I was wondering how to tell how old a chicken was. I bought 14 chickens last october from a guy at the flea market who said they were about 10 months old. I was getting an average of about 3-4 eggs this winter which decreased to about 1-2 a day by March. I've been getting one a day for the last 2 months from 11 chickens.(lost 3 due to various reasons over the winter) I feed them layer pellets and they have plenty of grit and oyster shell. I started letting them free range 2 weeks ago during the day to see if that would make a difference. I have wormed them and dusted them although I didn't notice any mites. I was wondering if I got sold old chickens but I am not familiar enough with chickens to tell how old they are. Next time I'll buy young ones so I know for sure. They had a few feathes laying around the coop about 2 monthes ago so I thought they might be molting but I would think they would be done by now. Should I turn them into dumplings and start over?
