Ode to Old Hens... Pictures of the Seniors in Our Flock

[speckledhen]

My original flock of ten hens and Hawkeye are all gone. Sunny was the last, passing on a few months ago at the age of 6 1/2 years. She would have been 7 in January. The next wave is a full year younger. Some of those are also gone, including our beloved Suede, who died in September. He would have turned 6 in January.

However, Suede's four hens are still kicking, including big red Meg. Meg will turn 6 years next month, Dusty and Nugget will be 5 in a few months and Hope is the "baby" at less than 2 years old (she hasn't laid in months due to some reproductive malfunction and is probably dying). My Buff Brahma, Caroline, raised with Suede, will also turn 6 in January, and is my last remaining hatchery hen. She has earned her place in a rooster-less coop so she lives with the elderly, arthritic, Barred Rocks, Becca and Amanda, also about to turn 6, along with my black Ameraucana hen, Gypsy, who just passed her 5th birthday, Fern who will be 4 years old soon and lives with the old hens because Isaac hates her, LOL, and my black Rock, Emily, who has a bum leg and doesn't need a rooster hurting her. Becca, Amanda, Gypsy and Fern are laying regularly so never pay attention to anyone who tells you that hens quit laying after the age of two.

Here are the pics I promised, first of Suede's lovely girls. Beautiful blue Dusty started crowing yesterday, my first ever crowing hen! I thought someone was dying in that coop until my DH saw her stretch out her neck, flap her wings and belt out a deep throated crow. She did it 7-8 times and it scared me to death thinking someone was having a seizure in there. Guess she misses her big old blue man more than we knew. She hasn't laid an egg since he died in September; in fact, none of his hens have, and Dusty and Meg were laying prior to losing Suede.
Click to enlarge:

Meg & Nugget



Meg & Hope


Nugget



Dusty, our newest "rooster".







The old ladies in the special coop:

Caroline & Fern bugging Amanda


Caroline, Queen Bee of any flock she is put into; she was laying early this year. We call her the Queen of Sneeze-she has always been a daily sneezer, at least for the last five years of her life anyway.


Fern

Fern & Becca


See that white barred feather in Gypsy's tail? That is what we call her "Zane feather". She has had it since she and my late, crippled Barred Rock rooster, Zane, became best friends. It's the weirdest thing. It's one wide white bar, always on the same feather, like she has a hidden barring gene, but of course, she can't-she's a pure black Ameraucana hen out of good breeder lines. The bond they had was touching and amazing, though she was always in the main flock with whatever rooster was in there at the time.



These are not all the old girls, however. Two Ameraucanas, Nora and Snow, are in the main flock. Panda, Zane's daughter with an Ameraucana hen and Gypsy's half sister, is in Zane's old cage as she is molting badly and very out of sorts. They are all going on 5 years old now.

ETA: Felt bad for leaving Snow and Nora out so here they are. Snow is the splash, Nora the blue Ameraucana you see in the second photo below. Isaac and his two Delaware hens aren't so young anymore themselves-he, Ellie and Georgie will be 4 years old in February. Also shown in the first pic is Georgie on the nest edge and in the forefront, Neela, one of my 2 1/2 year old blue Rocks.

 

[speckledhen]

Emily passed away overnight. She was 11 yrs 8 mos old, hatched at the same time as Tiny the Terrorist we lost earlier this year. Emily was a black Plymouth Rock, hatched with the blue girls, Neela and Alice, also gone to that Great Roost in the Sky. Good hen, never a problem, never ill a day in her long life. June, my 13 yr old EE, is probably quite bereft today as she is now alone with the three remaining Belgian D'anvers who are almost as old as Emily was. RIP, big girl. We'll miss our Emmy. There will be more to follow as Emily's half sister, a year younger, Gloria Jean, a splash Rock, is also ailing and most likely at the end of her life as well. Emily's famous "don't mess with me" broody glare. She was broody a few times, yet never ended up with a chick, sadly.

 

[Shadrach]

Don't know how I missed this thread. I hope @speckledhen doesn't mind if I post.
It's been a rough year.
Blue Spot, definitely 11 years old, possibly 12 died from age related oviduct problems. She never lost a chick and since her partner Harold died took on tribe leadership. Here she is (blond hen) spending her last days with her family

Gedit. 7.5 years old. Grey hen in foreground. Never laid an egg in her life. Solid as a rock and her roosters favorite. Killed by a stupid human who scared her enough for her to fall in to the duck pond trying to get away and the human didn't even notice. She died on my lap from shock and hypothermia.

Dink. 6 years old. A fraction of a second too slow. Killed by a Goshawk.
I took her out of a tree just about every night of her life at roost time.

Ruffles. 8 years old. Killed by a Husky owned by a dog trainer apparently. Dog here without a lead on National Park farmland. What sort of trainer does that? It took her over ten minutes to get both her Huskies back on leads.

 

[speckledhen]

I think we're about to lose a real oldster. Our splash Ameraucana, Snow, who is 14 years old, is acting lethargic and not at all herself. She was such a beauty in her youth, even had some breeder on Ebay steal her picture from BYC to sell their eggs. She is so attached to my husband and him to her, this will be a hard one to lose. I have an EE hen who is also 14 so I think I'll be losing her as well before winter is over. They're just ancient.
Snow from 10 years ago:

 

[speckledhen]

In the last few weeks, we've lost both Barbara and Fern. Seems way too soon since they were the younger hens in that pen along with Tiny, who moved in that coop along with my black Rock, Emily. The other old hens are still kicking, though.

I have to tell you a story about 6 year old Gypsy that happened today. DH was in the old hens' pen and Tiny was being the terrorist she usually is when he is ignoring her, so she pecked him repeatedly, then proceeded to flog his leg. He saw Gypsy across the pen and yelled, "Gypsy! Tiny's hurting Daddy! Help, Gypsy!". That old gal immediately zoomed across the pen and attacked Tiny, thunking her in the head and drove her away from hubby, then Panda took up the torch and chased Tiny into the pen extension and gave her a sound thrashing. They don't tolerate Tiny messing with their special guy. Of course, then Gypsy had to be picked up and cuddled as a reward. She loves attention, that old girl.

Gypsy, who'll turn 7 in November.

 

[speckledhen]

Looks like I'll be losing our last Blue Rock, Alice, in the next day or two. She has had a rough year. First she lost her sister, Neela-I called them the Blue Bookend Hens, always together. Then she hurt her neck somehow or had a stroke, not sure, but it twists sort of over her back and became progressively worse. Then she was injured by someone in the group she was in and had an open wound, was separated to heal, which she did nicely. For a 10 yr old hen, she has had a hard time. Lately, she's been becoming progressively weaker and losing weight. I doubt she weighs more than 3 lbs, but she kept going, living only with 12 yr old EE, June, and 11 yr old Delaware, Georgie. I have her final resting place ready.

This was Alice a few years back, so pretty. She was named for an actual color called Alice Blue, which is a pale tint of azure favored by Alice Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of Theodore Roosevelt. I sometimes even call her Alice Blue.

 

[speckledhen]

I just buried Gloria Jean tonight. It's too late to find a picture of her, but she was obviously not going to last long as I checked on her throughout the day. So, all the birds I hatched from halo in Florida over the years are now gone including Maretta, Neela, Alice, Emily and Gloria Jean. All lived long lives. @halo Kathy, hope you see this.

 

[speckledhen]

RIP, my beautiful sweet Gypsy-girl. 2007-2019

 

[speckledhen]

Amanda, my oldest hen, who has not walked in 4 years, at least (advancing arthritis has left her crippled, without the use of one leg and now, the other is not cooperative, either). We call her Amanda The Wonder Hen because of this, her 3rd egg in two weeks. She is the daughter of McMurray Hatchery parents. Shell quality is great as long
as we put oyster shell in her food since she cannot go get it herself. She turned 12 in March.

 

[speckledhen]

So sorry for your loss.

Thanks, Trish. Maretta was a really sweet and smart hen, will miss her a lot. I'll never miss anyone as much as Gypsy, who passed very recently as well. We have 30 hens now and 5 are 10+ years old. A total of 19 of the 30 are 5+ years old. So, we're still running an Old Hens' Retirement Home & Hospice and will be for some time, I guess.