How Old are My Girls??

[Aileen]

Hey guys,
Happy New Year to all, not been on in a while - my dementia kicked in and I forgot my password and it has taken me weeks to get round to organising a new one what with Xmas etc etc. Hope you're all well.
Anyway! I was just wondering if anyone could help me "best guess" my little rescue girls ages? I got them end Sept? What age do they become too old for commercial laying?
The reason I ask is from a previous post - from Sue I think about our favourite subject - Poo! :lol:
I have one girl, not sure who, who is doing big white watery splats and someone mentioned kidney stress?? Having never had hybrids and knowing of all their old age failings, I am a bit paranoid?
Also, I don't keep water in their coop of an evening so they are without water from teatime essentially till I let them out at 7.30 each morning, are they going for too long without?? Could this be a contributory factor??

 

[chrismahon]

Welcome back Aileen. I think its me who has mentioned possible kidney flushing to get rid of excess Calcium when not laying. Half are still doing watery poos and are all fine.

We don't put water or food in the coop. Water gets knocked over and food encourages rats. They can't eat or drink at night anyway and are let out at first light.

What rescue girls are these Aileen -ex-bats? Hens have 600 eggs to lay maximum, some seem to have a lot less though. Our Black Rocks only gave us 300 or so, other hybrids we've had about the same.

 

[Sue]

Welcome back Aileen. I posted recently about white watery poos. I was finding the for a couple of days, but wasn't sure who was producing them. They have now stopped. None of the girls appeared unwell. Mine don't have water from 4.30 when they go to bed until 7.30 when they get up the next morning. Mine are all under 18 months of age though.

 

[mightymohan]

they normally get put into cages between 16-20 weeks old and then have a year of laying and then they are changed for new birds. so yours may be getting on towards 90 weeks old maybe?

 

[Chuck]

If they are ex bats they will be the Warren types as other types rarely go into cages. They go intot he cages at 18 weeks and come out after being in lay for a year which is the time they go into a moult, the moult and the cease of egg laying is the reason they come out of the cages at this time. There may be a dfew younger ones around this year as the new cages have come into use.

They wil need time to adjust but most have another one or two years laying left though at a much refuced level. Still better than most of todays pure breeds. They are just chickens and although their bodies have had a lot of wear and tear, they ar ein the main, very healthy once they've adjusted. If you've had yours since Sept they should have settled by now and giving you a few eggs.

 

[Aileen]

Thanks, so we are saying just under the 2 years old mark then, about a year and 10 months?
And yep I am getting eggs from them, took them a good 6 weeks of TLC before anything happened and 1 of the girls has only started laying this past month, they were in such a bad way.
I will nip out and take pics this morning and have a bash at uploading some before and after pics- what a difference they are beautiful now, and yes they were ex-batts so its little Warrens / ISA Browns I have now.
As for eggs, my birds are much loved pets,eggs or no they will stay in my garden, I just love their antics and they deserve some fun after the start they had.
Talking of eggs... mmmm I quite fancy some brekkie x