Hen Chronicles: The pullets, 3 weeks after their arrival

So here they are: Hope and Nellie. Or is that Nellie and Hope? Three weeks to the day after the Rhode Island Red pullets arrived on the scene, Liz and I still can’t tell them apart, at least not based on appearances. One of them is more forceful and assertive, but they’re indistinguishable in the looks department.

The two Reds have doubled the size of our flock of chickens from two to four. They’re still living on their own in a separate pen by day (so our Plymouth Rocks, Snow and Nala, won’t steal their food), and sharing a coop with the older girls at night.

Hope and Nellie are too young to have fully developed combs or wattles. At 20 weeks old or thereabouts, they may not start laying for a few more weeks. Or so the experts say. But they have gained some weight, and the chick-like peeps and chirps that signaled their arrival on May 8 have matured into something more closely resembling the clucking of mature hens.