my 3 rhode island reds

[AmyTx101]

We bought them back in june and the man told us they should be laying really soon..claimed they were about 3 or 4 months old at the time.. which would make them 6 months old.. they have no desire for their nesting boxes they sleep all together and there tails are always down not up and fluffy..a neighbor of mine said my chickens look old.. can anyone tell me if my girls are old or are they just not happy..

 

[Fred's Hens]

We bought them back in june and the man told us they should be laying really soon..claimed they were about 3 or 4 months old at the time.. which would make them 6 months old.. they have no desire for their nesting boxes they sleep all together and there tails are always down not up and fluffy..a neighbor of mine said my chickens look old.. can anyone tell me if my girls are old or are they just not happy..

"The man" ??? Which man? The man who sold them to you? At a sale/swap/auction of some kind, or Craigslist ad?

The beaks were clipped. That is a sign, for me anyhow, that they were either intend for or were in production somewhere. Your neighbor might well be right, they might be spent, there's just not a good way to know for sure. Let me ask you this. Were the combs and wattles as big when you got them as they are now? In other words, when you got them at the supposed age of 3 months, they should have had virtually zero comb and wattles. 12-14 week old pullet chicks are thinner, slightly smaller than full grown birds. So, if the birds were smaller, thinner and younger, they'd have matured in your keeping and under your watchful notice.

If they were more like medium size chicks, then you've got birds that simply haven't started and they weren't as old as reported.
If they are about the same size now as they were then, Houston, we have problem.

 

[NYREDS]

Their legs appear to be those of young birds, I have no way of judging their relative happiness. In fact i doubt that chickens experience anything like what we think of as happiness. Six months +/- is about when you can expect large fowl to start laying so they should get going soon. The one in the last picture wouldn't have lived long here, not with that deformed beak.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Their legs appear to be those of young birds, I have no way of judging their relative happiness. In fact i doubt that chickens experience anything like what we think of as happiness. Six months +/- is about when you can expect large fowl to start laying so they should get going soon. The one in the last picture wouldn't have lived long here, not with that deformed beak.

Bill, your eyes, or your monitor size, may be bigger and better than mine. Do you see the beaks are deformed?

 

[AmyTx101]

my Father in law bought these 3 chickens from a man not to far from here he apparently was cutting back on his flock.. I said the same thing when I saw their beaks and was mortified,, i have a picture when they first came to us maybe that will help too..they are super sweet and even put themselves up at night when we go out to put them up.. they make chicken noises we they see us..i do have one who eye disapeared and we thought they pecked it out but apparently not because it is back dont know how that happened but she keeps it closed now.. to me the waddles and combs are the same.. ut oh.. but there so sweet and are skittish and dont care about being in the nesting boxes even when we put them in there..

 

[AmyTx101]

talked with father in law and he said he got them from an add in the newspaper

 

[Fred's Hens]

So they all have clipped beaks?

 

[AmyTx101]

they were being sold in a feed store and he was loading up the chickens to go sale them somewhere else.. my FIL will question this man when he sees him again i was wrong about the age guy told my FIL they would be laying soon.. and here we are two months later and nothing..ok more pics just took these







last one is the picture of rose.. she clipped her eye with her nails vet thinks moquitos were driving her nuts..

 

[AmyTx101]

is the clipped beaks a big red flag because we were new to chickens and my FIL raised chickens and didnt question the beaks but it was the first thing i noticed,,

 

[coffeenutdesign]

Are they looking raggedy at all or have they recently? If they are older than a year and start to molt, you might notice them losing feathers. I think they look young, but it is hard to tell from the pictures. Are they able to eat okay with those beaks? I have some hens that were supposed to be production reds, but seem to be a second generation mutt or something other RIR cross. They were actually chicks that hatched later in the season and so I did not see an egg that first summer and it wasn't until the next spring when they were about 8 or 9 months old that I saw our first egg. They have been good layers since then, but they were definitely late starters.