how long, on average, do chickens live? if they are not taken by predators of course! thanks in advance!
life expectancy
- Thread starter catballou24
- Start date
I am no expert by a long shot, have only been in the chicken game for a year now but I have heard of a hen living to be in their teens!
A healthy, well-cared for chicken can live well into the teen years. The girl at my local feed store had an old biddy that still laid well and raised a clutch of peeps every spring until she died at 18. That's the oldest I have personally known. The oldest hen I ever had was my beloved Alice - she was 11 when she died.
Chicken longevity is a bit of an evolving concept - in the past layers were lucky if they made it to two years old, then out went the old and in came the new. Now that more people are keeping chickens as pets and tending to individual health needs as opposed to general flock health, we are seeing older and older chickens, and I'm sure that trend will continue.
Chicken longevity is a bit of an evolving concept - in the past layers were lucky if they made it to two years old, then out went the old and in came the new. Now that more people are keeping chickens as pets and tending to individual health needs as opposed to general flock health, we are seeing older and older chickens, and I'm sure that trend will continue.
I've heard that chickens can live well into their thirties! I read that in one of my Chicken books with Mom.
Well cared for hens can live well into their teens, but that is often if they are not production breeds. Many production breeds, no matter the healthy life style, have been breed so hard for egg production they end up with cancer or other egg laying problems that lead to their death. Not to mention broilers who start having heart attacks at like 10 weeks if they aren't already butchered.
My oldest hens are nine now and the oldest I have seen was 15. I'm sure they can get much older if something (or someone) doesn't eat them. Keeping parasites down is a good thing to do for longevity. Internal parasites damage the intestines and hinder absorption of nutrients, especially in older birds. Next to predation and parasites its probably the cold winter that claims lives of the. elderly chickens.
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