Ngl, we have a marans hen, which is a fairly small breed, and she's at least twice the size of these.

Also, other than the mess, chickens are way better companion animals than I would have thought. They are, however, messier than any other bird I've seen, and I used to date a "bird girl" from a family that had dozens of birds in their home.

But damn, when ours decides to be cuddly, it's a very fulfilling cuddle. She'll get up on my chest like she did back when she was still smaller than one of these, nestle into my beard and just trill happily. It's fucking brutal, just absolutely heart wrenching in its cuteness.

That being said, holy shit are they bonkers. Like, they're a single minded destruction machine when they want to be (our chickens anyway), they're bossy, and it was very difficult to train the little marans hen to use a pad for pooping. Feathers everywhere, all the time.