{"id":19342,"date":"2026-06-08T11:30:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T09:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/novital.it\/how-long-does-a-chicken-live-and-for-how-long-can-it-lay-eggs\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T11:31:43","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T09:31:43","slug":"how-long-does-a-chicken-live-and-for-how-long-can-it-lay-eggs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novital.it\/en\/how-long-does-a-chicken-live-and-for-how-long-can-it-lay-eggs\/","title":{"rendered":"How long does a chicken live? And for how long can it lay eggs?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/novital.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/gallina-piu-vecchia-del-mondo-1200x800.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-19339\" srcset=\"https:\/\/novital.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/gallina-piu-vecchia-del-mondo-1200x800.png 1200w, https:\/\/novital.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/gallina-piu-vecchia-del-mondo-500x333.png 500w, https:\/\/novital.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/gallina-piu-vecchia-del-mondo-300x200.png 300w, https:\/\/novital.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/gallina-piu-vecchia-del-mondo-768x512.png 768w, https:\/\/novital.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/gallina-piu-vecchia-del-mondo-113x75.png 113w, https:\/\/novital.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/gallina-piu-vecchia-del-mondo-480x320.png 480w, https:\/\/novital.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/gallina-piu-vecchia-del-mondo-750x500.png 750w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width:767px) 480px, (max-width:1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>How long does a chicken live<\/strong>? This is often one of the first questions that those approaching the world of poultry farming may ask themselves. <\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Well, the longevity of a chicken is due to many factors. Breed, weight, nutrition, diseases, and husbandry: all factors that heavily influence how long a chicken lives. For example, Mediterranean breeds and bantam breeds often live longer, staying more active and fit compared to heavy breeds.  <\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In general, however, the average life expectancy of a pasture-raised chicken can vary from 8 to 12 years. There are, of course, interesting exceptions: for years, for example, the longest-lived chicken was reportedly <strong>Matilda<\/strong>, an <strong>Old English Game Bantam<\/strong> female, who died in 2006 at the age of 16. But her record was reportedly broken by <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ansa.it\/canale_terraegusto\/notizie\/in_breve\/2023\/09\/01\/negli-usa-la-gallina-piu-vecchia-al-mondo-peanut-ha-21-anni_3aff3e81-ce50-4a30-8f6f-89ebec8200d2.html\">Peanut, an American hen who died at the venerable age of 21<\/a><\/strong>.   <\/p>\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FIgSh37g-8Q?si=ATiPDGUxfBO2ZySB\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And Peanut is not an isolated case: although the fact was never made official, a Polverara hen belonging to the Paduan breeder Bruno Rossetto was exhibited at a poultry show in 1988, when she was about one year old, and died of old age only in 2009, at the age of <strong>over 21 years<\/strong>!<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In general, however, chickens tend to live much less. In particular, animals raised in intensive production circuits are destined to see their life cycle end in a very short period of time, ranging from 37 days for a broiler chicken to 3 years for a laying hen. For this very reason, <strong>amateur breeding becomes very important<\/strong>, where chickens can not only live in <strong>better conditions<\/strong> that respect their physiological and ethological needs, but also <strong>longer<\/strong>. And since we know well how long a chicken lives, we at <strong>Novital<\/strong> are committed to <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/novital.it\/en\/product-category\/accessories-for-chickens-and-poultry\/\">creating quality items designed to last over time<\/a><\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20180804052645\/https:\/\/amzn.to\/2y27Fbu\"><strong>,<\/strong><\/a> to always guarantee that you can best care for the needs of your animals.   <\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But besides knowing how long a chicken lives, it is also useful to know <strong>how long it remains productive<\/strong> and for how long it will be a good breeder (or sire, in the case of a rooster).<\/p>\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1080\" height=\"722\" src=\"https:\/\/novital.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/quanto-vive-una-gallina-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-19340\" srcset=\"https:\/\/novital.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/quanto-vive-una-gallina-1.jpg 1080w, https:\/\/novital.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/quanto-vive-una-gallina-1-500x334.jpg 500w, https:\/\/novital.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/quanto-vive-una-gallina-1-300x201.jpg 300w, https:\/\/novital.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/quanto-vive-una-gallina-1-768x513.jpg 768w, https:\/\/novital.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/quanto-vive-una-gallina-1-112x75.jpg 112w, https:\/\/novital.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/quanto-vive-una-gallina-1-480x321.jpg 480w, https:\/\/novital.it\/wp-content\/uploads\/quanto-vive-una-gallina-1-750x501.jpg 750w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width:767px) 480px, (max-width:1080px) 100vw, 1080px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We can say, therefore, that a hen starts laying eggs on average between 4 and 8 months, depending on the breed, and that she reaches the peak of egg production in the following year. Commercial crosses, the classic laying hens, can lay over 300-320 eggs within the first year of life. In most poultry breeds, this quantity drops to 180-200 eggs in the first year. <strong>In subsequent years, hens will lay fewer and fewer eggs, and after 3 years of age, egg production will likely be very low<\/strong>. Some hens after 10 years lay as few as 6 or 7 eggs per year! How long a chicken lives therefore becomes an important question especially for another purpose, that of <strong>selecting good breeders for your own farm<\/strong>.    <\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In fact, hens will probably continue to lay\u2014a little\u2014for many years, sometimes until an advanced age, but <strong>eggs laid in the years following the first will be larger than those laid in the first year<\/strong>. This fact can significantly influence the choice of animals intended for reproduction in a flock, but we will talk about this in a separate article dedicated to the age breeders should be in a poultry farm. See you soon!  <\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How long does a chicken live? This is often one of the first questions that those approaching the world of poultry farming may ask themselves. Well,<span class=\"excerpt-hellip\"> [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13419,"featured_media":19343,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[336,236,1332,239],"class_list":["post-19342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-aviculture-en","tag-breeding","tag-curiosities","tag-hen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novital.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/novital.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/novital.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novital.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13419"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novital.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19342"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/novital.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19344,"href":"https:\/\/novital.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19342\/revisions\/19344"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novital.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novital.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novital.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novital.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}