I'm starting to think Professor Fluffles needs a name change. More like the Countess of Fluffles. She has a very dignified walk and rarely runs anywhere. All the other chickens are very happy to come beg for and fight over treats. Fluffles never gets involved in those scuffles; she just watches as they all fight each other. I've never seen her sunbathe nor does she ever look like she's taken a dustbath. The other silkies will sometimes walk around sporting grass, woodchips, and dirt on their wing and tail feathers after a good dust bath, not her. She preens obsessively. She hates being picked up--that transition between standing on the ground and being held is just undignified--but loves being carried around. She'll sit happily on your lap for a while if you scratch her in just the right place on her back. But when she wants down, she'll stare longingly at the ground until you put her down. Jumping is undignified. She has her own "lady-in-waiting" in Cottonball who follows her around almost everywhere and sleeps surrounded by all the silkies plus the egg layers who still don't roost. And to top it off today, my son tried to feed her a grape, but she wouldn't eat it until he peeled it for her.
It's funny to see her in comparison to Pinto, who just jumps into the fray with the larger egg layers, gets dirty in mud, runs around the yard like mad chasing bugs, eats like a pig (I swear that chick always has a full crop whenever I pick it up) and generally believes it's one of the "big chickens." Being small, Pinto sneaks up under a bigger chicken and steals the treat from her mouth. Being fast, nobody can catch it to get the treat back. It's a tiny thing even though it's nine weeks old. My six-week-old silkie chicks are almost as big as Pinto.
