What happens to layers when they stop laying~WARNING: GRAPHIC PICS

ChickenMomma91 said:

I lost a chicken this past spring, she had laid a double yolker a week or two before we found her dead in the yard. I can't do necropsy because I live in town and it would fall under butchering to the city officials who are buttholes.

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I'm not one for encouraging law breaking, but the officials don't know if that chicken was ripped open by a predator or by you....opening it up and looking inside after it's dead of an unknown cause is NOT butchering, by any stretch of the imagination. That's like saying folks who open the hood of their car and look at the engine are mechanics and can strip that car down into pieces and build it back again.

Unless they are by your side every second of every day, I'd find a private place and look inside that bird. Of course, it won't do you much good if you can't butcher your birds before they get to that point, so it's pretty moot. If you have to kill one that is suffering, do they consider that butchering as well? If so, I'd not bother to have chickens...it's cruel if you can't help them out of pain.

Butchered the last 10 of the production red hens I had gotten on the cheap awhile back for soup meat. Most of them had different stages of reproductive cancer, most had diseased organs of one type or another.

Here's a few notable things worthy of pics...the most jaundiced liver I've ever seen in a chicken and a couple of big egg tumors. Both of these chickens were still laying on occasion, looked healthy enough from the outside, active, eating, drinking, etc.

Egg tumors....

Yuck! I have never found anything like that when I butchered old hens. But then, to me an old hen is one on her 2nd molt.

That is a gnarly looking liver for sure!

baymule said:

Yuck! I have never found anything like that when I butchered old hens. But then, to me an old hen is one on her 2nd molt.

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These hens were around 2-2 1/2 yrs old, according to the previous owners. I've never had anything like these reproductive cancers in any of my old hens, though I've seen one old leghorn with a huge egg tumor and a few of my 6-7 yr old hens with smaller egg tumors.

It's not the age for these birds, but the genetics. Production layer birds are not bred for longevity or hardiness, but purely for production. They aren't even a true breed, much like the Cornish Cross birds. They pretty much are born with a "use by" date on them and 99% of them won't make it to a 3rd birthday without serious health issues and most won't make it there at all.

A chicken of that age should have some pretty healthy organs still, but none of these had a healthy appearing liver, most had enlarged kidneys, and most had reproductive cancer...in some it had spread throughout the abdomen, with small tumors on the surfaces of most of the intestines, the gizzard and oviduct.

No wonder they were all so cranky, cannibalizing one another when penned and still attacking one another when allowed to range. None of them were easy to handle and most tried to peck me when they were picked up. The only birds to do such a thing in my own flocks were broody hens and even then, many of them wouldn't peck me.

I've had red sex links, have some now. They lay like mad, when they're over, they're over. But I have never seen anything like that!

baymule said:

I've had red sex links, have some now. They lay like mad, when they're over, they're over. But I have never seen anything like that!

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Do you eat your retired RSL hens, Bay?

Beekissed said:

Do you eat your retired RSL hens, Bay?

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I sure do! They make a nice broth for canning and the meat makes great chicken n' dumplings, soup, and mole' also great for tacos and chicken nachos! This is making me want to kill a red chicken....or 5.....

baymule said:

I sure do! They make a nice broth for canning and the meat makes great chicken n' dumplings, soup, and mole' also great for tacos and chicken nachos! This is making me want to kill a red chicken....or 5.....

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Do you pen them or free range? I'm asking, because all the PRs I've gotten from other people have been penned birds and was thinking, if yours are not showing up with all these maladies, it could have something to do with what they are fed or how they are raised that keeps them from having reproductive issues, cancers and organ failure.

Right now they are penned, I scattered clover seeds and I don't want them eating the seeds! But I also feed them a non GMO feed, most of the time they free range and get to enjoy all their chicken activities.