Growth spurt

The two big ones are tall enough now to look over the edge of the box without craning their necks.  They spend most of their time outside the box now anyways, and they are joined now by the next largest bird, the black one.  This is the one I crushed, who was dragging a leg around for three days, but he has made an apparently full recovery and is growing at a great rate.  So they are a little clique of three, the out-of-the-boxers, and they tour around together, always near each other, pecking at the wood on the walls and slowly inspecting the perimeter of the coop.They flap back into the box to warm up under the lamp once in a while.They can fly short distances now, which one proved when I cornered him to pick him up.  They are sprouting feathers everywhere, that stick out at humorous angles and look glued on, but after a day or two seem to settle into their right place.  Now the Jersey Giants look quite well feathered out, like small but real birds, with their funny feathered feet.The next two largest, the two grey ones, are on the verge of joining the gang of teenagers outside the box.  They hop up on the side and teeter there.There are wildly disparate growth rates.  While the largest have big, impressive, working wings, the tiniest one still has little fluffy penguin wings.  The rest of the small birds are taller but still puffballs, some developing necks, but generally just bouncing downy fluffballs.One of the biggies did his/her usual skid in to roosting position and settled right on top of a little one, like he was an egg.  The under-chick screeched and flapped and struggled out with much indignant peeping.I was going to say that they were mostly ignoring their custom made jungle gym and skipping straight to perching on the sides of the box when I caught one roosting on the training perch I made.They’re going to be hard to leave for two weeks; when I come back, I expect they will be much changed.