How long do chickens live?

[peepshowmom]

i have "cold" weather birds(orpingtons and reds). i live in the south and it gets very hot in the summer. in order to help my birds, i installed a box fan in their coop. just thought if it was good enough for the commercial birds, mine might like it too. they seem more comfortable when they are laying and at night. hope this helps if you have a heat problem

 

[peepshowmom]

if its hot, try a box fan outside the coop. my cold weather girls appreciate it during our southern summers

 

[jburts]

yep I have a boxed fan hooked to the window inside the window is made out of hard wear cloth.
I blow the heat out of the coop in summer here in Eastern Washington it gets 90 to 100 in the summer,
I have it on a timer,

 

[Diannastarr]

yes exactly, i was thinking about this exact problem early on wile acquiring different heritage breeds over the years , we are going for longevity in our flock,& since in the 70's i had a flock that was 10 years old & we have always been a no kill cruelty free home , our chickens have paid there way for the rest of their life we owe them that..! even if they never had one egg they are safe here & will be around as along as they can live, but for what ever reason if we cant keep them , we do plan for a good future for them all & will find our hens good forever homes as pets to a loving families that all depends on how old we are & since if we are forced to give some away, we plan to hopefully keep as many of our favorite hens & roosters until death do us part....lol...

we have good friends who would take some & that way we could still see them , back in the 70's i had a flock that was 10 years old & gave them all away to a good friend who owned a TB race horse farm in NY when i had to move away from the north east for my health & they all did great free ranging all over on her beautiful green horse farm & they became the focus of her yearly x mas cards with the horses, all had a great life, better then mine at the time ...lol... until they passed away naturally , so we hope to do this again if need be, giving our girls away to good friends & so we plan to always do our best to be responsible for all our pets no matter what, & all our chickens are no different ..!

 

[chickengeorgeto]

commercials live a miserable life for about 1 1/2 years.


Pet chickens live to be about 15 years if they are healthy and lucky.

I never had a chicken make it past 12 or 13 years old despite keeping chickens for maybe 60 years. At that out of the thousands of chickens I have owned I only had a small hand full to reach that age. In reality a 5 year old hen is a old hen and a 5 year old rooster is even more rare.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

About half my birds die around 4 years, others live to around 6-8 and a couple have lived to 10.

 

[centrarchid]

American Dominiques I have are still doing well ranging 5 to 6 years. A measure of physical performance (flight) indicates they are slowing down. American Games are holding up much better where all intended for long-term keeping reach 6 years without trouble. We used to have games used as pures that survived for at least a decade although fertility reductions made so such birds cost more than they were worth. I have a few used for public displays that will be kept for as long as they will survive which I am pretty sure will exceed 10 years. Males will drop out first.

Longevity is promoted by restricting the amount of feed but keeping quality top notch which means better than recommended for simply egg production. Longevity also not enhanced by pushing to continuous laying. Give them a rest each year.

My birds live very exposed lives.

 

[TheTwoRoos]

Chicken s can live up until the teens,but most only make to 5 or 6 years.In order to live so long they have to kept healthy.

 

[TheTwoRoos]

I wouldn't keep old hens.When chicekns get old,they sometiems catch things that old humans get when they reach elderly age.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I wouldn't keep old hens.When chicekns  get old,they sometiems catch things that old humans get when they reach elderly age.

My old chickens haven't caught anything but bugs in the field. What things are you talking about?