How often do you add new hens to the flock?

For those who keep layers, how do you manage your flock to achieve your egg productions goals?

I've considered adding new generations of hens annually or biannually but I don't have a basis for making that determination.

Do you just raise a flock of hens until they live out their natural lives, do you butcher your oldest hens or maybe something else?

Timothy Norton wrote:For those who keep layers, how do you manage your flock to achieve your egg productions goals?

I've considered adding new generations of hens annually or biannually but I don't have a basis for making that determination.

Do you just raise a flock of hens until they live out their natural lives, do you butcher your oldest hens or maybe something else?

Our egg production goals are home based for our family of 8 and 2 neighbors. I like to have 22-25 hens laying to achieve this.

Due to having a dual purpose flock, my selection process is ongoing as I try to keep the larger hens and a larger rooster or two for meat and egg production. There are other selection criteria along with that but the gist is to select the best from my dual purpose flock and keep the 22-25 hens and 1-2 roosters in addition to tractoring broilers a few times a year.

I use plastic leg bands to identify different generations and genetics. As we go through the broiler season and selections get made out of the new generations, I'll cull or sell or give away some older hens. The rooster culling is an ongoing thing because we have a very hard time getting along with each other once they get to be older.

I prefer to sell or give the older hens away. Sometimes they have only been laying for 12-18 months and need to go because of the ongoing selection process. I really dislike processing hens after point of lay.

I did separate flocks for eggs and meat but it became unnecessary once we got our selection process going and it is much easier to manage one flock. You can select from one flock and incubate eggs from your own selections. From what I have seen as far as hatchery chicks, they appear to be selecting more for egg production than meat unless it is a dedicated meat bird like the Cornish X or rangers.

I say all that to say if all I wanted was eggs, I'd get white leghorns and hatch eggs to replace them every 2 years ,after point of lay.

I will also note that some friends of ours handle this question through the dreaded "chicken math" which we've been fortunate to avoid so far.  

As my flock and egg supply dwindles, for whatever reason (age & predators have been the main reasons, for mine), I'll add to the flock. I like to keep between 12 & 20 hens and a rooster. That gives plenty eggs for us & our dogs, the 1 - 5 dozen I like to send home with friends and family who travel to visit, and still have plenty for neighbors and local friends.

I'm currently at that minimum number of 12 hens, and trying to decide whether to add more, this year. I think if I do, I'll go with a straight run of 12, which will typically give me 6 hens, 6 cockerels, so we would have half a dozen for the freezer. But, I also hate raising them, so I *try* to wait and see if any of my girls will go broody, so I don't have to.

To better answer this question, there's a couple of other things I need to know about you flock goals first: How many hens and eggs are you wanting? Do you want a rooster? Are you willing to do hands on evaluations of the individual birds, or would you rather treat them as a whole? Are you planning on them hatching their own chicks, incubating their eggs yourself, or just buying more when the time comes?

About once a year. We add to our flock as our egg production drops or if I know there will be an increase in demand. So if in the peak of season I find we need more eggs il add to the flock. I also keep track of how many are hitting the 2 year mark and add 1 new hen per 3 older hens. I don't cull my old hens. They are good mama's who like to go broody and keep any young hooligans in check. We also use our flock to clean up behind our pigs so eggs arnt there only job. When we only kept them for our own family I added new hens only every other year or as needed.

It's the typical answer of it depends.Why do you have chickens?  How much space do you have? What kind of chickens do you have? (I did my research, but didn't go far enough. I got super layers, that lay 300+ eggs a year. What I didn't realize is these hens basically have the same amount of eggs as other hens, they just lay a lot in the first couple of years, and almost stop after that.) Do you have the money, time and energy to start from scratch?...
Ideally I get about 6 pullets every other year. This should have been a no chick year, but a very persistent raccoon changed that. I also had issues getting the chicks I wanted so I ended up with 9.
There's lots of reasons for and against adding to your flock you just have to figure out what is right for you. Good luck.