7 signs of old age and how to help your senior citiz-hens
Matilda was a magician's assistant who lived to the grand old age of 16. The 400g bantam held the Guinness World Record as the oldest chicken until Muffy the American Game hen took her crown, living to an astonishing 22 years.
Muffy's age is many lifetimes more than your typical chicken and almost 10 times more than the life expectancy of their jungle-living ancestors (2-3 years).
If you keep your poultry until their final day, you can expect them to live for anything from three to 10+ years.
You can only just see tiny Matilda in the arms of owner Donna. Matilda (with Donna and her husband Keith) appeared on the Jay Leno Show on US TV in 2004 when she first won the title of world's oldest chicken at the age of 14.
Modern hybrid layers (Shavers and Hylines) generally don't live as long as purebred heritage breeds and barnyard specials (crossbreds) and that's down to their genetics. I've heard of a Hyline hen that lived on a small, free-range farm and made it to 13 years, but most hybrids live just 3-5 years.
Hybrids have a productive ‘working' life of 70-100 weeks. In that time, they'll lay almost non-stop, reaching 453-467 eggs by week 100 (1.9 years). A heritage breed hen may take 3-4 years or more to lay the same number.
At 100 weeks, hybrids start to moult.
It's not economical for a commercial farmer to support them through it, so the hens are culled and replaced with a new generation.
If you rescue one of these hens, you inherit a bird that has endured a lot of stress, particularly to its reproductive system.
Common, often deadly, health issues for hybrids include:
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tumours on the ovary;
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egg peritonitis;
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shell formation issues;
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problems during laying (due to damage to the oviduct).
Often, their hearts give out from the enormous effort of so much laying and because the companies that breed these birds aren't selecting genes for longevity.
The long-lived birds are more likely to be light breeds – laying hens with a lighter frame, around 2kg, eg Leghorn, Araucana – and bantams. There's a lot of research into reasons why (as in most cases, larger animals tend to live longer), but it's believed in birds it's most likely due to genetics.