Hen Chronicles: Will you still need me? Will you still feed me?

Even healthy hens stop laying eventually, and although we are nowhere near that point in the lives of our quartet, a recent newspaper article reminded me that the day will come when the eggs stop coming.
 
Hens can lay into their teens, the experts say. But their productivity slows, and may even stop altogether, before that. So the question is obvious. What will become of our chickens when they no longer earn their keep?

Plymouth Rock Snow and Barred Rock Nala are of indeterminate age. When we bought them in April of last year, they were fully grown and laying regularly. The seller led us to believe that Snow, Nala and a third hen who later died had not been laying for very long. Hens start laying at about six months of age, so we figure Snow and Nala were born in 2011.

Hope and Nellie, our Rhode Island Reds, are even younger. They both hit the six-month mark a few weeks ago. They are still so new to the laying game that their eggs are smaller than normal, but they are producing them regularly, after a bit of a late start.

With any luck, all four hens will continue to deposit tasty treats in their nest box for years to come. But when “the girls” do reach “henopause,” what will we do with them?

The newspaper story pointed out that some hens end up on the dinner table at that point. Or they get traded to other chicken keepers who may, in turn, pop them into the oven. But the point of the story was that many urban chickens are viewed as pets, so they continue to hang around even after their laying years have come and gone.

On that score, my wife Liz and I agree with Teresa Kelly of Roeland Park, Kansas, who was quoted in the article as saying: “I cannot eat anything that I’ve made eye contact with.” Our hens will never see the inside of a kitchen unless they ask for a tour.

Ah, but we love fresh eggs! And our coop is designed for no more than four chickens. So if we eventually reach the point where the girls become freeloaders, will we have to resort to eating (gasp!) store-bought eggs?

I ran that by Liz the other day. She replied without a moment’s hesitation.

“I’ve thought about that,” she said in a businesslike voice that suggested debate was not an option. “We’d just have to get another coop.”

Hmmm . . . a two-coop scenario. One would house egg-producing hens. And the other would be the poultry equivalent of . . . a nursing home!