Spent hens, thought?

[taraann81]

We have the opportunity to take 20, 18 month old Rhode island red hens.

Would you take them,?(we do have a place to quarantine them all)

I figure if they really are laying horribly(which with a proper diet we may be able to up their production a bit). We could keep them a month and process them as stewing hens?

Any thoughts? Both pros and cons appreciated!

 

[sonew123]

Quote:
if they are free and you have the space and teh extra funds to feed all of them-then go for it. You may get lucky and once you feed them properly, they may give you 12+ eggs a day...depending on where you live you could even freerange to help cut feed costs and make those eggs taste better too then after 2 months or so if their egg production is bad Id stew them...

 

[taraann81]

Quote:
if they are free and you have the space and teh extra funds to feed all of them-then go for it. You may get lucky and once you feed them properly, they may give you 12+ eggs a day...depending on where you live you could even freerange to help cut feed costs and make those eggs taste better too then after 2 months or so if their egg production is bad Id stew them...

Yes they are free....My thoughts exactly!

 

[Beekissed]

RIRs should lay well way past that age but this is a bad time of the year to find out. Wait until spring at peak egg production before you cull them for the stewpot. You could have yourself some mighty fine~and free~layers for a couple of years to come.

 

[sotelomary]

The only thing I would add is to be sure they are healthy and enquire as to why they are getting rid of them. If you are satisfied with that then by all means go for it! and lucky you!

Mary

 

[Rozzie]

Eighteen month old chickens have a LOT of laying time left. They are just at an age where the egg factories (I refuse to call them farms) don't find it profitable to keep them any longer. Give them a while to rest - at least a couple of months - with days shorter than fourteen hours (so as not to stimulate egg production). I bet you'll have another year or two of good egg laying from them.

Their bodies are probably just tired from being pushed to lay an egg a day for too long.

 

[taraann81]

Well we don't artificially light our birds so they should have a restful time here. We usually free range during the day, I will have to check and see if their beaks have been trimmed, that would be discouragig, but I would still get them.. We have some Barred rocks that are two and are still laying 4 eggs a week, sometimes more.
I'm pretty excited. We will go check them out tonight at 530!

 

[teach1rusl]

Quote:
Totally agree here

 

[A.T. Hagan]

If they are healthy and you give them proper care you should be able to get at least another year of profitable laying from them before they're ready for the stewpot.