2005apr29. For roughly the first three weeks, being picked up entailed a massive goose freak-out. Which sucked, because we were putting them in the pen only during the day, so that meant moving them twice a day in and out of the Babyjail™. It got bad enough toward the end that we were wearing gloves to keep from being scratched. Once they were staying in the pen 24 hours a day, there was no reason to pick them up. But now they’re all fluffy and heavy so I couldn’t resist. They’re large enough that I can pick them up with one hand slid underneath them, between the legs (the dangerous opening is actually much higher up in the back). Strangely, if they’re pre-occupied with pulling on your shirt/pants or eating and they don’t notice you picking them up, they’ll just continue what they’re doing while their feet dangle. Which of course is amazing and hilarious. If they’re not doing anything and you’re lucky enough to pick them up, they’ll sit there for a little while, then start nibbling on your arm. But if they see you trying to pick them up – if they see your hand sneaking up on them -- they’ll walk/run away (even climbing over each other), squawking. I consider the former a fair trade – you get to yank my nutritious shirt, I get to pick you up. And they’re just crazysoft now with down. I can see actual nubs of what are clearly feathers on one of the Toulouses, though maybe some of the other weird stuff growing out of all of them is also feather-based. It’s incredible that the little stubs they had for wings back in the Spinach Squadron days now have three segments.
I don’t get the bath freak-outs, though, or actually I don’t get that when one freaks out, the rest have to join in. I had to corral them today with my arm to stop them, because they kept banging into each other during the free-form freak-out session. Now if I had done that and they weren’t freaking out, they would have ... freaked out. My arm is like a goose toggle switch.