If you could find him a home... let him go! Roosters, especially cockerels who haven't yet proven their temperament are a dime a dozen.
Usually $5-10 for someones' stock pot. And that would be a good price for a new home if not free (for a new home, not the stock pot). Unless you know he came from great lines and is fault free, no sprigs, split wing, correct coloring, award winning... that kind of stuff. Then maybe $20. Which actually he is too young to really know a lot of that. And you have a local "breeder" already selling their stock.... who COULDN'T TELL GENDER, So that makes his technical value even less in my eyes. The lack of gender identity at birth makes his value for his breed nada. But you know your market better than I do as well as how long you're willing to wait and how many weirdos you're willing deal with in the process.
He is in his ruff looking stage right now, that they all go through!
Bet he get's much more handsome as he fills in.
We eat our extras, but if I have someone who for some reason made it to pet status, I let them go to their new homes with just the satisfaction of knowing they are going to be treated well. This is my bantam guy who recently found a new home..
I even let the guy who was just starting out have 2 girls to go with him though I could have easily sold them for $25 each. Who me?! Trying to get more people addicted and teach them chicken math.
In other words, go with your heart! He was supposed to pay $5 for Small Fry. But I never asked for the money and I even gave some feed and an 18 pack of eggs from my own flock. What comes around goes around... and I can't out give God!
It may just be a stereotype about Florida that there are lot's of cock fighters... use your judgement when you let him go. There are still a lot of good folks out there, enjoying the hobby as we were meant to! And weird that it hadn't really crossed my mind too much... maybe because another poster in Fl is planning on keeping 8 cockerels for fear of mistreatment or they might be eaten...
Thank you I'd absolutely give him away for free if I knew the receiver would give him even a few months of a good life. Out of 6 chicks (from two different breeders) I ended up with 3 boys...the cream legbar is my only autosexing breed, though, so I can more easily forgive the others. Looking back at pics from when he was 2 weeks old, I can clearly see the light spot on his head, so I'm now thinking either the breeder was as clueless as I was at the time, or knew what they were doing and lied. Anyway, now I have to figure out what to do with three roosters before they start crowing and piss off all my neighbors (and technically my covenants forbids chickens so I don't want to piss off the neighbors). My husband or I may have to just man up and have rooster for dinner, but I'm not set up for that, have never done it, and really don't want to. But they are chickens after all, right? And people eat chickens. We knew this was a possibility going into it, but I guess in our naivety we'd hoped we'd get lucky.
Doing the deed isn't easy, as you say man up about it...
But Me and my 17 year old daughter process our cockerels. My husband hasn't been able to participate. But I cry tears of joy for how proud I am that my daughter knows where her food comes from! Talk about learning to respect life. And since we eat chicken but have seen the chicken industry videos that made that virtually impossible... and have been saddled with unexpected cockerels... plus the only way to hatch chicks or buy from breeders is usually straight run and I wanted good quality stock to start with. I expected to cry for weeks on end as I am a super emotional type person. And we prepped our minds for many months ahead of time, knowing that we would eventually be eating our own birds. Worried about having the right set up and location to do the process. My husband and I are both major over thinkers and really thought EVERYTHING had to be perfect. Ended up making a cone out of a bleach jug and following beekissed's video, had it looping in the background. Having a place with people you trust to be safe like BYC was much better than searching random vile you tube videos.
However, if my long term goals didn't include more chicks and likely cockerels, I probably would not spend the energy to learn that skill. It's awesome that you are OK to let them go where they will be dinner as long as you know they are treated well. Everyone of mine is treated with care through the very last minute and live the good life until then.
Sometimes you get lucky. Out of 3 silkies they all were girls. That means whoever got theirs before me might have gotten all boys. 3 out of 6 would be average for breeder stock, so you did pretty good.
Interestingly though... your girls may end up louder than roosters. But I guess they keep it to the day time instead of all night so maybe that's why it's different. My hens get up high on a podium and announce at the top of their lungs that they are about ready to lay an egg. It's a huge production that usually goes on more than an hour.
Mad neighbors are never good. I like to kill mine with kindness.
And you can see how it makes them treat me different than the other neighbors. They know I will work to be a good neighbor if they express their concern. But in the beginning they tried solving by yelling dumb stuff from a distance. So I went and introduced myself, acknowledged their concern and told them what I was doing to address it, for example when I got my goats who were just weaned and moved, they hollared at the top of their lungs for weeks. The neighbors couldn't read my mind or know my situation. But after sharing they were much more understanding upon the realization that I would not allow the peace of the whole neighborhood to suffer long term and that if we didn't see improvement within a said amount of time I would look to another solution. Now I can see them yell at each other when they have issues... but every single one of them approaches me with kindness because they know I come in peace, so to speak. I am so thankful to be a part of a great neighborhood!
I'd absolutely give him away for free if I knew the receiver would give him even a few months of a good life. Out of 6 chicks (from two different breeders) I ended up with 3 boys...the cream legbar is my only autosexing breed, though, so I can more easily forgive the others. Looking back at pics from when he was 2 weeks old, I can clearly see the light spot on his head, so I'm now thinking either the breeder was as clueless as I was at the time, or knew what they were doing and lied. Anyway, now I have to figure out what to do with three roosters before they start crowing and piss off all my neighbors (and technically my covenants forbids chickens so I don't want to piss off the neighbors). My husband or I may have to just man up and have rooster for dinner, but I'm not set up for that, have never done it, and really don't want to. But they are chickens after all, right? And people eat chickens. We knew this was a possibility going into it, but I guess in our naivety we'd hoped we'd get lucky.
