Old hens and edible eggs

[steelfarm]

When I arrived at work this morning, one of the ladies that I work with said she watched a Science Channel documentary on egg production lst night. They stated on the documentary that a hens eggs were no longer fit for human consumption after the hen had reached the age of 72 weeks.

Is this true? I don't think so, but I wanted to bring to the real experts here to see what y'all had to say.

 

[crazy hen quartet]

Heck no! I do believe that commercial e g g "farms" (so to speak) don't keep hens longer than about 18 months because production begins to drop - and because often "battery cage" hens are in pretty bad physical shape by the time they reach that age. Really sad stuff, actually. After researching it, I don't think I can ever buy a dozen e g g s from a big commercial production plant again. It's too sad.

Anyway, I am sure some experts here can chime in and tell you how long a h e n will usually lay, I know it is more than a year to a year and a half!

 

[PotterWatch]

Not true at all.
I have heard of a hen that was 10yrs old and still laying. Nothing wrong with her eggs; I mean e g g s .