How do you tell how old a hen is if suspected not able to lay?

[ColeyPoultry]

Hi folks

I can tell the age of cockerels and roosters reasonably okay but absolutely nothing with hens (apart from counting eggs per year to have an guesstimate at how old an egglayer is) but when a 'pullet' doesn't get going with the egg production, is there a way of finding out if she's, in any way, absolutely useless?

She is a Double laced Barnevelder and the person I've purchased her from, said she was only hatched last year (I've got her back in March for a cross breeding project which was to be carried out later this year).

I have decided to give her time in case she was hatched close to Christmas last year but in the same token, how do you tell how old a pullet or hen is? Any tips?

 

[Fred's Hens]

Can you help clarify? You suspect something is wrong because, to the best of your knowledge, she is not laying now?

 

[ColeyPoultry]

I try lol.

Its when you purchased a bird and you don't have exact record as to how old a bird is. I've got only the breeder's words, saying she'd only hatched last year and is a young bird.' There was no specific hatch date or anything.

If she had hatched in November or December last year, she would have been 3-4 months old, but in March, she was the size of a fully mature hen. And as time goes on, you get a bit doubtful as to whether this bird will lay or not.

This is not being paranoid and is an assumption based on the fact that I've purchased one other bird (this is going back a few years ago), from another source, of which she was a little Jap Bantam. She laid absolutely nothing from the time I got her to the day she died (almost a year and a half in total). There was no record as to her age, nothing was known except she was a 'rescue.' Not one egg despite being the only hen in a pen with a male. And I couldn't tell how old she was. Other hens has laid but not this one.
I certainly don't want to waste time with another hen if this is the case. I simply cannot tell how old this Barnevelder roughly is.

And with male birds, I like to think that I can do reasonably well at guessing how old a rooster is compare to cockerels of similar sizes but I can't with pullets' and hens'.

I better mention that I have two other Barnevelders and all 3 are very much identical in sizes. The other two are laying.

*I hope I've made it with clearing things up a bit, I'm not that good at explaining things I think lol.