What to do with chickens when they stop laying?

[bobbi-j]

The freezer "method" you referring to is an expression. Nice way of saying slaughtering birds for food. "Send them to freezer camp".

Actually, people have suggested putting chicks in the freezer to kill them if they need to be put down. I thought that's what the poster was referring to...

 

[heartsizedfarm]

Personally, and I'm not challenging other people's way of doing things, I feel that a hen who has given me an egg for 300 out of 365 days of the year, for two or three years, has earned something other than a quick death. So she gets a retirement plan. She gets food, free range, the companionship of her chicken buddies, and a spot in the flower garden when she dies.

 

[Melabella]

Has anyone here weighing in on this topic actually had a bird live into their 20's? Jeez, some of these girls will outlive me then!

Fancy that!

What is the oldest chicken you have all ever owned?

MB

 

[tadaen sylverma]

Actually, people have suggested putting chicks in the freezer to kill them if they need to be put down. I thought that's what the poster was referring to...

That is just sad if people actually do that. I have no respect for that. Nothing but torture.

 

[bobbi-j]

Has anyone here weighing in on this topic actually had a bird live into their 20's? Jeez, some of these girls will outlive me then!

Fancy that!

What is the oldest chicken you have all ever owned?

MB

Mine free range, so there is always the potential for losing them early. But I think the oldest one I've had was 3 or 4. I have some 3 year old hens right now (I just didn't have enough to make butchering them worthwhile...) and I have lost a couple this winter.

 

[donrae]

My oldest I owned was 7, I gave her and bunch of over 4 year old hens away to someone who wanted yard ornaments. She still laid for another year, then I lost contact with the new owner.

 

[Melabella]

I met a woman in the feed store yesterday who was answering an ad up on the bulletin board for two 8 month old cockerels that were advertised for sale. She said she likes the eye candy roaming her property when she looks out her kitchen window or sits out on her porch. She said that the last rooster she had came with the sale of the house, and was told he was 15 years old. She felt sad she only had the house a year and he had passed. I told her I thought she shouldn't feel bad, that he had a darn good life! She told me lots of estate owners like having roosters for the "country" feel,, and since they don't keep hens, they don't fight, or crow nearly as much. Good to hear that two roo's got a good fate ahead of them.


The things you learn through the course of a day!

MB

 

[heartsizedfarm]

I was given a rooster and his five hens as a gift by a young woman going away to university. She raised him from a chick, and I believe she said he was five years old. He died just this past hard winter. He had never much liked the cold. I remember him marching over the cold concrete of the barn floor, trying to keep his toes off the cold floor, and last winter he had to have a few days in our house when it was really freezing out there. Anyway, he would have been about twelve when he died.

 

[Dodo8]

Sorry to bother about something that isn't this topic but i need help. Chicks are hatching in two days! Don't know what heat lamp to buy. Don't know what to do when they first come out. Don't know what to feed the chicks when they come out. They also say to let them dry their feathers in the incubator but ours is too small. Obviously you can tell I've never done this before!

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Sorry to bother about something that isn't this topic but i need help. Chicks are hatching in two days! Don't know what heat lamp to buy. Don't know what to do when they first come out. Don't know what to feed the chicks when they come out. They also say to let them dry their feathers in the incubator but ours is too small. Obviously you can tell I've never done this before!

Breathe -
It would be best to start your own thread in the appropriate forum where it will be noticed and people can respond directly to you/your situation vs. getting it muddled up in this unrelated thread.