WHAT DO YOU DO WITH YOUR OLD HENS?

[CowGrrrl]

I let my chickens live out their whole lives on my property, unless they are problem birds or meat birds.

 

[ashcons]

I have a feeling that ours will end up living their lives out as pets unless culling would ease suffering (from age or disease). I have a wife and little boy who name these birds!

 

[BGMatt]

I also let them retire and live out their days after they're done in the breeding pens. Cockerels give me more meat and more tender meat then old hens. Can still show the old birds, get the occasional egg, and I tend to let the older birds free range too while active members of the breeding program stay in pens and runs for safety. Yes, predators get to them, but they have a chance, so you can't really say it's cruel to let them be where they might get eaten unless you're against ranging birds in general. In the past the attrition rate hasn't kept up and the retirement coop has gotten awfully crowded.

 

[oesdog]

At what age do most folk here feel a chicken should go into retirement????

Oes

 

[Sophia5]

I usually put them in retirement when they stop laying.

 

[BGMatt]

At what age do most folk here feel a chicken should go into retirement????

Oes

Depends on your purpose. I often "retire" hens at 3-4 as their daughters take their place in the breeding pens, but I'll un-retire them if I don't like the results I'm getting and need them again in the pens.

 

[oesdog]

Isobella has stopped laying this summer - she is about 5-6 yrs old. She will just stay in the pen with all her friends until she dies.
Caroline is a year younger about 4 and Betty is 3. The RIR girls are about 3-4 Florry and Agnes. We just got two new girls PRs and I guess they are only about 2 as they come from a free range egg farm. But they usually get rid of them in the second year so I doubt if Ruth and Esther are older than 2 tops. Then the babies are not even old enough to lay. The Amber star is 12 weeks and the two Maran chicks are only 10 weeks - so a way to go for them yet.

Oes -

 

[so lucky]

I don't really have plans to butcher mine when they quit laying, but I have one who lays such soft-shelled eggs, they are always breaking in the nest. It creates a big mess, and a lot of work, cleaning it up and putting in new nest material. I have tried additional calcium, and the other girls lay eggs of steel, so I know there is plenty of calcium available. She is the most prolific layer, wouldn't you know!
So I need to decide whether to just put up with this for years, or send her to freezer camp. I don't think I could eat her, but maybe someone else can. I don't want to give her away, to become someone else's problem.

 

[redstarfather]

You should just keep them as pets. it is fun to watch how they interact with each other. i call it CTV (chicken tv)

.like you said, unless they are really mean, you should kepp them.
-

 

[iheartnh]

This is an interesting thread.

Our hens are only 5 months old and our first hens, so I don't have a firm answer for this. However, what I do know for sure is that nobody in my house wants to eat them when they are done laying. The most likely scenario is that we would try to rehome them as pets first and dinner second. We do not have the coop space to continually add new layers, and while we do have a good chunk of land, we are not rural or private enough that I would consider it fair to my neighbors to allow them to free-range til they die.