Imagine having a roving mosquito and tick eater! One option, especially if you have very few chickens, is to allow the older hen to contribute to the farm in other ways.
As the hens go off-lay, you have several options.ġ. Farmers do not bring chickens to vets in the same way as a family pet (unless you have very few chickens) most of us need to be prepared to handle both the births and the deaths ourselves. What to Do When Your Chicken Stops Laying Eggsīefore you read this section, understand that this article isn’t about chickens as pets but as farm animals. Taking responsibility as a small farm owner means accepting the full cycle of life. If a chicken is kept safe from predators (including dogs) and doesn’t have genetic issues, they can certainly live 10 to 12 years old. However, with ideal care, they may live even longer. How Long Do Chickens Live?Ĭhicken lifespans vary widely, with most hens generally living between 3 and 7 years. This will give the hens a couple of extra hours of artificial daylight, but the natural pattern for most hens is to stop laying in the winter.
You can extend the laying period for your hens by putting a light hooked to a timer in the hen house. In the home flock, who cares? (Another advantage to old hens: they’re used to you and are less flighty and panicky.) In a production flock, this is a problem because the consistency of supply and size is important. We found that our old hens usually produce fewer eggs, but larger ones. He had a lovely, shiny coat, but produced sulfurous gas at inopportune moments.) (In that case, we gave them to the dog, usually raw and right on the spot.
HYPNOTIZE A CHICKEN BY DRAWING A CHALK LINE CRACKED
One or two continued to lay sporadically throughout the cold, dark days of winter, although most of those eggs froze and cracked before we got out to collect them. They laid fewer and fewer eggs until, one day, they simply stopped. Most of ours did go “off lay” as the days grew shorter in the fall and the seasons changed. When exactly this will happen depends on the chicken, though.
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