what is the life span of hens.

[Chickerdoodle13]

I have a jersey giant hen who is 13. She was my first chicken and honestly, I cannot believe she is still alive. She looks like a little old lady and has pretty arthritic feet. She has to stop and lay down to take rests every now and then and NOBODY in the coop messes with her. She is still able to fly up onto the highest perches and she has survived multiple predator attacks in older coops.

Every winter we say she probably wont make it to the next year and she does!

 

[Teri Metcalf]

To Slatts: Interesting. A 20-year old makes our 5-year-old Henrietta seem like a spring chicken.

 

[RHRanch]

Most of my chickens live between 8-10 years old. I have hens ranging from 1 to 8 years old currently.

 

[slatts]

To Slatts: Interesting. A 20-year old makes our 5-year-old Henrietta seem like a spring chicken.

It may just be inaccurate as well. I heard once that 14 is about the absolute max age.

 

[Teri Metcalf]

It may just be inaccurate as well. I heard once that 14 is about the absolute max age.

Thanks. That makes more sense.

 

[markim]

We bought our five Red Lohmans three years ago and unfortunately didn't know that they were a commercial breed. (lay lots of eggs in a short space of time) Today we lost our last one to internal egg laying/peritonitis. They each had their own characters and we grew very attached to them. NEVER again will we have any commercial breeds as they are bred to lay lots of eggs without regard for the suffering of the bird as they age. We wanted happy chicks that also give us some eggs but got a lot of heartache as we watched each one get sick and die. Please research what these breeders are doing and stay away from commercial breeds if you want healthy chickens. The last of our brood has never laid an egg and she seems healthy. This reaffirms our belief that they died due to the massive amount of egg laying that has been bred into them.

 

[The Yakima Kid]

Her listlessness could be a result of salpingitis, internal laying, or a reproductive cancer. These are common in high production birds, and I would weigh her and see if she starts feather picking. The first sign of adenocarcinoma in one of our Black Stars is she took to eating the feathers right off of the other chickens. She became more and more listless, lost weight, and was brought indoors when she could no longer reach her perch. The vet at first thought she might have parasites; but when she was euthanized and sent to the veterinary lab at Davis, it turned out she had adenocarcinoma. She had just started her second year of lay when she began feather eating, and she was only 2 years and about seven and 1/2 months old when she died. She had begun a vigorous second year of lay, then laid a series of cock eggs with progressively stranger shells, and then stopped laying completely.

 

[The Yakima Kid]

What are production birds?

Generally they are hybrids of different breeds or specific strains of established breeds that are bred specifically for commercial purposes. The Cornish-Rock broiler hybrids that are used to produce meat are a prime example - they are butchered at twelve weeks or earlier and are enormous. If allowed to live they tend to die of heart failure since their circulatory systems are inadequate for their bulk; some cannot even be raised above 5,000 feet in altitude because they will develop serious and fatal circulatory problems.

Black Stars, Isa Browns, Golden Comets, Bovans strains, Hy-Lines, many white Leghorns, Red Stars, AmberLinks, and others are common production birds.
Commercially they are allowed one year of lay - which usually ends in the second autumn of their life. Some egg farms will permit them to molt and have a second year of lay - generally they are processed after one year because mortality goes up and productivity goes down after the first year of lay.

 

[The Yakima Kid]

The late L. Stromberg, of Stromberg's Hatchery, and founder of the national poultry museum, reported the case of a 28 year old hen who apparently occasionally laid an egg.

Any high producing hen is prone to reproductive problems. Much of what is sold as "Heritage Stock" is actually show stock, long removed from being bred for any utility value. Some breeds became "Heritage" as a result of breeding for show points to the detriment of utility value. (For entertainment, there are pictures of Queen Victoria's original Cochins, a bird with essentially clean legs and an upright, lean stance. Within a few decades breeding for feathers had made them too slow fattening for meat use, and had reduced egg production to a trickle.)

The first death in my 2011 flock was a Barred Rock who succumbed to fatty liver syndrome; the second was the Black Star who died of adenocarcinoma. The other Barred Rock is living happily, and laying regularly in a new home; while the remaining Black Star stopped laying during her last molt and doesn't seem to have resumed. The Dominiques lay about every other day, or a little more. It will be interesting to see how their health holds up.

Bantams seem to be the most long lived.

 

[keepmumsane]

My mixed flock of farm bred girls are about 7.
They still lay really well, but one goes broody more often. When the season starts we get 3-4 eggs a day from the 5 of them , , although once the summer heat kicks in they are less consistant. Mind you I have no quota I expect from them and they are pretty good st sneaking off to hide their eggs ..my dog has a lovely shiny coat...
They look like they have barnvelder and andulusion in them judging by feather patterns.