How to determine the age of a chicken: possible ways

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

In the countryside, only the lazy do not keep chickens. This particularly productive poultry is now bred in suburban areas, and even in city apartments. True, the question of how to determine the age of a chicken is more often of concern to a city dweller only when choosing a carcass of a homemade chicken in the market. It all depends on the breed, but on average chickens live up to ten, sometimes fifteen years. But the layers of them are good only in the first three years of life.

On poultry farms, the highest egg production is important: an egg per day from one laying hen. Therefore, they contain chickens for eggs only up to a year. Further, productivity decreases by almost fifteen percent per year, and this is unprofitable for industrial content. A one-year-old laying hen goes for meat, and the question of how to determine the age of a chicken does not arise. But in your backyard there are not such strict requirements for egg production. Moreover, when kept at home in the second year of life, laying hens can giveeggs are slightly smaller, but they are larger. It is better for novice housewives to learn more about how to determine the age of a laying hen. The photo below shows brown chickens. According to reviews, they have good egg production.

Lays eggs - young

The first question when culling chickens in your yard: does she lay eggs and how many? It must be remembered that, regardless of breed, spring brood hens begin to lay in the fifth month of life. This means that it is necessary to start completing a bird family for the winter in order to obtain eggs from a large brood at the end of summer. Without a rooster, laying hens perfectly carry dietary eggs. If you have plans to continue to raise your chickens, then about ten young hens need one rooster. If there are already several generations of birds in your poultry house, then select, as experienced people say, sensibly.

The "slenderer" - the younger

How to determine the age of pullets? We start with weight. By the time the chickens of egg breeds mature, their weight should be about one and a half kilograms. Roosters are a little heavier - up to two kilos. Representatives of meat varieties ripen a month later, and their live weight is more than two and a half kilograms in hens and almost four in males.

The faster - the younger

Young he althy laying hens are active and nimble birds. They are the first to run out of the chicken coop to the feeder in the morning. They like to walk outside, and in the evening they need to be driven into the house. They tirelessly look for food all day long, even in the heat. All timethey row something, looking for any small living creatures: worms, beetles. If a chicken is in a chicken coop during the day, this is not a sign of her youth, which means egg production. On the contrary, feel free to discard sluggish and obese chickens for meat.

The brighter, the younger

Frequent question: is it possible, and if so, how to determine the age of a chicken by scallop? By the beginning of oviposition, in a young laying hen, the comb and earrings are well developed and have a bright red color. The scallop is swollen and warm. And in a bird that has been laying eggs for more than three years, the comb is fallen, cool to the touch and dull. You can't argue with nature. He althy and young can always be recognized by their bright colors. In properly reared young, the color of the shell of the eyes, beak and legs is from yellow to almost orange. In good laying hens, this pigmentation gradually decreases. First, the beak loses its bright orange color. The paws of the pullets are the last to lighten after four months of oviposition. But in a young he althy chicken, the eyes are always convex and transparent, and the scales on the legs are smooth and evenly shiny, without damage. After molting, pigmentation is restored, and it is easier to answer the question of how to determine the age of a chicken.

Plumage

The plumage speaks well of the age of a bird. Knowing the physiological characteristics of its change or annual molt, it is possible to answer with great accuracy the question of how to determine the age of a chicken. In a young hen, the feather covering the body is clean, smooth, dense and shiny. Under themBe sure to have down for thermal insulation. When considering the wings, two orders of flight feathers are clearly visible. On the edge - ten long, most durable, with a wide fan. After the dividing axillary wing there are fifteen primaries of the second order. On the tail there is a transverse row of tail feathers, and around the coccyx there are feathers, which are called brush feathers. In chickens of egg breeds, the feather is renewed until the age of sixty days. Meat by the ninetieth day is covered with a feather of an adult bird.

The course of molting can be traced by the change of primary plumage on the wings. It starts from the dividing pen. It falls one at a time, and a new one grows in its place. The complete replacement of the primary feathers on the wings ends by half a year of the bird. In males, the primary molt begins and ends later than in females. In addition, in pullets, it is associated with the timing of puberty and the onset of egg laying. After a year, they stop laying eggs, begin to shed feathers and restore pigmentation. Highly productive laying hens are early. They start laying eggs before the end of the full molt. The change of feather comes in late autumn, passes quickly, and at the same time they look very shabby, which misleads the owners when culling.