Retired Egg Layers

Date sort Score sort
1ADAM12

1ADAM12

Songster
5 Years
Jun 18, 2016
183
70
146
Tioga, PA
So all of my birds are 1 year old or less. I know I have a few years left of egg laying. What do you all do with the birds that don't lay anymore? Keep as pets and add new young birds to your flock? Or butcher them? My wife will want to keep as pets lol
 
I keep my old girl until they pass or need culling. About half will die between 4-6 years old. A few live longer. If you add a couple every 2-4 years you should get a revolving flock. Many dual purpose breeds will lay until 5-6 with a few laying longer.
 
oldhenlikesdogs said:
I keep my old girl until they pass or need culling. About half will die between 4-6 years old. A few live longer. If you add a couple every 2-4 years you should get a revolving flock. Many dual purpose breeds will lay until 5-6 with a few laying longer.
Click to expand...

Does this refer to production type birds too (if they are well cared for)?
 
To "cull" means to remove, or "weed out".

If you are keeping chickens for production purposes (selling the eggs) then killing and eating the unproductive birds is usual practice, otherwise you are throwing away money of feed, etc. If they are pets then it's up to you if they are worth continuing to spend the money on or not..
 
Last edited:
limited25 said:
Does this refer to production type birds too (if they are well cared for)?
Click to expand...
The few sex link birds I've had stopped laying at about 2 years of age and both died not much longer after that. Not enough birds to give an accurate guess. I currently have some Ancona so we will see how they do. I think leghorns and other Mediterranean breeds are longed lived as well and lay longer in life than sex links.

To me culling is killing, whether it's eaten afterwards depends on if it's old or young, sick or healthy, but as stated culling can be just removing the ones you don't want and selling or rehoming them.
 

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