Anyone who is contemplating getting into the backyard chicken movement needs to answer this inevitable question:  what are you going to do when they stop laying eggs?  The precise moment when this needs to be answered is as fixed as the tides; a hen is most productive in the first year of her life and her lay rate declines 20% a year like clockwork.  By the time a hen is 3 years old she might be laying 2-3 eggs per week instead of 4-5, by 5 years she is laying one egg per week and is eating just as much feed as she has consumed since year one.  Chickens easily live 8 to 10 years.  Do you let them live out their lives regardless (lots of people do) or do you consign them to the fate of most chickens for the past 8,000 years:  they become food.  In our town we’re allowed up to 10 chickens, if I kept non-productive hens alive it would prevent me from getting 10 new ones. (read more…)