The pullets are laying!

For some of you, I’m sure the title of this week’s blog means nothing. But to me, it’s a milestone for my latest batch of chicks (hatched in May, 2012). Let me explain.

First of all, what’s a pullet? A pullet is a female chicken less than one year old. (In case you’re interested, a male less than one year old is called a cockerel.)

Chickens grow really fast, but pullets don’t start laying until they are five or six months old. At that age they are far from full-grown, but they can still lay “eggs.”

I put the term in quotes because the first few weeks of egg-laying are somewhat inconsistent. A mature hen will lay one egg about every 25 hours, but pullets are much less reliable.

When they first start laying, it might be only one egg every three or four days, and the eggs they lay are typically quite small (golf ball-sized, or in some cases, grape-sized). Also there is less consistency in the color; a brown-egg laying breed, such as a New Hampshire Red, might lay white eggs, or a Leghorn (known for white eggs) might lay light brown eggs.

So it takes the pullets a bit of time to get this all sorted out.

My pullets have been laying since early October, but it has only been this week that they seem to have perfected their skills. For some strange reason, they’re all on the same schedule, and this week I've gotten a lot of appropriately colored, high quality eggs.

   

Their timing is perfect since my oldest hens (hatched in April and May, 2010) are nearing the end of their egg-laying years and producing, on average, only one egg per hen each 30 hours (yes, I keep track of this).

I'm so proud of my young ladies! Here’s a picture of some recent pullet eggs I collected from the nesting box:

Bees gone wild!

I like to think that I know my bees, and that they know me. I know it sounds a little crazy, but we country folk tend to develop relationships with our critter companions.

This week I found out that I was totally wrong about me and the bees. I don’t think we’re friends at all.

In preparation for the upcoming cool weather, I decided to inspect my hive to ensure they have an adequate honey supply to winter over (if not, I would periodically give them some sugar water), and that the queen is still healthy and laying eggs (her main job).

Weather this week has been windy, and at times a little cloudy. Generally speaking, you don’t want to inspect your hive when it’s windy or cloudy because the bees are less settled under these climatic conditions. You definitely don’t want to inspect a hive when it’s both windy and cloudy.

I was so busy this week that the only time I had available to inspect the hive was on a windy and cloudy day. I should have waited, but I didn’t. I thought I could deal with it, but I couldn’t. I’m paying the price now.

Everything was fine until I lifted the top cover off the hive, but just then a gust of wind hit, and angry bees flew up out of the hive. I was wearing gloves but not a face net or bee suit. I got stung 5 or 6 times on the face.

Fortunately I’m not allergic to bee stings, so it was a little painful, but not too bad. Here’s what I looked like for a few days:

In the future, I’ll be more careful about timing my hive inspections to coincide with sunny, windless days. 

And maybe next time I’ll wear my bee suit and face protection. Knowing me, probably not! 

Where do chickens come from?

People sometimes ask me, generally with a straight face, where my chickens come from. The answer is, from eggs, of course!

But what I've learned is that there are several ways to get chickens from eggs. Strange as it sounds, I buy most of my chicks online, from a Texas company called Ideal Poultry. They have a huge selection of chicks, and the prices are quite reasonable.

Chicks you order online are delivered by the US Post Office. This is possible because newly hatched chicks don't eat or drink for 48-72 hours. So as long as they reach their destination within this time, they'll be fine. The chicks are packed in cardboard boxes holding a minimum of 25 chicks (any fewer chicks and they might die because they need the warmth of other chicks to help maintain their body heat).

My tiny country post office gets a lot of boxed chicks, and they know exactly what to do. I normally call the post office a few days before the chicks are expected so they'll be on the lookout for my shipment.

The boxed chicks typically arrive at the post office with the first mail delivery around 5:00 am. The morning clerk calls me as soon as the mail comes in so I can pick up my chicks, even though the post office will not be open for almost 3 hours. Once I pick up the chicks I inspect the box so I can report to Ideal Poultry if any chicks look sick or have died in transit (that's never happened for any of my shipments, fortunately).

The other way I have gotten chickens is to hatch my own. This way is harder and contains more uncertainty. Since I don't have an incubator (a container for holding eggs at a constant temperature and humidity until they hatch), I have to rely on one of my hens to sit on the eggs until they hatch. This is hard on the hen, and hard on the eggs, since a hen will often break a few eggs she intends to hatch by moving around in the nesting box. So I have found it much easier to just order chicks online.

Here's a picture of the chicks I got in May 2012. They were less than two days old when they arrived.