I let my hen go for about 6 months before culling her, and she probably could have done another 6 if not more. She was doing fine on the outside, bright eyes, walking, eating, "running", just looked bloated till one day decided that waddling around was getting to be too much. On retrospect, I should have culled her much much earlier because I bet she was in constant pain after looking at her compressed internals. Her guts were all messed up because of the masses and of her 6 lb body, almost 3 of it were the masses. I let it go wayyy too long just because I thought she looked happy enough despite waddling. The worst part... she did not give a fight when I let her go. When butchering a healthy bird for meat, they will resist a bit and flop post deed... her time was way past, she didn't fight and didn't flop at all. She was an awesome girl, still have a part of her hanging in one of the cars in memory of Brown Hen. Not as good as you are in the name dept. LOL