What are your plans when your ladies stop laying?

[HipEMama]

Just out of curiosity, what does everyone plan to do with your layers once they are no longer giving eggs? Do they have a date with the stew pot? Will they live out their life?

I live in the suburbs so my friends are a little horrified that we plan to eat our layers.

 

[Going Quackers]

I'm keeping them lol they are mainly pets, with eggs as a by-product. The silkies are my kids pets so they'll be around till they bite the biscuit.

 

[lauraschickens]

Stew pot, I only have so much room and I want birds that earn their keep. My girls will lead a much better life then battery hens, and most likely I will like them stick around longer, but in the end they must make room for new layers.

 

[chfite]

In the end, it is freezer camp.

Chris

 

[ChickiMomma15]

its the auction for us haha or the freezer

 

[Nutmeg101]

We plan to keep them. They can still eat the bugs.

 

[barnaclebob]

Mine will get to meet the hatchet. By letting them live out their "natural" lives you are just prolonging the inevitable or making it more likely they will die of a painful disease or at the mouth or talons of a predator.

 

[annewandering]

Some will go in the freezer. Some we will keep around as pets/brooders? Do roosters lose fertility after a certain age?

 

[Blue]

I've heard that a rooster's fertility drops after five years, but I've heard of people using the same rooster for breeding for up to 8 years.