Do you only keep your laying hens two years?

[10 pollos]

All my ladies have names, and they know them. I cant imagine
sitting at the dinner table eating Josephine. My kids would freak
out. They are the best pets!and so enviromentally friendly! They eat leftovers and bugs, Then they fertilize the garden and on top of that they give me lovely egss. I owe them!

 

[luvchicks8]

My chicks range from the obvious non layers my babies 8-10 weeks, then the "big girls" range from 23-30 weeks. They are in a coop that I clean fully everyday so I dont't know how they would hide them. Oh well I still ove them. There is only eight of them though.

 

[Judy]

Quote:
Ah. Well, 30 weeks is a little old for the more productive breeds, but some people report some did not start til a year! Depends a lot on the breed.

 

[luvchicks8]

I have wyandottes and americana's.

 

[cindyanne1]

We're not there yet, but neither I nor my husband are at all interested in eating any of our chickens.

My father in law, who remembers going out to the chicken yard and wringing the neck of whichever bird he could catch for supper that night, keeps talking about what we'll do "when" we will butcher them (just in conversation, he's not drooling for any of them or anything, lol) and my husband and I just smile and nod, but we both know we really aren't planning to do that.

DH mentioned once, "We never would eat our dairy cows when I was growing up... we buried them when they died. You don't eat animals you keep for years... you just don't." I know my father-in-law doesn't put laying hens on a level with dairy cattle, but DH does and that's all that matters.

We might humanely cull chickens that are noticably frail, etc. (I don't know under what circumstances we'd put them down but I'm not going to say we won't ever do it) but we'll bury them like other pets.

 

[PeggySue]

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Exactly. My cats are COMPLETELY useless and their food is 3 times more expensive than duck food. I only have 6 ducks. I can afford to treat them differently than someone with a huge flock can.

I guess you could call them pets with benefits

"pets with benefits" ...

That's absolutely true. Although I get benefits from my dogs, too, it's just not edible....

 

[Iflyonhorses]

I've read that 6 or 7 years is geriatric for a chicken. Do breeds vary in longevity or is the quality of their care the most important factor?

 

[beepbeepinajeep]

I have read that there are some that have lived over 20 years!

 

[Iflyonhorses]

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Wow, in human years that would be like..... dead. I'd like to find out what they were eating!

 

[Chickenaddict]

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I have 22 hens right now and 5 pullets in the grow out pen, all have names and all are banties so they aren't for eating. Some of my "original" girls are going on 4 years now and still lay like champs. I could never part from my babies so therefor laying or not they will stay here until they pass naturally. If you want them for production or meat then yeah 2 years and in the stew pot they go then you get to do it all over again altho I have heard they still lay just not as consistant as they did their first few years.