick chicken update

Just a short post to get us through until I can put together a proper one...

The chicks are now officially chickens.  Many have lost all of their fuzz, and a few just need back feathers.  Tuesday is weigh-in day - I put the scale on the floor, watch until a chicken climbs on, and record the weight.  After I get 5 weights (with caveats: the same weight will not be recorded twice, and the weight of the biggest and the smallest birds will not be recorded) I average them.  Last night, at the age of 6 weeks, our average weight is 18.14 oz - just over a pound.  Awesome :)  Then, out of curiosity, I tried to weigh the biggest looking birds I could - the largest cockerel is 23.8 oz, and the largest pullet is 23.9 oz.  That's a solid pound and a half each!

I've been mulling over which ones to keep - Hal and Cathy (the great hospitality, advise, raspberry and other assorted plant providers) would like a rooster and three or four hens, and we are thinking of keeping a few to regenerate a small meat flock when desired.  I'm thinking of keeping the biggest chickens (tall people usually have tall children, so logically, plump chickens should hatch more plump chickens), and breaking any ties by factoring in attitude as I don't want angry, unsocial birds.  Even now, some birds are friendlier than others, although I try to interact with most of them when I pop in every day.

And they're getting friendly with Zim:

Most of the time both Zim and the chickens are moving - these are the best three pictures I've gotten in the last two weeks.  The bottom two are from last night.