How do you know the age of a chook?

[CarolynPerth]

I've been out looking at legs and the young ones look slightly softer and fresher whilst one that I suspect of being quite mature has rougher dirty looking scales. Hard to see any big difference though.

 

[canada-goose]

Quote:
I disagree, it would make unnecessary work & expense for many, if not most, poultry keepers.

I haven't noticed anything expensive about filling out a spreadsheet. By filling out the hatch date and parents, you can learn a lot about your birds.

 

[Sunny Side Up]

Well, I guess if you require that kind of information about the birds you buy then you should buy only from folks keeping those kinds of detailed records. I apologize, I was reacting to a blanket statement made in all caps with 3 exclamation points afterwards. Many folks already do keep some sort of records, and certainly the ones raising purebreds in earnest will be doing so more formally. True, it shouldn't add to the expense, but it does cost time & effort, and makes paperwork.

The OP was inquiring about some crossbreed hens she bought. If their seller was like me, they might have no idea as to the parentage & pedigree of those birds, just the date they were hatched. I keep a mixed bouquet of laying hens of all sorts of breeds, with a few purebred & crossbred roos. When a hen goes broody I give her an assortment of eggs to incubate. Part of the fun is guessing which adults the chicks look like.

If all chickens carried pedigree papers would you get one for every chick you bought from a hatchery or feed store? How would you know which chick had which paper unless they were somehow identified? That's where I see the extra expense coming in.

Better for us to learn how to judge a chicken's age by other visable signs.

 

[deerman]

Rooster you can tell by the spurs, round end stags under a yr, needle sharp cocks over yr.

Hens and pullet, mostly by feathers, and sizes. Been around chicken most of my life, kind get a nak for telling old hens from pullets. The bleaching out is from egg laying the more they lay the more bleaching. But most bantam and show birds are not put thru that.

Legs can tell you if a hen is old. Now nothing is going to tell you if a hen is 2,3,4, years old. Best you can do is pick out very young hens or pullets. Now if the hens have spurs like game chicken or peahens do sometime, then that a good way to tell just like roosters.

 

[CarolynPerth]

Thanks, I was given the hens by a friend of a friend who was vague about age. They probably were going to the pot anyway. I was just curious about how one can tell is all.

 

[canada-goose]

Quote:
I suppose you're right. Maybe I need to calm down a bit.

(A start already. No exclamation points or caps lock.)

 

[SurprisingWoman]

http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/livestocksystems/DI1182.html