What retirement means for a hen
A hen's laying life winds down gradually rather than stopping on a single day: eggs arrive further apart, shells thin, and eventually she is a full-time member of the flock who no longer pays her way in breakfast. Retiring her kindly means nothing about her life changes except the expectations. She keeps her place in the pecking order, her favourite dust-bathing hollow, and her spot on the roost, because an old hen removed from her flock and kept apart loses the social structure her whole day is built around. If younger hens bully her at the feeder, add a second feeding station rather than separating her; she should retire inside the flock, not away from it.
Her feed changes when the eggs stop
Layer feed is built for a hen turning out shells daily, and its high calcium level is harder on the kidneys of a hen who is no longer laying than most keepers realise. Move your retiree onto an all-flock or grower ration with moderate protein, and put oyster shell in a separate dish so the hens still in lay can help themselves while she eats the plainer feed. Keep treats sparse and weighted toward greens and scratch scattered widely enough that she is not shouldered aside, and check her crop at roosting time now and then: a crop that is still full and doughy in the morning is information worth noting.
Keeping an old hen comfortable
Old hens get stiff like any other ageing animal. Lower one perch so she can step up rather than fly, add a ramp to the coop pop-hole if she hesitates at the jump, and keep the bedding deep, dry, and loose enough for her to settle into on cold nights. In winter she needs a draught-free corner more than she needs heat; in summer she needs shade she can reach without crossing a bully's territory and water at ground level. Trim overgrown nails on a bird who scratches less than she used to, and lift her down and set her back gently when you handle her, since old hen bones are lighter than they look.
Health watch in her pensioner years
Pick her up weekly, because your hands find what your eyes miss under feathers: weight slipping away, a swollen or fluid-feeling abdomen, laboured breathing, or a hen standing penguin-upright, which can point to reproductive trouble common in old layers and is a prompt reason to see a vet. Watch for mites around the vent, scaly crusting on the legs, and a pale, shrinking comb. None of this needs panic — it needs a pattern you can describe. Keeping her laying history, past illnesses, and vet findings together in her KinsLe Pet Passport means the vet seeing her for the first time in her old age starts from her whole story, not a guess.