Quote:
While chickens will continue to lay for many many years, their production does decrease after age 2. Even production chickens in ideal production setting.
I fell in love with chickens when I helped put in an automatic egg collection system in a production hen house. On the lower level they had a huge area with hundreds of cute, fluffy yellow chicks. The owner explained to me that it was his "grow out" area and that when his hens reached 2 years of age they were sent to Cambell's in NJ for soup. The empty cages were filled with new hens, which he grew out in the large grow out area.
My point is, while your chickens are still laying , they aren't laying as much as they did when they were young. (Do any of us do as much now as we did when we were young?)
Consider putting the dog food up higher and enjoying the antics. You said you were gonna butcher the 3 year old red sex links....what breed are the other 4 chickens? Red Sex links are probably the ones laying your eggs, unless the other 4 are another production breed.
I knew hens egg production declined at two years of age but when we purchased the eight 3 year old hens, I had hoped they would keep us in eggs until our pullets started laying. I also had reason to believe that they were still quite productive as there were 6 eggs in the nesting boxes the day we picked them up(chased them around the coop and captured them)and they were supposedly still getting 6-7 a day. In the two and half months we've had them, they've never given us that many in a day. We also kept close tabs on who was laying what. We were rarely gifted with eggs from the red sex-links. The EEs and the RIRs were doing all the work. We did everything we could to make sure these hens were healthy and happy - free-ranging from 10:30 am until bedtime, layer feed, crushed oyster shells, table scraps a few times of week, a nice clean coop and cozy nesting boxes with curtains for privacy. They had it made. We finally made the decision(and it wasn't easy)that they were not an asset to us and were costing us too much to feed them when we were getting nary an egg from them. Now, hopefully, with three less(my husband wasn't able to get one of them), our 18 and 20 week old pullets will be able to eat without getting pecked to death by the big girls. Oh, and we started bringing the dog food inside when we let them out in the morning. It's become a game to race back to the porch to bring the bowl inside before the chickens make a bee line for it.
While chickens will continue to lay for many many years, their production does decrease after age 2. Even production chickens in ideal production setting.
I fell in love with chickens when I helped put in an automatic egg collection system in a production hen house. On the lower level they had a huge area with hundreds of cute, fluffy yellow chicks. The owner explained to me that it was his "grow out" area and that when his hens reached 2 years of age they were sent to Cambell's in NJ for soup. The empty cages were filled with new hens, which he grew out in the large grow out area.
My point is, while your chickens are still laying , they aren't laying as much as they did when they were young. (Do any of us do as much now as we did when we were young?)
Consider putting the dog food up higher and enjoying the antics. You said you were gonna butcher the 3 year old red sex links....what breed are the other 4 chickens? Red Sex links are probably the ones laying your eggs, unless the other 4 are another production breed.
I knew hens egg production declined at two years of age but when we purchased the eight 3 year old hens, I had hoped they would keep us in eggs until our pullets started laying. I also had reason to believe that they were still quite productive as there were 6 eggs in the nesting boxes the day we picked them up(chased them around the coop and captured them)and they were supposedly still getting 6-7 a day. In the two and half months we've had them, they've never given us that many in a day. We also kept close tabs on who was laying what. We were rarely gifted with eggs from the red sex-links. The EEs and the RIRs were doing all the work. We did everything we could to make sure these hens were healthy and happy - free-ranging from 10:30 am until bedtime, layer feed, crushed oyster shells, table scraps a few times of week, a nice clean coop and cozy nesting boxes with curtains for privacy. They had it made. We finally made the decision(and it wasn't easy)that they were not an asset to us and were costing us too much to feed them when we were getting nary an egg from them. Now, hopefully, with three less(my husband wasn't able to get one of them), our 18 and 20 week old pullets will be able to eat without getting pecked to death by the big girls. Oh, and we started bringing the dog food inside when we let them out in the morning. It's become a game to race back to the porch to bring the bowl inside before the chickens make a bee line for it.
