{"id":12358,"date":"2015-09-05T13:50:42","date_gmt":"2015-09-05T13:50:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/?p=12358"},"modified":"2015-09-05T13:50:42","modified_gmt":"2015-09-05T13:50:42","slug":"more-research-on-the-lifespan-of-chickens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/?p=12358","title":{"rendered":"More research on the lifespan of chickens"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have been keeping a close and worried eye on Honey. She is snoozing an awful lot but otherwise is still doing all the usual chicken things. She feeds, poops, scratches, runs to the treats and perches on the top rung at bedtime.<\/p>\n

Yet she can be found for a big proportion of the day dozing. I really do think she is feeling her age.<\/p>\n

I did more research into the lifespan of chickens and the lifespan of bantams. I had read up and researched chickens before starting chicken keeping and had concluded that they could live up to twelve years.<\/p>\n

Now that I have researched more intently it seems that although that is possible it is usually unlikely. Quite a few people that have kept chickens for twenty years said that the theoretical lifespan is twelve to thirteen years but that in their experience the average lifespan is five years.<\/p>\n

I tried to find the average lifespan of bantam vorwerks but couldn’t pin that one down however I found information that gave bantam pekins a lifespan of four to five years.<\/p>\n

The surprising difference between breeds was that game bantams came out the longest with a lifespan of ten to twelve years.<\/p>\n

There were some stories of people having a hen for fifteen years and even a bantam hen for thirteen years but there were many others that had bantams for only three to five years. I have had to rethink my expectations and am now thinking that Honey may indeed be getting old for her breed.<\/p>\n

Since she has been snoozing a lot Speckles can often be found by her side. Sometimes Butterscotch will sit near her too and Peaches and Barley often appear to be watching over her.<\/p>\n

Speckles is still very wary of the camera though and when I tried to capture her sat next to Honey she was so fast to sprint away that she was just a streak. I thought it so typical of her that I decided to include it.<\/p>\n

\"Speckles<\/a>

Speckles is a streak<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Peaches,<\/a>

Peaches, Barley and Honey<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Barley<\/a>

Barley watches over Honey<\/p><\/div>\n

\"These<\/a>

These five are often together<\/p><\/div>\n

\"These<\/a>

These four are even more often together<\/p><\/div>\n

As she isn’t showing any other sign of illness other than snoozing a lot I think it must be her age although I shall keep an eye on her.<\/p>\n

I would be interested to hear what age are your longest lived girls and what average age your girls live to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been keeping a close and worried eye on Honey. She is snoozing an awful lot but otherwise is still doing all the usual chicken things. She feeds, poops, scratches, runs to the treats and perches on the top … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12358"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12358"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12380,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12358\/revisions\/12380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.carolschickens.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}