Chickens!

G

goldypops

Well-Known Member
Joined
6 March 2008
Messages
304
Location
east midlands
Visit site
Anyone that has any how long do yours on av live for??? Just lost another today
frown.gif
and mine only seem to manage 2-3 years yet I have friends who have ones that live 5+ years!! Mine are completely free range dont know if that makes any difference??
confused.gif
 
[ QUOTE ]
My 'rescue' chickens are still going strong 2 years on but then I don't know how old they were when they were evicted from their battery cages...
mad.gif


[/ QUOTE ]

i think they throw them out at 18 months old. or throw them in im not sure which 1
confused.gif
 
Most of mine live to 3 or 4 though I have one at the moment who must be 6 or 7 and is still going strong. She was still laying all last season, has stopped now for winter (as they all have), so will see if she starts again when it warms up.
 
I've got one who is rising 6. She hasn't laid an egg since August and she looked poor during the snow. In fact, she does agree with snow at all - wouldn't walk on it and had to be carried around! It's the only time she'll let me catch her. I'm sure that she's start laying again in a few weeks.
 
We've been keeping hens for almost 9 years, and still have 2 of our original 10 Black Rocks but they don't lay as often as they used to. One died within 6 months of getting her - vet said probably genetic as it had never matured, still looked young compared to the rest, had weak muscles and never laid an egg, the rest have largely been killed by foxes. We've added to them along the way - 8 hatchlings a year later all killed by the fox, 4 more and 5 more hatchlings the following year of which foxes got them all bar 3 which are still going strong, and most of the rest were hatched 2 or 3 years after that. We've lost about 3 to health related issues - 1 looked 'egg bound' - egg broken inside died probably of septacemia, and 2 with some sort of virus or illness which the others didn't catch died at different times - just go off their food, look ill, comb goes pale then they peg it.

We've added more (and lost a few more to the foxes) over the past 3 years, mostly from people giving up hens and still have 11 - 2 Black Rock, 4 Maran, 1 Double Lacewing Barnvelder, 1 Poland Bantam, 1 Leghorn, 1 Welsummer Bantam, 1 Rhode Island Red (she's the baby just over a year old). None of them are spectacular layers now as they're all getting on a bit, average age must be over 5. Not truly free range in that they're in an enclosure but none of them has worked out if they fly on to the hen house and take off they can fly out - one of the ones the fox got, Lucy, a Welsummer used to regularly take off but none of the others discovered this!
 
My mum started with four Point of Lay hens about 3 to 4 years ago. One died about 6 months ago - had been totally normal, looked well but was found in the house house in the morning in the corner (looked like she's just keeled over)
2 are Lace wine dots - i think thats how you spell it. The other two are crosses - all are quite large and for the first 2 years layed eggs all year round. They stop laying over the winter now.
We've just had a new hen house delivered - mum now has a new Lace wine dot and a Frizzle Brahma. She's going to get two or three more Brahma's.
Anyway the choock man who delivered the new house said they can live up to 13 years of age??!!?!??
Our lot roam everywhere, and get all sorts of goodies.....
 
I must be doing something wrong then
frown.gif
Had chickens for about 5 years now, never lost any to the fox even though they free range, they just die of illness/disease! go off their food and then peg it. Think this last one though might have been impacted crop. Anyone got any tips for increasing their life expectancy
smirk.gif
 
All our current hens are between 8 months and 2.5yrs in the past we have hens live up about 5yrs and a bantam hen about 8yrs.
Millimoo we need a new hen house who did your mum get hers from please, there seems to be some real rubbish out there.
 
[ QUOTE ]
My chooks got in the sugarbeet bucket twice and I realised they started laying that week. So they now get scoop of sugarbeet at the weekend during the winter.

[/ QUOTE ]

Do you soak the sugarbeet first or feed it just as i is?
 
Funnily enough we seemed to lose one regularly with sour crop when they were free range. Since we moved and they had to be penned in to a small yard with no grass we haven't lost one to it (just 16 to the bloody fox). I did wonder whether access to long grass was a bad thing for them but they just went anywhere they wanted on the smallholding. Having said that, I would much prefer to lose one now and gain and have them running free than locked up and in even more danger from the fox. The surviving ones of ours are about 4 now, mainly ex bats.
 
Our oldest is a ten year old Black Rock. She was one of six and the others died, or (mostly) were poached by foxes, dogs etc. They were in a very poor state when they arrived and the first died the same day. We had two Brahmas, lovely birds, but both died when they were only four years old. The rest are crossbreeds, except for a very fetching Polish cockerel. Ours are free range in the back garden (about half an acre). They used to have the run of the paddocks but foxes put an end to that.
 
I have about 30 chooks mixed hybrids the oldest was a light sussex lived until 5 years at the mo I have several lohmans that are about 3 and a bluebell thats 4 plus various others. Luckily i dont have problems with the fox as the chooks are near the house, they free range the garden but sometimes one will just go off food then peg out. Not much you can do with chooks when they are ill
 
My oldest two are black rocks, 3 out of 4 of my leghorns died through a genetic disease they got paralysis over night. 1 through a prolapse and Betty was ancient when I got her so no idea how old she was, she was from a "free range farm".
Had two ducks stolen this year- pathetic isnt it.

The hens just get a scoop of soaked sugar beet like the horses do. My tack room is next to the chicks and they just got into the sugar beet bucket they love it have to put it out in a line so they dont fight over it.


Edited because Im a really intelligent uni student and my spelling is fab :s
 

Our new Hen House came from:
http://www.whitebarnpoultryandanimalhousing.co.uk/index.html
He makes them himself - although you can buy accessories, nesting boxes, perches etc so you could kit out a shed.
He's Bradford based, and we only knew about him as we'd seen one of his hen houses at a Feed Merchants near Harrogate.
My mum bought the HS43, which arrived on Saturday last week. Its fully assembled and very solid (and heavy). The build quality is fab, and the perch is rounded off.
Check E-Bay too, there's usually loads on there - although there's alot of rubbish too :-)
I've PM'd you 'willhegofirst' :-)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top