Best life for give-away roosters? Help please

[Plumfig]

Hi all, we got seven chicks from tractor supply, four of them ended up boys. We love them dearly (and would keep them if we hadn't already gotten in trouble with the city for it once before.)

I had thought we would be able to keep them till at least four or five months, because that was the info I had on when they would start crowing. Sadly our two little gold laced Wyandottes are prodigies and started crowing at nine weeks. Nine weeks! They are about 13 weeks now and getting pretty loud. (We are worried that the same neighbors are going to report it to the city any minute.)

The other two are a french cuckoo Maran, and a light Brahma.

Hallelujah, there is a man nearby who accepts roosters, and my understanding is that he just lets them live… And doesn't eat them. Great!

The question is that my daughter thinks it's necessary to give all four of the roosters away together because it would be cruel to do otherwise to the ones being given away, i.e. to give them away in sets of two instead. I on the other hand was really hoping to at least keep the two who are not yet crowing until They got to the point where they could get us in trouble.

She also thinks it would be cruel to the remaining three hens to lose companions twice.

I definitely want to be the least cruel possible.

How much does it matter? The Brahma rooster,"Opal", was the one chick that *I* chose when I went with my kids. I am in particular pretty heartbroken to part with him, and I also wanted to see how much bigger he might be getting. I realize this is a small problem, but I would appreciate insight, thank you!

 

[fluffycrow]

Well since there's no way you can keep them, why prolong it? Give them all away now, before it's harder to do so

 

[Plumfig]

Well since there's no way you can keep them, why prolong it? Give them all away now, before it's harder to do so

I appreciate the viewpoint, knowing myself I don't think it will be harder to do so later. More, I'd really like to know if it's unkind to the roosters to give them away in batches of two at separate times. They will end up at the same place, but they may not know each other a couple months after being separated.

 

[fluffycrow]

It would be better to be given in one batch for the males. Assuming the person that's taking them has more birds, they'll be more comfortable in a group, that is until they fight to claim territories and by extention, females

 

[Saveria]

Two is okay, but not ideal. If it is two at least they have a friend, but if something happens to the friend then they are alone.

That said, people introduce individual roosters to all sorts of new scenarios. Really bad scenes are somewhat rare, and they adjust to the new order in about 1-2 weeks.

So basically, four is better, two is okay, one is worth avoiding, but sometimes unavoidable. It sounds like they'll be in good hands.