May 11, 2021 by Maggie McNeill
As of Saturday, the new pullets are officially out of the nursery! They are no longer confined at night, and the heat lamp (which I was still turning on via a timer for the first few hours of the evening) is now off until autumn. For the past couple of weeks, they've been afaid to go outside, but on Saturday they went out to get away from the commotion while I was putting things away, and on Sunday two of the three went outside on their own, though they still keep well away from the adult hens. But unless these are different from every other chickens I've ever had, within a few weeks they'll all be one big flock, and around July (maybe even sooner) the pullets will start laying. Since winter we've been down to about 3-4 eggs a day, which is only a little more than we need so I don't have enough to give away right now; it'll be good when I have enough to share with friends again! And it'll also be nice to see a more visually-interesting flock; last year most of them were white leghorns, so it was pretty monochromatic. And I'm definitely getting some reds next year, even if having a red, white, and blue flock will make me look more patriotic than I actually am.
