Parenting
cleo--re chickens....
So I've been thinking about your chickens a lot (and I think you are overfeeding them! KIDDING wrong post!)
No, really I have been thinking of your chickens, and here is my big thing about having them.....
A. Do you keep them for so long, then eat chicken for dinner some night? If so, how many years do you keep a chicken? Is there an expiration on the egg laying that you decide "enough is enough" and axe it?
or
B. Do you just keep them until they die..and then....??? Bury it??
See, I'd like the idea of fresh eggs....but then dealing with the old chickens would.....eeek....I don't know. The whole neck breaking and plucking thing would make me puke I think.
Also--how many eggs do your chickens lay each day/week?
This discussion has been closed.
Re: cleo--re chickens....
Chickens have been soooo much fun for me and the kids! And yes, I do overfeed them probably, LOL- I can't go outside without having something to toss to them (which is why they all come RUNNING to me as soon as I step into the backyard.)
So, chickens don't start laying until they're about 6 months old. They lay at their peak for the next year or so and then it gradually starts to decline. Most chickens become infrequent layers after about 3 years.
Some people keep them until they die but I'm selfish- I want eggs and I don't want to have a big flock of elderly chickens taking up all of our space and preventing me from getting new ones.
Some people eat them when they get old. Apparently an old hen is tough as hell, but they make good soup/stew- you just have to cook them for a long time.
I have no desire to eat our own chickens, but I also don't plan on running a retirement home for hens. The tentative plan is to get a couple new chickens each spring and fall so that I keep a good variety of ages- don't want them all to get old at the same time! And as they get old I'll probably give them away a couple at a time. It's very common for people to give away old chickens on Craigslist (or sell them for a couple bucks each.) If the person who takes the old ones wants to eat them then so be it, but I just don't want to know about it, LOL.
As for egg production, I only have 6 chickens that are currently laying (the others are too young yet or molting right now.) On average I get 4-5 eggs each day from them. By spring all of them should be laying again and out of the 13 chickens I'll probably get 10-12 eggs per day. In general chickens tend to lay more frequently in the spring/summer when days are longer, but their egg laying really tapers off when the days get shorter (they need a certain amount of daylight each day to lay regularly.)
If you're seriously considering getting chickens start lurking/reading at the backyardchickens.com message boards. Don't even consider building a coop or getting chickens without spending some time reading over there- it's really a great site:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/index.php
Oh, and if you do decide to get chickens, I've personally found that they're really easy to find and cheap on Craigslist. You should be able to find laying hens (nothing fancy, just your basic chickens) for about $5 each.