I must say, my chickens are handling my toddler much better than I thought they would. They haven't had to deal with him all winter because he hasn't been outside much, and neither have they with all the snow we had. But now that the weather is nicer, he likes to go out in the yard and visit with the chickens. He chases them, grabs their tails, and tries to "hug" them by laying his head against them. Most of the time they just walk away, and my leghorn Celeste won't actually let him get close enough to touch him. But I think one of my EE, Merna, actually likes him. When he's grabbed hold of her tail and I've pried him off her, she wanders off but not far or fast enough to prevent him from grabbing her tail again. And this afternoon she actually squatted for him and let him pet her (he did a good job being gentle with her). A few minutes later, she was scratching for bugs and after observing her for a moment he tried "scratching" with his feet too. When he "scratched" too close to her (he very nearly stepped on her), she just looked at him with a mild look of disgust that said, "you're doing it all wrong!"
