Issues with advanced age chickens

[BY Bob]

Thanks Bob.

You are most welcome.

 

[Allsfairinloveandbugs]

I can't think of anything much to add to all the tributes Lady Di and you have already received. So I will just say I'm sorry.

 

[Sally PB]

I'm sure Lady Di lived an amazing life under your amazing care. RIP, Lady Di.

 

[myluckychucks]

I love to hear stories of elderly hens and roosters too. My silkie/ cochin cross ( Dixie) layed until she was 10 years old and went broody and hatched chicks until her last year at age 13. My bantam columbian sussex ( Owl) stopped going broody at 8 years but when another hen had new chicks she was right there beside the mother helping to raise the chicks. When the mother hen stopped being so attentive when the chicks were 5-6 weeks of age Owl would take over completely and protect them for many more weeks.

 

[DonnaNQ]

Who would have thought that the possibility of dementia might arise in my flock? And how about just discovering another old girl may be going broody?

My three-fourths blind twelve-year old Light Brahma Lady Di is displaying signs of dementia, or whatever you would call it when an old fat hen makes constant noises of grumpy discontent. Mostly she lies about on her Cleopatra cushions with her other ancient friends. In between, she's sending out fog horn signals and stumbles around searching for, I don't know what.

She is mostly blind now, but she can locate the food bowl, most of the time, but actually hitting the target can be a prolonged exercise. I make food available where she can find it, and also water, since it's gotten hard for her to target the vertical water nipples. But this morning, instead of going directly to the big bowl of fermented feed in the coop where the old biddies are fed, she stumbled off to a corner as if she wasn't sure of where she was heading. She eventually came back to the water bowl. Her health is good in every other respect other than for the tumor on her head she's had had half her life.

The other hen, my ten-year old GLW Su-su has been laying regularly for the past three or four weeks, even some acceptable egg shells among them. Yesterday, she laid a shell-less egg, and last night she spent the night in the nest and there was another shell-less egg under her this morning. None of this is remarkable. What has me in a state of wonder is that Su-su is now displaying all the signs of being broody. Who can mistake that broody clucking?

The reason I'm posting this, and I know I would be in rare company here, but have any of you had old hens with these issues? Or heard of these things going on with old chickens? I mean, going broody at age ten? Heck, I feel as caught off guard by this as I would if I'd just found out I was pregnant, a damn rare event for a 78 year old woman.View attachment 2162315Su-su and Lady Di are the ones in the rear and far right.

 

[dirkandlorie]

So happy this thread jumped back up in my email. My chickens were hatched 2/14/14. 2nd batch, 2/14/18. And my Grande dame is one year older, 2/14/13. They are all getting older, and there's some good advice to be gleaned from this thread. Since I grow turmeric will be adding that to their daily diet. I have never fed them only commercial feed, and believe that is one of the reasons they live so long. (Mixed flock of rocks, Easter eggers, marans, black sex links, gold sex links, and a cochin. So longevity is definitely not breed related here) Anyone else have ideas of what has attributed to the long life of their chicken babies? Anyone else add special things to their diet to help with age related issues? Anyone else just dealing with age related issues?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

... Anyone else have ideas of what has attributed to the long life of their chicken babies? ...

Safeguarding against predation.

 

[dirkandlorie]

Safeguarding against predation.

Lol, thanks for the chuckle. Think that's a given for all ages of chickens.

 

[MotherofOrpies]

I personally think that chickens which don’t lay as many eggs ( going broody all the time) have a longer life span, IF they are fed correctly during brooding ( mine get among other sfs and spelt ) cos else it takes a lot out of their body, then being overweight does not contribute to a long life, also, very large or small chickens tend to live shorter lives. I also think how you keep them ( free ranging, what you feed them) determines the age too

 

[dirkandlorie]

( mine get among other sfs and spelt )

What is sfs? I've only had one hen go broody in all these years, the cochin, but am sure you're right that its hard on them. Always interested in learning better ways of feeding and taking care of them.