[craig1981]

my argument still stands . no matter what you pay for your chickens if you cant afford to feed and water them until there natural death then you shoulldnt bother . Same with all animals and everything in life even kids . If you cant afford them dont have them

[joyfull]

Craig1981 - just to play devils advocat - what about those who buy birds to eat ie dual purpose birds?

[craig1981]

then thats fine lol but when birds are purchased to supply friends and family with eggs and they stop doing that to the high standards she wants then i believe its wrong to dispense with them especially when one of the main reasons given is they cant afford or have the space to keep them when there not laying .  Just my opinion so im sticking with it  . . Nothing wrong with playing devils advocate i find

[too many girls]

last night i posted and then deleted what i'd said (hopefully before anyone read it) and put speechless instead, i was very cross, if your keeping hens only for the eggs it would be better to buy pol it works out the same financially as you will have hens that lay for longer, most people rescue ex batts to save them from slaughter and to give them a better quality of life, to cull them when they are of no further use is senseless, why rescue them in the first place?
joyfull, i don't think people would buy ex batts for table birds and that is really what this thread is about, should ex batts be culled when they've run out of eggs? i think not, but that's just my opinion.
i don't mean to get at anyone who does cull non laying birds, i just don't think it should happen to birds that have had 18 months of misery then a taste of life with sun, air and freedom, i think they deserve more.

[chooknewbie]

thinking about the other side of things... now that i had my grumpy comment... would rehoming them be an option Looby? rather than culling... i appreciate that you are short of space and want birds that will be laying, so, can you approach the people you got them from, and express your wish to rehome, and cancel your other order? that way you would have space for some pol hybrids that will keep laying for a few years at least?

just a thought.

[too many girls]

very good suggestion Chooknewbie, i can sense another chicken run coming on.

[chooknewbie]

win win situation i think really.... i know that Looby isnt sure who is and who isnt laying, but lets be honest, none of them are likely to be laying for long with any sort of regularity...my hybrids are starting to get a bit off and on, and they are last years POLs (this time of year...) so I am hatching some RIR's and will be bringing my hybrids up to the house (yay!!) to retire and munch their lil hearts out on my grass.... ( truth be told i really miss having them at home!!, but it also helps out with space on the lottie)

[too many girls]

my lot dropped off laying so much that i whacked a few eggs in the incy, i now have little bundles of joy (a cross between isa brown hens and a Rhode Island Red cockerel) that will hopefully start laying soon.

[chooknewbie]

what is an isa brown a cross between.... i was told an rir and.....err.....lol.... cant remember now.....was it a sussex??? and the males are white and the girls are brown??

isa brown = warren yes? .... lol.... have had this conversation about a gazillion times...

[too many girls]

don't know i thought isa browns where the bog standard hybrids that usually end up in battery farming, warrens, amberlinks ect i suspect they are all the same just called different names from different breeders tho i may be wrong.

[joyfull]

I agree chucknewbie rehoming would be the best option all round (especially from the chickens point of view), and should help be needed with a chicken run then if I'm the right direction give me a call.
TMG - i was just playing devils advocat to craig1981's comment (who just for the record has the same thoughts on this situation as me).

[craig1981]

i agree rehoming will be the best bet . there are many ways to do this whether it be in the local paper or through the ad mag or preloved . We had to unfortunately rehome a cat which our newborn was allergic to and this worked out well .

[mad mark]

In Derbyshire Moorland Poultry charge around £12 to £14 for excellent quality birds. I dont work for them honest, just a customer who has had good service from them and the four different birds I bought from them are cracking. Laying well three or four per day two weeks to the day after I got them. Two months or so down the line still in good nick apart from they dont like the rain that much.
Hey who does..

[nicchick]

I thought I would see how this thread developed before making any comment. I was deeply uncomfortable when I first read that you would be getting rid of the hens that were not laying any longer. I like most other people understood that an ex-batt is re-homed as a pet for the rest of her natural life. We got 4 pols for eggs for us but countered that with 4 ex-batts which are under no pressure to lay as that was not why we got them. We have lavished a great deal of care and attention on them to get them to be the lovely hens they are today. Sadly we lost one on Tuesday to a  heart attack, I think as she had not been ill and although I was gutted to lose her I had some comfort in the fact that she had had the best we could give her. We are far from well off which is why we had only eight (now seven) as I am concsious of the costs involved in keeping  these birds healthy and above all giving them a good life.
We don't sell our excess eggs but give them to friends and swap for greens and maggots but I tend to quality control them and out of the 4 ex-batts only 2 laid eggs that I could give away. The chickens eat Valentines ones as she has trouble making shells despite my best efforts and Fanny's ones have very thin shells so are usually broken by the time I get home and the dog has it!
So I hope you can re-home the ones that are past their prime and please reconsider getting ex-batts in future I really do think you would be better getting pol's if you take into account that they will be healthier and lay longer.
Sorry it turned into a long post, I just wanted to put my point over properly. Nic.

[karlooben]

u lot are making it sound like i am culling them today ,, b---y hek they may go another 3 years with good laying before their time is up .

and i said they may have to be culled not they are going to be culled theres a difference