Golden [something] Hen

Spent most of the day helping get the hen houses ready and wired up to mains light for the winter.

The new hens are lovely and are Golden something or other.

For simplicity I have opted for calling them Golden Delicious.

We have to keep them in for 4 days so they get their HPS (Hen Positioning System) aligned. Otherwise they'd be roosting everywhere and we'd lose them all to foxes.

After that, we have to wait until they start laying.

I am reliably told by an expert with some 50 years of hen keeping experience that there are three ways to tell when hens are about to lay:

1. You can feel 2 bones at the back, if you can only fit one finger between the bones, they're not ready. When you can fit 2 fingers between, they're ready to lay. However, I am not that interested in finding out that I would want to feel 100 chickens.
2. The dangly bits (I have no idea what the name is for them, let me know if you know) which start off pink, start to turn red.
3. They start 'singing'. I'm not sure what they sing, but that's apparently what they do.

So there you go, that's what I've learnt about hens today, even if I don't know what breed they are...