How Long Do Chickens Live And Lay Eggs? - Epic Gardening

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While recent events have accelerated the trend of city dwellers, urban gardeners, and suburban households keeping their own chickens, buying any animal based on a trend or a whim is a risky decision.

Chances are the chickens will survive just fine, but people who bought them simply for something to do while stuck at home may soon face a new problem: a chicken coop full of birds they no longer want. This raises an important question for prospective owners. How long do chickens live?

Anyone who has started a backyard chicken-keeping venture will tell you that chickens require significant planning and infrastructure. They are generally much harder to rehome than a cat or dog that can be given away or taken to a shelter.

For that reason, anyone considering raising chickens at home should think carefully not only about how they will care for them, but also about how long they are willing to do so. Many people are surprised to learn that the life expectancy of chickens may last longer than their ability or desire to care for them.

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How Long Do Chickens Live?

The question of how long chickens live is almost impossible to answer with complete certainty. Even with excellent preventive care, any egg-laying hen can succumb to illness, pick up parasites, or fall victim to a predator that slips through a small gap in the coop.

Life expectancy also varies widely based on living conditions and factors such as genetics that chicken owners cannot fully control. That said, there are a few consistent factors that allow us to estimate a hen’s approximate lifespan based on breed, size, and laying capacity.

Size

Like dogs, smaller chickens tend to live longer than larger or giant breeds. This is because bantam and dwarf birds have far less body mass to maintain than a large bird such as a Brahma hen. Their bodies require less energy overall and experience slower wear over time.

Many bantam chickens can live to ten years old or more with proper care. Even so, variations within breeds can make a significant difference in lifespan.

Breed

Breed variation is often the single biggest factor influencing how long a chicken will live and is one of the most reliable indicators of natural lifespan. Many heritage breeds are hardy and long-lived.

Rhode Island Reds, for example, can live close to eight years. In contrast, high-production hybrids and chickens selectively bred for specific traits tend to have shorter lifespans.

Selective breeding for characteristics such as heavy egg production or ornamental feathers often brings unintended side effects, including increased susceptibility to disease, which can significantly shorten a chicken’s lifespan.

Egg Production

Egg production itself is another major factor in chicken longevity. Much like larger birds require more energy to sustain their size, hens that lay five or six eggs per week expend enormous amounts of energy and nutrients. Over time, even the best diet and care cannot fully compensate for this strain.

As a result, high-producing hens are more likely to live four or five years rather than eight or nine. This relationship is famously illustrated by Matilda, the former world record holder for the oldest chicken, who lived to sixteen years old and never laid a single egg.

There are exceptions, including Rhode Island Reds, which are known as long-lived and reliable layers. However, even within this breed, hens from production strains tend to live shorter lives than those from heritage strains. In general, the shortest-lived chickens are high-production hybrid layers, while hens that lay fewer eggs tend to have the greatest longevity.

Roosters

When asking how long a chicken lives, there is one final factor to consider: roosters. Roosters generally have shorter lifespans than hens, even when they are the same breed and raised under identical conditions.

While hens often live longer overall, roosters tend to experience higher mortality and do not typically reach the same ages as their female counterparts.

How Long Do Chickens Lay Eggs?

That brings us to the question of how many years a healthy hen will continue laying eggs. Most hens begin laying at around 18 months old, but they do not usually continue well into old age.

As with lifespan, there are notable differences between breeds and even dramatic variation from one chicken to another. Once again, the key consideration is whether you prioritize high egg production or a longer laying period, since these two traits are often mutually exclusive.

Backyard vs Industrial Production

The challenge is that backyard chicken keepers often want something very different from their hens than commercial egg producers do. Industrial producers prioritize chickens that lay eggs as quickly and frequently as possible over a short period of time.

As a result, many production birds, particularly modern hybrid hens, lay almost daily for 18 months or two years before slowing down significantly or stopping altogether. This works in an industrial setting where birds are replaced once production drops, but it is far less practical for backyard flocks and homesteaders who want a consistent supply of eggs over many years.

There are middle-ground options for backyard chicken owners, such as choosing a production strain of a heritage breed. These birds still lay regularly but tend to live longer than hybrids, both as productive layers and in overall lifespan.

Simply switching from industrial hybrid breeds to a heritage production strain can often double the years of strong egg production to three or four years. Pure heritage breeds or naturally low production layers usually have the longest productive lives, often laying eggs for five to ten years, though at a slower pace than high production birds.

Time Variations

That said, raw numbers do not tell the full story. Five years of egg production does not mean five years of laying the same number of eggs a hen produced at two years old. As anyone with a few aches and pains knows, aging usually brings a gradual slowdown, and hens are no different.

Most hens lay the highest number of eggs during their first year of production, with output declining steadily each year after that until they eventually stop laying altogether. 

What To Do If You Can’t Keep Your Hens

Even for people who love their birds and are fully prepared to care for them for 15 years or more, it can sometimes become necessary to find a new home for a flock. Maybe someone wanted to try chicken keeping and later realized it was not the right fit. Either way, rehoming chickens can be difficult.

Your best option is often a local farm that already keeps chickens on a larger scale, where adding a few more birds will not require major adjustments. Search online or connect with your local chicken-keeping community to find people who may be looking to add a few hens, or who are at least willing to take on a small flock.

If that does not work out, a farm-specific animal rescue may be the next best option. Most local animal shelters are not equipped to care for chickens, but depending on where you live, there may be organizations that specialize in rescuing and rehoming unwanted livestock. If no rehoming options are available, some owners ultimately choose to process their birds as meat birds.

The key takeaway is that keeping chickens is not something to take on lightly or on a whim. Unlike an unfinished DIY project, chickens cannot simply be set aside when they become inconvenient. Their lifespan means you are committing to ten years or more of care. Understanding this ahead of time allows you to plan realistically and set yourself up for a long-lived, healthy flock.