older sexlink hens that are still laying?

[James Papin]

Hello, have 4 started sexlink pullets and have read they do not lay for very long. Can anyone tell me if you have older sexlink hens still laying? I have 2 red and 2 black sexlinks. Thanks for any information, or where I can find any information.

 

[br0nc0]

Hi,
I currently have 5 red sex-links, and I had another 5 before that. I replaced the old ones after 3 years (gave them to my grandparents) because they went from 4-5 eggs per day to mostly 3, sometimes 2 or 4 per day. So I would say that their productivity drops, but It can still be satisfactory if you're a backyard chicken owner and not some big farm who makes a living off of it.
Here's a chart for hy-line brown hybrid layer (I'm sorry it's in Slovenian). It covers the laying performance from 5-18 months (x axis) and it tells you how many eggs per 100 chicken you get (per day), e.g. value 50 on y axis means that, on average, 50 out of 100 hens laid an egg. That means one egg per chicken every other day. Value 30 would mean an egg every 3rd day, value 100 an egg every day.
You want to observe the thick brown line. At year and a half, most chicken still lay at 75%, which would mean 3 eggs in 4 days. If you prolong the line, presuming it keeps the same angle, you'd probably get 1 egg in 2 days after the chickens are 2 years old.

Now, I believe that if you keep them well fed, offer them enough space, and otherwise take care of their well-being, you might get longer lasting layers (in my experience).

Hope that helps a bit!