Gertie’s all grown-up! 15-year-old chicken claims crown as oldest hen in the world

With her beautiful brown-and-black speckled feathers and her clever demeanour, it may be hard to tell that Gertie – a Golden Sebright chicken – is in the later years of her life. 

Each morning when her owner Frank Turek (USA) checks in on her cage, she gives him a little cluck for greeting, before pecking at her food dish insistently. For the most part, the blind hen chooses to relax alongside her Great Dane buddy and wander around her pen – yet for Frank, everyday she spends in the home is a blessing, as Gertie is the oldest living chicken on Earth!

Last November, she was awarded the incredible title at the age of 15 years and 100 days old, which surpassed the previous record holder, Pearl the chicken in Texas, by over six months.

Gertie flew into Frank’s life back in 2010, when he ordered eight chicks from an online delivery service. As soon as the eggs hatched, they were shipped expressly to the Post Office – and he picked up a box of peeping babies on 27 July. 

“Gertie is a Golden Sebright, which is a bantam breed of chickens, so she quickly found out that she was smaller than many of her coopmates,” said Frank to GWR. “Although we did have a couple of Silkies – also a smaller breed – so she wasn’t too alone. 

“Her plumage, once it fully emerged after a few months, was immediately stunning,” he continued. “And she was always the most photogenic.”

Read more stories about record-breaking pets in our dedicated Animals section!

Gertie in 2010

At first, the chicks lived under a heat lamp in a large cardboard box lined with pine shavings, until they were old enough to move into their combined coop and outdoor pen. 

In the years that followed, a total of four flocks of chicks came and went – yet Gertie remained, presiding over the rest of the chickens with a matriarchal demeanour (“perhaps with a bit of a Napoleon complex,” joked Frank).

Gertie in 2010

“Since the original flock, we’ve had four influxes of new chicks,” he said. “Many have long since passed – and others who were too aggressive to fit in were adopted out –and through all of those personnel changes, Gertie was the presumptive leader.”

Gertie in 2022

Frank also mentioned that there was one summer when she started crowing like a rooster in the mornings, which sometimes happens in an all-female flock. 

“She also laid smaller eggs that, I swear, had a richer flavour than the eggs of her coopmates,” he said.

Sadly, as Gertie progressed in her lifecycle she started to deal with natural ailments, and she gradually stopped laying eggs. By the summer of 2024, Frank started noticing odd behaviour in the intelligent bird – such as not getting up on the perch at night, or being unable to climb up the ramp to the pen – and he realized that she was starting to go blind.

“That previous spring, we’d gotten a new group of hens that had grown to be bigger than Gertie, and with Gertie’s sight loss making her vulnerable, the younger chickens started pecking her,” he said. 

“On Christmas Day 2024, I heard a raucous noise from the coop, and when I went out to investigate, I discovered that Gertie had been severely pecked in the head, actually scalping more than half of her skull.

“I brought her inside and cleaned her bloody head and applied antiseptic, and I spent part of Christmas Day converting our dog’s large wire crate into Gertie’s new home.”

Now, Gertie spends her days in a luxurious coop of her own, or napping near Frank’s giant Great Dane, Maisie. Sometimes he will separate the outdoor chickens and let Gertie explore her old stomping grounds, and she always likes listening to the ambient sounds of their urban environment. Frank works as an artist, particularly with books, and Gertie likes when he’s home so she can spend time with him. 

“She seems very content with her new solo indoor life and loves the company of humans in the same room with her,” said Frank. “She replies to her name with a sweet ‘pup, pup, pup,’ and will have ‘conversations’ if you talk to or sing to her.”

He also mentioned that she loves to cuddle in the nook of his arm, and he can always tell when she’s asleep because she puffs up into a ball and tucks her head into a wing.

Gertie and Maisie

Yet she’s still the clever bird that Frank knows and loves – and he’s still surprised by her talents, even to this day!

“Since her blindness, I’ve had to put Gertie up on her perch every night. Until this past month, when she discovered how to get up on her own!” he said. “I was surprised when it first happened, and once she figured it out, she has gotten up every night since then.”

And Gertie’s loyal owner maintains that the secret to her long and happy life is due to being attentive and caring pet parent – as well as sticking to the basics. In Frank’s case, that means a combination coop and fenced-in pen, good quality fencing, and reinforced roofing. 

“Most chickens are lost to predators who are crafty at breaking through most fencing or birds of prey swooping down from above,” he explained. “More than once, hawks have come to visit the pen only to find they couldn’t gain access” – though he notes that he also lives in a town, where the appearance of most predators is a rarity. 

“A dry and draftless coop is essential,” he continued. “My chicken owners will run lights or heat to the coop – here in Maine, the winters can be brutal, but we’ve never heated our coop, which I think has made our chickens more hardy.”

Yet whatever Frank is doing obviously turned out well for Gertie – as this July she will celebrate her sweet sixteen.

So congratulations to this magnificent bird and her commendable owner – Gertie and Frank, you are both Officially Amazing!