THIS SPRING I BOUGHT 4 BARD ROCK HENS AND 2 GOLDEN LACE HENS AND I WANTED TO KNOW WHEN THEY SHOULD START TO LAY? I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO KNOW WHEN IT WOULD BE OK TO BE PUT WITH MY 5 OR 6 YEAR OLD HENS AND ROOSTER? THANKS A LOT REBECCA ACKLEY BRIDGEVILLE,CA

-- Rebecca Ackley (cowgirlbubba@hotmail.com), June 26, 2001

Answers

http://www.winternet.com/~mikelr/flame33.html

-- Brendan K Callahan (sleeping@netins.net), June 26, 2001.

Rebecca, go down to the the "Older Messages" at the bottom of the current messages, go to the section called "Poultry (General)", find the thread called "Do all hens lay?". There's a lot of information in those older messages - worth reading when you've got time, and worth looking at when you want to know something - good chance the question has already been answered.

Short answer - from as young as twenty weeks they CAN start laying (although the eggs will be small and odd for a while), from about half-a-year (26 weeks) they should be laying (mostly), but it might still take a while for it all to settle down to steady once-a-day.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), June 26, 2001.

I've got a question - do your 5 and 6 year old hens still lay? If so how many eggs do they typically lay? I've got to admit that's the oldest I've ever heard of anyone keeping laying hens. 3 years is about the tops among people I know.

-- Sojourner (notime4@summer.spam), June 26, 2001.

Expect anywhere from 4 & 1/2 mo. to as late as 6 mo. to start laying. The first eggs can be very tiny, they make a great show and tell piece. I wouldn't let the young hens with the older ones until just about time for them to start laying. Those older roosters can be very rough on the young hens. They don't know what is about to happen and may lose a lot of feathers when it does.

-- Russell Hays (rhays@sstelco.com), June 27, 2001.

Hey, Sojourner!

The oldest hen we ever had died at almost 12 years of age -- shortly after hatching out a duck egg. She was a "turken" acquired from Murray McMurray hatcheries, and free ranged the whole time. We've also kept Rhode Island Reds (old style) that made it to 8-10 years of age, before keeling over. The turken never was a good layer, but we kept her because she was friendly and weird-looking. The Reds, in their old age, typically laid no more than once every two or three days (huge eggs) during the warmer months -- but bear in mind, these birds had no grain feeding and had to chase down their own bugs. Not bad for such old girls!

Anita E.

-- Anita Evangelista (evangel@atlascomm.net), June 27, 2001.

I think the, " when do they start laying?" was answered well As for, "when should you put them together " Well, I'd have to ask how old are the pullets? We have twelve yr. old hens and now have added 19 pullets. We just kept the pullets in a portable pen until they were 8 weeks old. This way they socialized with the hens through the wire. We started with just turning out three with the hens , so that if there were a scene we could stop it. Nothing happened so we turned them all out together during the day and housed them seperate at night. That is until a couple weeks ago we place them all in the coop and still no event. There is some pecking but know more than normal in getting a pecking order straight. Good luck ! :o)

-- Kelle in MT. (kvent1729@aol.com), June 27, 2001.