This morning, J and I were talking about 'the ladies'. We have ten laying hens, acquired at different times. They went off the lay about two weeks before Thanksgiving. (We have no reason to think this is because we were going to be having turkey!) so we were discussing what might be happening with them. It's been cold, but not all that time. It's been snowy, but they've never minded that in the past.
And then it struck us, and we started trying to figure out how old they are. Hens can be expected to live about ten years, if they are coddled a little bit, and a maximum of 30, if they more or less live in the house with you (!). But the typical lifespan is closer to seven years for pet chickens, which is a heck of an improvement over the handful of months for factory broilers, and the 18 months for battery hens. Egg production falls off after 18 months, so typically, they are turned into dog food, or whatever, at that age. Most hens stop laying all together after about five years, although this number is 'fuzzy'.
Our six oldest hens will be 5 in the spring, we think (I lost the record when I had to take down the old blog). This is roughly the age at which they stop laying. The other four are younger. We got them from friends, so are uncertain as to age. Probably, they are going to be three in the spring.
So now we have to decide. Are we running a retirement home for aged hens? Or are we running a productive homestead? If the former, we should just keep going to the IFA, and buying them food. If the latter, we should go ahead and slaughter them, and get new chicks in the spring.
We need more information. So this weekend, we're going to slaughter two of the ladies, to find out what that's about. We have illustrated instructions. We have a basic knowledge of anatomy. We have dogs to clean up after our mistakes. But actually, we have no idea what we are doing. This should be interesting.
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