Hello, I've been lurking about the BYC site for a couple months now and thought is was time to introduce myself. I'm a newbie to chickens, we got our 2 1/2 month old pullets the end of February. This site has been such a great resource. My DH built a great little coop, pretty inexpensively-visit our page for pictures. I'm in Aberdeen, almost on the coast of Southwestern WA.
We have eight hens about four months old now and are really enjoying them. They are really easy keepers! We have them set up next to my green house - so on nice evenings we're enjoying pulling up a chair and watching chickens, who would have ever thunk chickens would be so entertaining.
They seem to be doing really, really well. All are fat and very active, all seem to be getting along, there are two that seem to be the alpha hens, but not to much "hen pecking".
I am hoping for eggs around the first of May. I am fairly certain they are all hens, no spurs no big combs or wattles and most importantly no crowing. They are now fully feathered except for those cute fuzzy butts, does that stay or do they eventually loss those?