The Chicken Dilemma
We have six hens and three roosters. One of the hens is gimpy after Clyde tried to eat her. She seems to be fine with hobbling around on a bumb-leg, but can’t go forage like the others. One rooster was raised by a turkey and sleeps in his own coop while his adoptive mother now roosts in the trees with the guineas. Out of six hens, we are only getting about one egg a day – if we’re lucky. I guess it’s closer to five a week.
It could be that some of them have decided to lay elsewhere. It could be that the seasons are changing. And it could be that these ladies are now over two years old (maybe even 3+ years) and they just don’t have it in them anymore (huh, I guess I meant that literally as well as figuratively. Remember the farm sayings post?) but my guess is that it’s a combination of all three, although I haven’t found any stray eggs laying around anywhere.
I am thinking about processing the whole lot of them and putting them in the freezer as stew hens. Then we would just buy fresh chicks in the spring and start over again. However, there are several problems with this scenario…
- These are Buckeye chickens, a heritage breed. And I hate to see our small flock leave this earth without leaving behind some offspring. We only got one egg to hatch this year (our fault due to inexperience) and that was a rooster. If I kept them through the winter I might be able to get a few chicks next spring.
- They are old birds and wouldn’t make very good eating, except perhaps the newest rooster. It would be an awful lot of work for some old, tough meat. They may be of better use to us as breeding stock.
- If we bought chicks in early spring they wouldn’t start laying until half-way through the summer.
HOWEVER – I also don’t think it is a wise use of our money and time to be feeding these birds every day, and going out in the morning to let them out, then in the evening to put them up, every day, seven days a week, rain, shine or snow… for one lousy egg every other day.
How do you handle your chicken situation? Do you get new chicks every year? Do you get your old hens to hatch their own? Do you keep the generations separated somehow? Do you downsize your flock in the winter? Do you eat hens that are more than two or three years old?
Any input is appreciated. Thanks!
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I would keep them and see if they’ll breed.
I once read of a guy who bought different-coloured chickens each year. Brown ones one year, white the next, black the next, etc.
He got to experience lots of different heritage breeds, but he also knew exactly how old every one of his chickens was. Each year he’d process the oldest ones and get a new batch in.
The main problem I see with that is that you’re always buying chickens, rather than breeding your own.
We try to raise several batches of chicks each year (we’ve got two hens sitting on about 15 eggs each at the moment, plus 5 more chicks in the incubator). We eat the roosters, and sell or eat the surplus hens. Then we keep enough of the best hens to maintain the productivity of the laying flock.
In general we haven’t been killing off the older chooks, except for some ISA browns that I’ve never really been a fan of (they were given to us by friends). Our flock is getting older, though, so we’ll probably start doing that soon. I think we’ll mince the older birds, so toughness isn’t an issue.
We were going to eat our four year old Golden Comets at this time last year, but were so glad we didn’t! They perked back up and started laying just as well as the younger hens in the spring, and they turn out to be the best foragers we have, which I figure they can pass on through their genes and behavior to chicks we hope to raise next year.
It’s quite possible your hens are molting right now — ours are. That will make them seem like they’re at the end of their laying cycle, but they’re really just taking a break while they spend that extra energy growing new feathers. Look for feathers on the ground and pin feathers around their necks to see if they’re molting. If so, you should give them the benefit of the doubt and keep them. If for some reason they don’t perk back up in the spring, you could ditch them after you start getting next year’s chicks laying. Also, if they’re molting, you might want to supplement their feed with some extra protein go get them laying again faster.
On the other hand, I’d ditch all males except your best rooster. One rooster per 12 hens is perfect, and any more is just a drain on the flock. I’d choose the rooster who forages best, mates with the hens without overmating, feeds them tidbits, and is subservient around you.
It might be worth making an isolation coop or tractor for your gimpy hen. Toss her in for a couple of weeks and monitor to see whether she’s giving you any eggs. In the past, we’ve kept imperfect hens in the flock longer than we should have — they never seem to perk back up to levels that match the other birds. Even though she was mauled, her problem could also be partly due to a genetic predisposition to something you don’t want in your flock, so I’d take her out of the running.
Finally, even though it seems like a pain to kill old birds, if you make their meat into potstickers, it’s worth the effort! Yum!
We don’t let our hens out until about 10:00. They all then lay in the house. We use to let them out at sunrise but they started laying outside in hiding places. For these short days, we put in a Harbor Freight solar panel light kit.
Thanks for the great tips! I think we’ll keep them around then. I know a lot of it has to do with the time of year, and the idea of going out there early every morning. One thing I can do is make sure they have food at night so they have something to eat in the morning. That way I don’t have to go out so early.
Anna you’ve been telling me about those pot stickers for a long time now. I’ll have to give them a try very soon. I wonder how they are with venison…
They are delectable with venison — a good use for the tougher meat.
I have 16 chickens of various breeds. I’m lucky to get 2 eggs a day for the last month or so, but the whole flock is molting. 4 of my most consistent layers are 3 years old, 12 of them will be a year old next month, and 2 of them were hatched in April. My vote– stick it out. It sucks not having as many eggs, right now. There’s less light, too– chickens’ productivity is related to how much light they receive, too. My advice: stick it out!
Our hens always decrease production when the night time temps drop below 50 and day time temps under 65. The lay their best at 70 degrees. I agree with Charis- they need 12+ hrs of daylight for optimum laying. Mine are now 5 yrs old and still lay great when the temperatures are good. We have 5 hens/ 1 rooster which are a bantam mix. I’m thinking of starting another flock with a larger breed to get a bigger egg. My hens lay little eggs…cute…all yolk…but I have use 2 for 1 large.
I agree with Anna. My chickens went through seasons of being productive and “lazy”. They always perk back up though. We also hatched each year. We ended up with a plethora of roosters which wasn’t so good for the harem so we culled them.
Wait until spring. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Our chickens are 6 years old and still lay an egg a day each. too many roosters stress the hens. Keep the the largest rooster and get rid of the rest..we have chickens for ten years now and all are good layers except when they get stressed we had a coon get in the chicken house and killeda few and the whole lot quit laying for weeks..
Depends on how hard it is to get new ones. The plan here is to raise chicks in the spring and cull heavily in the fall. Right now we have a mixed flock, but we’re planning on concentrating on one breed of chickens, one of ducks and one of geese. It will probably be year after next before our first real cull.
And don’t underestimate the value of that stew chicken. A good chicken stock is worth the processing.
We have chickens. Our one roo is about 9 years old and one hen is left that is about that age, too. Some are younger. We bought from a mailorder catalog last year. We got a lot of cool breeds. However, they’ve been getting sick one at a time and dying. I think their parents were over-bred in the stockyard making them very weak and susceptible to anything that comes around. They’ve culled themselves, it seems. The ones that are left are quite hearty, but it sure was painful to see good money go down the drain. Our older hen lays about 1 egg a month (bright blue). Our middle-aged hens lay pretty much every day. Our youngsters are fickle about laying. We keep all of them around to eat bugs. Besides, I don’t have the heart to ‘do the deed’ myself. If you can, do it. You’ll be able to keep yourself in meat that way. I keep them for eggs because I cook and bake a lot.
Good luck!
It’s possible your chickens are molting. But I wouldn’t doubt that they are stressed out. IMO, 3 roosters for 6 hens it too much.
Mini you’re probably right. We’re going to dispatch two roosters and one hen this week. They should make good stew if nothing else, but they’re two years old and are a laying breed so I’m not sure how good they’ll be roasted.
You are probably better off going with a different cooking method. Coq au vin, chicken pot pie, chicken cacciatore, ie stewing & slow cooking, & of course soups & stock of course. In fact, Coq au vin was the traditional way of cooking “old” roosters. Although I have to say, I’m not sure two years is really that “old”.