The weather has been jolly wacky this spring : 80 degrees and sunny , then 30 degrees and snowy , often in the span of a undivided daylight . I should therefore not have been surprised to discover nut in our nest boxes back in March , a undecomposed two month before our girls commonly start put down . I portion out a pic of our first tinted nut of the time of year on our social mass medium , along with an prototype of Natalya , the 3 - twelvemonth - old blue Silkie who ’d place it .
The Commercial Concept
A common — and distressing!—misconception that some new backyard quite a little owner have is that hen are only useful until they are 3 years onetime . Once they ’ve reached this landmark age , their product plummets and their value zeroes out . When your chickens have reached the end of their life , so it ’s best to euthanize them or use them for soup .
As shocking as this misbelief may be , it ’s easy to see where it do from . Most commercial bollock farms keep their layers until thehens reach 2 to 3 years of age . Once their put down stock achieve this age , commercial farms generally dispose of their hens , refreshing their flocks with pullets just past point - of - lay .
Because of this commercial praxis , those novel to chicken - guardianship often put on it ’s also received operating procedure for backyard flocks . They could n’t be more wrong . Ana Hotaling
Small Flock Facts
While it ’s true that a hen ’s eggproduction begins to declineafter historic period 3 , it is by no means over . With a proper dieting , pot of fresh water , sufficient rude light and a safe living environment , a layer can continue to produce eggs forfive to 10 years .
She may only lay an egg every couple of weeks , but she ’ll babble out her egg song as proudly and aloud as the bambino .
Read more : Chickens can make a lot of noise . Here ’s a quick guide to what they may say .
Ana Hotaling
Lifespan Factors
Many factors affect the life of a chicken . Poor nutrition plays a key theatrical role in a hen ’s seniority . If not fed a layer ration specifically formulated with the percentage of protein and calcium needed for proper egg production , a biddy will attract these edifice - pulley-block food fromher own body ’s artificial lake , like a shot impact her health .
Similarly , continual bollock production can negatively bear upon the lifespan of chickens . Even if fed a nourishing layer ration , daily or near - daily product exhausts and depletes a biddy , causingcaged - layer tiredness . Allowing set biddy to catch one’s breath and recuperate during the shorter daylight months can help broaden their life .
Other agent that affect a hen ’s lifespan admit a safe , clean bread and butter environs ; domestic fowl sickness and parasites ; the presence of predatory animal ; and the type of chicken she is .
Production hybrids will typically have a shorter lifespan than twofold - intention and inheritance breed chicken .
show more : you may keep the eggs go in wintertime with some auxiliary light .
How Long Can Hens Live?
Given a safe , clean and tenseness - free living environment , with wintertime off to pillow and replenish their bodies , and mint of nutritious intellectual nourishment and blank water , hens can survive as long as eight to 10 long time … and quite maybe longer . grant to the Guinness Book of Records , the track record forworld ’s older chickenis held by Muffy , an American Game bantam who conk at the age of 22 .
Natalya , being only 3 , hopefully has many old age ahead of her . She has homegrown inspiration : She shares a coop with Butters , our Spangled Orpington girl , who hatched here on June 30 , 2015 , and will be 7 next month .
Our howling bird , Dolly Ameraucana , lives in the next henhouse over . Dolly will be 10 this June , and she is every act as spry as her daughters Harriet and Laetitia , whom she lay and hatched at the good older historic period of 6 .
