I hatched a round of chicks at the end of February. When they first hatched there were a total of eight chicks, but while they were growing in the yard half of them were stolen by a fox in the night. The four remaining chicks got a reinforced run and managed to make their way to adult hood over the next few months unscathed. They were finally big enough to hold their own with the older chickens so they were mixed together about a month ago. Things got off to a rough start, but they now seem to be tolerating each other well.
The older chickens are a stage in their lives where they are going through a molt so they look pretty awful and they haven't been laying consistently for a few weeks. With my egg production being down I was really starting to wonder if any of my new additions to the flock were hens. I had heard roosters crowing for the last few weeks so I knew that I had at least two of those, but I still wondered how much longer it would be until I got my first egg from the hens.
This week I got my answer. Both of my new pullets laid their first egg on the same day! Even better, they both laid in the nest boxes so they already seem to get what those are for. It will be nice to have a little boost in egg production with a couple of new layers in the flock.
The smallest eggs on the top belong to the new pullets. I am happy to see that they have smooth, uniform, well shaped eggs. Some of my other hens lay some pretty wonky looking eggs sometimes and it isn't necessarily a trait that I want in my flock. Weird shaped eggs with thick or thin shells don't hatch very well so I prefer to raise chicks that can lay healthy strong eggs. From the looks of things so far these new pullets are keepers.
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