When Do You Sell Your Egg Layers As Production Goes Down?

[peach2727]

We Have A Few Hundred Hens And Are Running A Business Here In Ecuador For Free Range Eggs.

At What Age Does Everyone Think Is The Right Time To Sell Your Animals As Their Egg Production Diminishes?

This Is A Business And I Am Looking For A Consenus Age To Get Rid Of The Hens And Bring In Younger Ones?

Thank You For Everyone's Input. You Have Been A Great Help To Us.

 

[LadyIslay]

My uncle runs 99 hens, and he culls his layers after 2 years of egg production.

 

[peach2727]

Thanks.

SO, HE GETS RID OF THEM AT 2 1/2 YEARS OF AGE? ( SINCE THEY START PRODUCING EGGS AT 6 MONTH)

 

[matte]

It depends a lot on the breed and lines that you use. Modern hybrids bred for incredibly high egg production in an indoor factory wear themselves out quickly and are usually removed around 16 months of age. Some heritage breeds can be expected to lay as well or better through their second year of life than their first. A free range setting will probably alter some of the former. If you can separate into two flocks keeping some of the older and starting some newer, I would think experience would be your best teacher.

 

[patman75]

From what I read or been told here is that when the chickens start their 2nd molt is when you get rid of them. Their egg production goes down after the 2nd molt and it costs money to feed chickens while they molt and you are not getting any eggs.

I'm on a 2.5 year rotation with 3 groups of chickens.

Group A ( born spring 2009)
Group B (born Spring 2010)
Group C (will be born spring 2011)

Group A should start their 2nd molt about the time with group C starts laying. Group A will then be processed for soup and the cycle continues.

 

[LadyIslay]

What patman75 has described sounds about right. My uncle keeps commercial hybrids (and so do I, but I haven't been doing it long enough to think about culling any of them!)