Okay I was just wondering how you would tell a young chicken that is 8 months old to and old chicken that is older. I have 7 older hens that they told me were 1 year old hens I counted I have 16 chickens all together and 8 Muscovy duck's but I was just wondering how can you tell an young hen from and older hen. and the hens have not laid a single egg yet for me could it be due to the stress or them being skinny as i got them this way I have had them sense Sunday and they have been on a combination of cracked corn chicken scratch and Layer crumble pellets now for 5 days they are slowly gaining weight back up everyday but they are still skinny. I just let them out of the pen today for the very first time with me and they went nuts grazing over everything. the people I got them from never fed them and never let them out of there cage so now I have to get them back up to weight. But I was wondering will they lay eggs eventually once they get back up to par on there weight.
They should eventually lay eggs. They may have quit because it's winter and there are not enough daylight hours for them to lay. Telling ages is very difficult in chickens. Try to notice how often they do lay eggs (once they start again), how smooth or rough the scales on the feet are, how fluffy or coarse the butt fluff is, and how much fat has gathered in their bellies. These are the only ways I've learned to tell chicken ages, and even then it differs depending on health, breed, and individual.
