Culling chickens

Every few months I'll run into someone who will ask what I plan to do with my hens once they stop producing (laying).

Each time my response is "oh, no, these are my friends, they are just pets."

I can almost hear their eyes roll.

And sometimes their response is "well, you're feeding something that's not giving you something back in return..." - and while this might be true...I'm not doing this for profit. I'm not raising chickens to have eggs.

For now.

I'm raising chickens because I want to.

The fact that we are able to sell eggs is a bonus.

BUT, sometimes, there's reason to cull chickens. To keep your flock nice and healthy.

Culling chickens is removing sick, inferior chickens from your flock. 

This is good for a few reasons:
1. Removing sick chickens will keep your other chickens from getting sick
2. It increases food and water resources for productive chickens
3. It increases the flocks' living space
4. It increases the egg-to-hen ratio (if you have some non-layers)

How to spot a non-producing chicken:
1. Feathers will look dirty and gross - if laying, all the energy goes to laying eggs, not keeping feathers beautiful
2. Combs and wattles - a producing hen will have a vibrant, bright red comb and wattles. Non producing hens' combs and wattles are pale and scaly
3. Vent - a laying hen's vent should be large, oval and moist. A non layer's vent will be dry, tight and round.
4. Overall activity level - healthy, laying hens should be running around not lazy

Right now we have 10 adult chickens (don't get me started on how sad and upset I am by this) and 3 of then are roosters. Of course. So right now I only have 7 laying hens. Or maybe less. I think I have one who is not producing. We've been averaging 4-6 eggs per day. We were up to 15/day earlier this Spring!

Since the number in my flock reduced greatly, I don't have to do any culling. I still keep an eye on them in case any of them look sick or whatever, but so far, everyone looks pretty good.

We also have 24 new babies!

The first batch of babies are just about 9/10 weeks old.

The second batch of babies are just about 8/9 weeks old.

The third batch of babies are a couple weeks old (I forget exactly how many days).

It's always a good idea to go through your flock and check them out. We handle our hens occasionally and will go through their feathers and whatnot and just give them a general once over to make sure they are looking good.