by Your Hen is 3 years old, Does she still have any use?
Your friendly farmer is back for another farm related topic. One of the reasons why I chose ducks over chickens well, Ducks can lay eggs even at ages 9 to 12 years old though yeah the number of eggs decrease as they get older, they have longer span of fertility. In case of chickens though, hens stops laying eggs at age 3. Chicken can have a lifespan of 8 years if you don't slaughter them.
Many farmers will think she is a waste of money to be kept alive for 8 years because she is menopaused so her fate are usually the three things:
Slaughter- Use for a soup- Well you cannot roast an old hen because her meat will be chewy and hard so usually old hens are used for soups because they have be boiled for 3 to 5 hours to get tender. Slaughtering menopaused hens is very common for factory farms since they stopped laying eggs and because their meat is not tender, they are sold for making sausages and other processed chicken products.
Sold as a snake food- Yeah some old hens are being sold to people with pet snakes and nature takes its course when a boa meats a hen.
A pet= To honor the services she gives your family, You can keep her as a pet. Just feed her leftovers instead so you won't waste feeds on her.
Well if your chicken is broody breed, You know the type of chicken who sits on her eggs and doesn't abandons it. She can still be useful. Menopaused hens from a broody variety have strong mother instinct that she will sit on anything that looks like and egg. In other words you can use her as a foster mom or biological incubator.
I have terrible experience with geese, they are terrible mothers who accidentally kills their babies because they accidentally walk on them. Hens are known to be better mothers, They will love all kinds of birds and treat them as her own babies. Rather than having a Goose sit on those eggs, Have an old menopaused chicken sit on those eggs instead because she will be a better mother. Also since she is more experienced due to her age, the babies will have a better life with their adoptive mom.
If you isolate a menopaused hen in a room with a nest with golf or ping pong balls on it, she will think they are eggs and she will sit on them. Once she sits on them, You can slowly replace the balls with real eggs. There are duck and chicken breeds that are not broody and most people incubator raised them. Mother raised birds have better health than incubator and brooder raised ones. So yes you can use them as foster moms for babies with non broody mothers. They will hatch the eggs, takes care of the babies and raise them like they are her own. Menopaused hen can still get broody.
