Eglu Go With 2m Run For Sale

[Aileen1963]

I first got chickens a few years ago but my first lot were all taken by a fox so I have no experience of chickens dying naturally. The chickens I have now are about 2 years old. 6 weeks ago one of them was lying in the run when I got home from work and wouldn't move (she had previously seemd healthy). I brought her into the house and tried to coax her to eat and drink but she wasn't interested and within a few hours she died. The same thing happened with another one of my chooks at the weekend. Up until reading the forum posts, I assumed that they had just reached the end of their natural life, but I'm now worried that maybe they had a disease that I didn't pick up on. I have 2 chickens left and they both seem perfectly healthy. Do you think I should be worried, or just accept that they're getting old?

[Olly]

I think 2 years, while not lengthy, is a natural lifespan for a hybrid - some live longer, certainly but it's not unusual for them to begin to fail at around this age. If your other hens look healthy and are behaving normally then I wouldn't be too worried - if there was some sort of infection I'd have expected the deaths to be closer together than six weeks.

 

I've got a Speckledy who is four years old and still going well, but I've lost other hens at around 2-3 years, and bear in mind that if you had them from point of lay they were already six months old or thereabouts when you got them.

[Ain't Nobody Here]

I've lost all of mine (not all at once ) at between 2 and 2 1/2 years old. I was slightly worried that I was doing something wrong but have just come to accept that 2-3 isn't that unusual an age for them to die .

[Aileen1963]

Thanks a lot for both your responses, you've put my mind at ease.