When do you turn your laying hens into stew?

I butcher my laying hens every two years. I have been talking to a lot of other chicken people and it seems like the birds just don't last very long. My grandmother claimed that she had hens as old as 20 years. I did get a strange strain of bird from a friend up in Illinois and she is 8 years old and still laying well. She also will actually raise me 2 sets of chicks during the summer. I am breeding her to my big roosters and so far, her daughters have been able to keep up to her standards. Her 6 year old daughter gives me a big white egg almost every day and is not so broody. I am going to switch to this new line of hens and quit messing with these short term chickens.

They are afraid very afraid

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Check it Out O added another Plank With O care
http://www.libertyzone.com/Communist...to-Planks.html

After ours were 2 years old, we used them for chicken-and-dumplings or chicken and noodles as we needed them. We usually had some idea of which the poorer producers were.So, at any one time that might have been some 3 or 4 year olds in the flock. Node of them ever lasted long enough to be "skinny". There is nothing better than a fat 2-3 year old hen for chicken and dumplings.... for the taste buds, that is..... myabe not so good for the arteries.

I think many high production breeds wear out sooner... must be a lot of work to pop out and egg almost every single day.

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They shall all sit under their own vines and their own fig trees, and they shall live in peace and unafraid. Mica 4:4

When they stop laying.

I don't name them, but if they have been around for more than a year, I feel they can stay for as long as they live. Mine free range, almost never need feeding other than in deep winter, so it isn't as though they cost me anything much (other than a good dinner, I suppose)

Mary

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In politics the truth is just the lie you believe most - unknown

well Mary, what kiind you have?
Mine forage, free range (soon to change, tired of fencing in the gardens, and also they're laying in the garage, where I cant find the eggs....)
mine are cheap scrawny little birds, mixed and I keep them for eggs. They eat like pigs.... and free range as well.....
I used to have RIR, aside from being very destructive (digging in the garden, digging holes in which I'd step) I loved them.

One is a Black Copper Marans mix, two are "blue egg layers", one is a ?who knows?, and four are wily red broilers that managed to hide when we butchered their "friends". The broilers actually lay pretty well, nice large brown eggs and almost daily. There is just DH and myself, so we don't need many eggs - which is just as well, because mine hide them as well. Among a long list of things to do is build an enclosed chicken house & run so I can keep them in till they have laid - though how to get them into the coop I am not sure. They aren't that into chicken feed or scratch. Maybe cat food or hamburger will do it. LOL

Mary

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In politics the truth is just the lie you believe most - unknown

Mine won't go to freezer camp either, I only have 4, two are 7 and the other two are 2. One of the seven year olds is still a daily layer until she goes broody. The other one lays 13 to 14 eggs and then goes broody for at least 90 days. But she's a good mom and has raised several nice chicks, this last group I kept the two I have now. I gave the two roosters to a family who wanted to start over after losing their chickens. Last picture she posted Lucky and Harley looked happy!

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That has been the case around our place too, we havent been able to get a hen old enough for the stew pot before the coons, possums, or some other critter gets them.

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"Nothing so needs reforming as other peoples habits." Mark Twain

timely thread for me--we have our new pullets going strong and then a handful of the 4yo red sex links. they have slowed down alot, and since the others are laying well, the old gals will be stew before winter.

how many hens do most of you keep? we only need them for our own family, i do try to sell a few but don't have good luck in that, as too many ppl have a friend, relative or neighbor that gives them away. so we have waaay too many, around 20.

We don't eat ours. I figure if you can give me 200 or so eggs then I can let you free range around the place and keep bugs down. In the 4 years we've been here I've picked one tick off of our 8 kids and one off the 2 dogs. We also get fewer skeeter bites. Not to mention the entertainment value of watching them play in the yard!

(If I need to I can rationalize it out enough that butchering them would be the LAST thing you'd want to do with them! LOL )

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I refuse to believe corporations are people until Texas executes one.

I also believe that workers need Unions as much as gun owners need the NRA.

I actually wrote a computer program, way back when, that analysed this for a huge commercial egg producer. They used dedicated laying breeds and crosses - Leghorns and their very own equivalent of commercial sex-linked layers.

It came to the same thing you've heard. They started laying at 20 weeks, were in full production by 26 weeks, trailled off to where cashing them in as old broilers at approx. 150-156 weeks, dedicating the resources to raising a new batch and bringing them into production at the same time at 26 weeks was worthwhile. There was a plateau from about 2 to 3.5 years (about the end of the 170 weeks), where the number of eggs fell but the size of the eggs increased so that total production only fell off very slowly. If they had spare space, cheap feed, and it wasn't winter, they could hold the birds to the end of the fourth year and still make money, although their rate of return was diminished. They earned a premium then on the larger eggs to offset the lower numbers, and the death rates of the birds.

Remember, this was specialised egg-laying strains. Dual-purpose breeds will produce less eggs but more slowly. It won't be as much of a strain on their system, you could keep them longer, but they'll still be eating almost as much every day while producing less eggs daily.

Pressure-cookers will turn stringy old hens into tender meat, even if you then pull it off the bones, make chicken pie, and drink the soup. Or slow-cooked steamed old broilers make terrific sandwiches.

Never here as well - I use the egg money I make off mine and put it away as their old age pension.

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Zone 7B / 8A

Chewie, I'm in the same boat as you...beautiful eggs that nobody wants to buy as they have friends who give them away. I've become one of those friends....we're drowning in eggs. Then again marketing isn't my strong suit.

I am not sure eggsactly how many hens I have...but 20 or so is about right. One can't hardly count the silkiies, right? We'll be busy this fall.

I've never mistaken my friends for food or vice versa, that's just part of being a gentleman

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Vicker
If you're born to hang, you'll never drown.

When I had to move and couldn't take the girls, I gave them away. Don't have a problem eating them, but it would have been mean to freeze them. The folks we gave them to took everything including the coop so they would be more comfortable in their new home. And put the girls in a box between them on the front seat of the pick up truck so they could talk to them on the way home. They wanted to tell them about their new home so they would be prepared . I think they were the right people to give my girls to.

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Nina's Grammy

Ok, a bit off topic here, but wanted to share this. I had just read the thread about grandparents raising grandkids, got distracted after I switched to this thread, came back to the computer and this post and vicker's just above it was on my screen. It took me a minute to figure out you were talking about chickens, not your kids!!

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"Nothing so needs reforming as other peoples habits." Mark Twain

Whenever the aunts and uncles called and said, "Let's get together next Sunday," Mom would sharpen the hatchet. She didn't keep the non-producers too long, we couldn't afford the feed for the reduced production---and, we were hungry. Sometimes it was a miscalculation--I remember the large, medium, small, smaller, and tiny eggs in the pot. But, those old hens and Mom's big batches of homemade noodles kept us fed...........

geo

Most of my flock is about 3 years old, except one 7 year old hen who is a good broody and mama. She'll be hatching chicks in another couple of weeks and if there are a good number of pullets, the other hens will go to freezer camp. I keep fewer than a dozen chickens, just for ourselves.