
They’re so funny. You can see them growing in a matter of hours. Their personalities are emerging. I’m not inclined to name them until I know who gets to stay or until their names reveal themselves, but there’s a bossy one, a teensy one, a zippy one, and one of them looks just like an Amazonian spider from the top; I love the markings. One when I pick it up struggles, peep peep peep, but when you stroke his/her head he/she goes to sleep, almost involuntarily. Zzzz, then wakes up, “hey!”, struggles again. Funny.
So easy to zero in on and forget time, just watching them be chicks. They sleep like horses, standing up. They just stop in the middle of going somewhere, the eyes blink and slowly close, then the head gets heavy and folds down with the beak tucking between the feet or else coming to rest on the ground. The falling asleep side by side face down in the food trough is especially cute. Then they wake up and keep going, or else another bird bowls into them or into a group of sleepers.
You can pick one up while it’s resting, wide awake and scrapping, then set it back down in the same place and it’ll sleep again without taking a step. When they really get into sleeping, the legs rock and fold until they come to “nest position” on the floor, but that’s more for night time. The big two don’t sleep on their feet, they fold their legs the moment they have the intention of napping, with the effect of plowing with their momentum. Flop! And they crash into the resting clutch of birds that gave them the idea and wake them up.
I was in there looking at the big chicks towering like ostriches over the little puffballs, and their wings are well feathered out. No sooner had I thought, I bet they’re strong enough to jump out of the box, than one flapped strenuously and leaped onto the edge of the board. He/she immediately lowered into “roost position”, rocked queasily a couple times, whoa, and after a few seconds, tipped gracelessly back into the box. As soon as he/she gained the edge of the box, the three strongest small chicks shot their necks up and hopped like kids, trying to do the same thing. So funny.
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