Chicken age?

[4-Hmom]

How can you tell how old a chicken is? It doesn't have teeth

 

[FrizzleFreak]

If it's a hen, you can tell by the order of bleaching. When hens lay, they take pigment out of their bodies to put into eggs. So, the order goes kinda like this:
vent (first egg)
eye ring (first 10-20)
beak, from base to tip
bottom of feet
back of shanks
front of shanks
and sometimes top of toes. not always though.
I don't know all of the times, but the shanks take about a year.
If a chicken isn't laying, then she's probably over two or three. You can tell that she has stopped laying for quite a while if the pigment starts coming back (in the same order it left), and if she starts molting again. A good layer has bad feathers, because she won't molt.
Younger chickens, you can tell by size usually. Sometimes their ability to crow or cluck.
Another way to tell can be quality of feathers. A hen that's been in with a rooster for awhile will start having messy feathers. It took mine a little less than a year to get there.
Sometimes hens won't go broody till a certain age, mine have waited a year. It depends on the breed though.
Roosters will have fully developed spurs by the time they're two.
Ummmm...that's all I can think of right now.

 

[debilorrah]

Ok the obvious answer - if it layed an egg it is around 26 weeks.

 

[FrizzleFreak]

Oh.

I tend to overthink things, can ya tell?

 

[Sitka]

Ask for I.D.

 

[SarahFair]

Quote:
26??
I thought it was 20!??!

 

[debilorrah]

Quote:
26??
I thought it was 20!??!

26 weeks is the AVERAGE age a chicken starts laying.