age of leghorn hens

[Garryscowgirl]

Can anyone tell me how old my leghorn hens are? I bought them a month ago and was told they were.a year old but we think they may be much older. I cant figure out how to add a pic to a post but lool at my avatar it shows one of them.

 

[Kelsie2290]

They could be only a year or so old. They tend to get really large combs that flop over as they get older. It does depend on the bloodlines to some extent, some just have more. I've got some from McMurray from last February that would be about 18 months old now, and their combs are about the same size as yours and still stand up straight. Other ones that are a year or more older have combs about twice that size and they mostly all flop.

 

[Garryscowgirl]

Thank you. Do you have any idea why they wouldnt be laying?

 

[Kelsie2290]

I am not sure how many new leghorns you got, but they are usually a very productive breed so it would be odd for a bunch of them to stop cold on the laying for any amount of time. But ...A couple of things come to mind.
Since you just got them, first on the list would be that anything that upsets or stresses a chicken can stop or slow down their laying for quite a while. Moving them to a new home would certainly be on the list, if they were laying it can stop them for a couple of weeks to a couple of months. If they are molting or it throws them into a molt it can really take awhile for them to restart. Have you checked the birds over well to be sure they are healthy and don't have mites or something? Adding moving onto even a small health problem is going to slow down or stop egg production.

Realizing that the only thing I have to go on is the tiny picture in your profile, I actually wonder if those girls are as old as you think they are, the one in the picture looks like a fairly young pullet, iow, are you sure they are old enough to lay and not only 4-5 months old and on the verge of starting? Do you know for sure if these particular birds were laying?

Do your birds free range at all? Are you sure they are not hiding eggs? My leghorns are pretty bad about trying to hide eggs, they never go broody, but they will surely try to hide eggs on you.
Are you sure nothing is eating the eggs, are you finding the eggs you should from your other chickens?

 

[Garryscowgirl]

The ppl we bought them from said they were a little over a year and were laying. We have 2 leghorns, 4 barred rocks ( 1 laying age and others 4 months), and 6 rhode island reds (4 months old). One is laying eggs we assume it is the barred rock hen because the egg is not white.but.its not brown either, its a cream color. Maybe it is a leghorn laying it just not really sure. I would post better pics if i knew how too on here.

 

[Kelsie2290]

Most barred rocks lay a really light brown / cream egg, so it is probably your rock laying. The commercial leghorns lay a really chalk white egg usually. It is odd for young commercial leghorns to stop laying for that amount of time, but from what it sounds like, it is probably a combination of the stress form the move and their age maybe putting them into an early molt that has stopped the egg laying. Either way I would expect them to start up within a month or so again, unless they go into a full molt, but that should be pretty obvious.