Keeping chickens on a narrow boat

[LadyG]

4 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Chicken is always better in a butty.

 

Why do people call hens 'chickens'.

They are only chickenS when they are small & fluffy, when the have grown feathers but before they start laying eggs they are Pullets, then they become 'hens'

 

Chicken is the meat from hens. (You don't call your Sunday roast 'Cow' do you ?)

Nope: I had 18, 000 hens back in the day. 12 thousand Honegger 404 and six thousand white commercial strains.

They are bought in at 18 weeks and start to lay commercially ten days later The early eggs are small, sometimes sold as "pullet eggs" in farm shops.

Pullets are a small hens, they are hens , but small.. Not a particular breed, but sort of like small hens, often "fancy", ie pretty. hobby breeds

Chickens bred and grown to sell for eating have a very short life. eight to sixteen weeks. Any older.  and they are too heavy for their skeleton.

None of them have a good life, just some are better than others,

Edited April 9, 2019 by LadyG

[Alan de Enfield]

36 minutes ago, LadyG said:

Pullets are a small hens, they are hens , but small.. Not a particular breed, but sort of like small hens, often "fancy", ie pretty. hobby breeds

I'm afraid both I and the Dictionary disagree.

 

A pullet is a hen that has not yet come into lay. The average age when a pullet starts to lay is about twenty weeks. Some sex link birds start to lay at sixteen weeks, while Orpingtons' can go to twenty eight weeks! Pullets continue to put on body mass between twelve and twenty weeks.

 

pullet

/ˈpʊlɪt/

noun

noun: pullet; plural noun: pullets

1. a young hen, especially one less than one year old.

Edited April 9, 2019 by Alan de Enfield

[Dr Bob]

I agree Alan.

At what age does a chicken become a duck hen?

We had hens for years when we lived in the frozen north. We bought pullets (ie just before they started to lay) and they grew into hens with bigger eggs in their second year.