For the last few days Peaches has been jumping on my back whenever I stoop down. Today Barley joined in as well. Every time I went in to poop pick they followed me around and kept jumping on my back. They especially seem to like it when I am near the ladder as they jump from the ladder to my back and back to the ladder repeatedly.
I decided to see if my husband could capture this on camera.
Barley on my back
Barley is interested in my hair
They both like to gently tweak my hair. Maybe they are intrigued that I have hair instead of feathers.
Because I wasn’t quite in the same position as when poop picking Peaches tried to jump on too but slid off (I wasn’t bent over enough to give her more of my back). You can see her in the background at the water.
When I was bent fully over by the ladder they both jumped on me at the same time so we may try to get a photo of that another day.
I wonder what makes them want to do this. I love it though as I enjoy them interacting with me.
The funny thing is my big girls used to do this. But when they were chicks I would sit on my little chair on their patio area and they started by jumping on my lap then my arms, shoulder and back and sometimes even my head (not ideal).
The little girls never did this though so although I spend as much time with them as I can I never bothered sitting on the little chair. I instinctively knew they wouldn’t sit on my lap. This makes me wonder why these two are the only ones of the little girls to do this. I wonder if it because I got them younger (only six weeks old) or if it is just their nature.
Whatever it is it makes me smile. As I have said before it is all on their own terms. They run to me, they follow me, they like to get on eye level with me and now they like to jump on me and peck at my cloths or tweak my hair but they do not want me to touch them. If I were to reach out to them they would be off.
It’s fine by me though. The fact that they don’t want to be touched makes it all the more special that they want to touch me.
Click here to see the history of my flock.
You are definitely a crazy chicken lady. It’s great when they sit on your lap or your arm, but I never let mine stand on my back!
Why not! What’s the difference! Any way we all know that I am a crazy chicken lady.
It’s just like the old days .
Much more interesting though I reckon , I wonder what their next trick will be?
Great pictures .
It does remind me of the big girls. You never know what these girls will do next though. I thought you would probably think “here we go again” but they are so light and feel quite different. They are an all new experience somehow. I just love them.
I think you will still feel very comfortable visiting them. They are so sweet and as yet haven’t attempted to jump on anyone other than me and in fact don’t get close to anyone other than me and they are so small. Seeing the photo of Barley on my back made me see how small she is. It’s not until I actually see a photo that I can visualise it but they feel feather light on me compared to the big girls.
I didn’t expect to ever have chickens jumping on me again but now they are I am finding that I love it again. I know I am, as Steve says, a crazy chicken lady!
Just brilliant!
My “chicken friend” Jackie used to be a bit wary of my chickens habit of jumping on me. Peaches and Barley did not quite perform in front of her (we should know they never do what they do in front of a visitor) but they tweaked my belt and looked like they might jump on me but didn’t but she said she could see their bond to me as they followed me and pecked my cloths and pulled at my belt. They do everything at their own special way.