Is my pullet normal is just mad?

[raacampbell]

Hi,

I got a couple of pullets from a farm yesterday. They're 10 weeks old and the farmer said they were Araucanas but they don't have the little tufts. To me they look like an easter egger I had recently.

What I find really strange is how friendly they are. I'd have thought that farm reared chickens given almost no human contact would be very flighty but these two will sit on my lap of their own accord. Is this normal for the breed?

My real question, however, regards one of the birds which makes a trilling/chirping noise almost all the time. At first I thought she was ill, but she seems 100% happy in every other way. She can stop the noise, so it's not constant, but she just seems to content to make it most of the time. Has anybody else experienced this? Is she just mad?

Rob

 

[Uppity Peon]

Some of my EEs are friendly and enjoy a little lap time. But I seems unusual to me that you have 10 week olds that are that tame if they have never been hand fed or handled frequently.

I have an EE pullet who made a lot of unusial noises too. My son calls her squawker. I just call her cuckoo. It's more of a cooing sound I would say. She is one of the lap chickens. I wonder if she makes those sounds all the time or just when I'm around.

 

[fordmommy]

A couple things. One-I have two groups of chickens mingled together. Half from a chicken farmer and they had no human contact except when he fed them. And the other half from a farm where all the chickens were free ranged. Only locked up at night. The ones with almost no contact are the sweetest, easygoing, laidback, birds. The ones that frre ranged...unsure of humans, always leary, flighty, tense.

Two-I have an EE pullet that does that same chirpy sound. Especially if you hold her and talk to her. It's like she talks back. She's very sweet and is actually my 9 year old boy's chicken. Here's a pic. She talks a lot, but not loud.

(OOOhhh! Look at that! The person above me has almost the same chicken for their avatar.)

 

[raacampbell]

Hmmmm. How odd. Your experience sounds so much like mine.
These two hens will quite happily hop up to me and say hello. It's not as though they're dozy and ill and just don't have the energy to get away. I suppose I'll keep the chirpy hen and see how she goes.