So many roosters!

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Coralietg

Coralietg

Songster
9 Years
Apr 10, 2010
581
43
158
Opelousas, LA
My hope for our black Silkie ended today when I heard him crow, argh.

We have 10 roosters. 8 are Bantam breeds, but 2 are EE's. 5 of the 10 are 8 weeks old, all Bantams. Not causing any trouble yet. Of the 5 12-16 week olds, one is the Silkie (behaves), a tiny, noisy OEG (looks like a glorified pigeon) that my daughter loves, and a Black Tailed Japanese Bantam. He's a little bit naughty, but generally good.

The 2 EE's are being a complete pain though. The hens run screaming from them, one rooster especially we've ended up calling Randy Reggie because he's such an annoyance to the hens.

Obviously with 10 roosters to 25 pullets, we need to do something. I just don't know what right now. We've never processed chickens before, so that concerns me a little.

Is it better to have at least 1 standard rooster hanging around for protection?
 
It entirely depends on your situation and the roosters involved; not all roos are created equal, so not all will be good flock guardians. Usually people will get rid of the most human aggressive roos and then move down the line and start getting rid of ones that are particularly aggressive with the hens/chicks of the flock, too. It's all about what you keep your flock for, what you want from your flock/roos, and how much space/resources you have to devote to your flock.
 
With 25 pullets, I would suggest keeping two roosters in order to keep all the eggs fertilized. And either craigslist the mean ones or eat them.

The first time my family processed chickens it was...very interesting...we were completely new and not too good at it then, lol.

We basically made an assembly line, chopped the chickens head off, cut off legs and wing tips at the joints, pluck/skin (we found skinning much more easier and faster because the skin comes right off if you pull away from the body), remove neck/crop. Then you have a prepared chicken! It comes real easy once you do it a few times. :)
 
I ordered many groups of "straight runs" from very good breeders around the country. So I ended up with like, 30 roosters. Like you, I had a problem with too many roosters. I do not kill my chickens, so I also had a problem there.
I ended up putting an ad in Craigslist. I was really lucky to get some wonderful responses. I lovely lady in Kissimmee, Florida ended up taking the whole flock of roosters. She has 100 acres for them. I would suggest placing an ad in Craigslist. I worked for me.
 
8 of the 10 roosters are Bantams, they won't even be worth the time spent processing, lol.

Craigslist sounds useful, I might give that a try.

Honestly, I've always been extremely anti-rooster because eating fertilised eggs grosses me out. This is the first time we have had them
 
I bet you will be pleasantly surprised by how many people respond for the bantam size roosters. I had about 15 bantam roosters and people requested them first.
People seem to love the bantams. I made sure to write to the people to make sure they were the type of people that wanted them as pets.
I am sure you will have lots of responses. Good Luck.
 
I'd try running an ad. I currently have two roosters in a flock of 20 birds. They do fine but I wasn't expecting the roosters since I ordered only hens. It happens sometimes. They do a great job keeping an eye out for hawks but they're no match for a fox. Lost a rooster last year when a fox walked into the coop just at sundown and took my big Speckled Sussex right off the roost. My fault for not getting home in time to lock them up. That rooster was great with hawks and did a fantastic job watching out for his hens. These two new roosters are still learning the yard and I hope they'll work out. Not sure how my neighbor feels about them though!
 

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