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: