Culling my first birds and a strange question...

[Myhouseisazoo2]

Feed her Fried chicken....Lol

A good fix for the Ag Teacher...step on his head and pull his legs!! Sounds worthless to me. Wonder if the FFA has a means to report worthless advisors??

Lol sounds like a good fix to the issue! From what I've been told by other students parents and older siblings and a few kids themselves (!) the issue with him is that up till 3-4ish years ago he hadn't handled any sort of agricultural animals (he had taken care of "normal" pets like dogs and cats maybe birds.)

I'm sure there is someplace I could complain to about him being a horrid ag/FFA advisors and think that another parent (who was so upset by him and his antics last year) has been looking all summer for ways to... Get rid of him.

 

[Myhouseisazoo2]

This^^^

A rational explanation is not going to convince her to drop an irrational, emotional belief. 
[/quote]

True if she don't want to she won't... I asked her what she thought her meat at the store came from? And she gave me a half answer of "I know where they come from because I'm in an Agriculture program." Unfortunetly its not the same just because your in an Ag program doesn't mean you understand where the meat you consume comes from. Sadly I had to explain to a few of these kids that the beef they eat comes from the cow they jokingly called Steak last year. That was a bucket of fun

 

[3chickchicks]

She's 16?

So what is her suggestion? Tell her they need to be gone within a week or two. Maybe she'll come to the same conclusion or maybe she'll find homes for them.

 

[Myhouseisazoo2]

She's 16?

So what is her suggestion? Tell her they need to be gone within a week or two. Maybe she'll come to the same conclusion or maybe she'll find homes for them.

Well.. She'll be 16 in three weeks (me and twin are 23 so we've a few years between us)

She wants to sell them to the other kids in her Ag program however only 1 roo (the one we plan on keeping) is show/fair quality. All the other Roo's will be instantly disqualified for small things like wrong eye color, crooked tail ect and she knows this as she went through my flock already to pick her show birds. In good conscious I can't let her sell them to other kids as "show quality" when they are in fact not :C

 

[Melinda66]

I'm mom to 6 kids on a farm. There are two ways to go about this in my experience. My dad's way (and his fathers) was a simple no argument, this is what's going to happen, make them do it themselves, and live with whatever emotions come about. My children, on the other hand, freak out about these stories, and times have changed with current societal views, etc. What worked for my 6 was constant teaching. I would explain in detail why you have to do stuff and give as much information as possible. I ask them for suggestions but keep them in the guidelines of what must be done. Explain all of your knowledge to them, let them be part of the process and even part of the decisions, if they choose to do so, but I was firm in my final outcome plans. I let my son decide on both the kill method and cooking method. He just turned 16. Once it was done, he said it wasn't near as bad as he thought. By that time he knew exactly what to expect and eventually did all the work preparing the chickens. My oldest daughter (28) hated to watch so wants no part of the butchering anymore. She accepts that it will happen though (she's 28 but mentally challenged so is much like a teen). This is our first year with raising chickens, so what worked for me is limited to dad's farming stories and about 6 months of having my own flock of 27 hens, 2 roosters, 4 runner ducks, and the 5 Cornish rock hens we sent to freezer camp. We just got 21 more Cornish rocks today that we send to camp in 8 weeks. Hope this helps a little.

 

[Myhouseisazoo2]

This is our first year with raising chickens, so what worked for me is limited to dad's farming stories and about 6 months of having my own flock of 27 hens, 2 roosters, 4 runner ducks, and the 5 Cornish rock hens we sent to freezer camp. We just got 21 more Cornish rocks today that we send to camp in 8 weeks. Hope this helps a little.

This is my first time raising and culling to send to freezer camp, I have already explained why I won't sell them to kids in her FFA class program. And I've already told her she doesn't have to help with the deed. I guess it more bugs me that she's told me that by culling my own birds that I am "torturing" them. I explained the process to her from start to ending (the method I would be using) but it does not seem to have helped...
On a side note May I inquire as to which method you used for your freezer camp prep? How long it took and if you did the task yourself or if you had a helper? My twin will be assisting me but we're curious as to how long we should be expecting the task to take.

 

[Melinda66]

This is my first time raising and culling to send to freezer camp, I have already explained why I won't sell them to kids in her FFA class program. And I've already told her she doesn't have to help with the deed. I guess it more bugs me that she's told me that by culling my own birds that I am "torturing" them. I explained the process to her from start to ending (the method I would be using) but it does not seem to have helped...
On a side note May I inquire as to which method you used for your freezer camp prep? How long it took and if you did the task yourself or if you had a helper? My twin will be assisting me but we're curious as to how long we should be expecting the task to take.

Well, I certainly didn't do it myself because none of that was my idea. My son and his friend wanted to raise chickens for eggs. My son's friends grandpa got involved and wanted the boilers. I followed his lead. Meanwhile I read a lot to try to learn fast. The grandpa did the first two in a manner that I now consider just.... All wrong (the killing part) he calmed the bird then held its head and swung. It was quick (but.. Really?) OK so then I dipped it in hot water and plucked feathers by hand. The grandpa then cut and prepped the bird. We had trial and error on those 4 (mainly error). After the 1st one, the boys did the hot water and feathers and eventually did it all themselves by the 4th one. It took a while but we were kind of figuring it out for ourselves. Once you get it down it goes fast. We had our table, bags, water hose, very sharp knife, pan of boiling water, and gloves all ready. I didn't time anything but maybe an hour for the first one and twenty minutes on the others... It was slow at first. I had dog control going on too. I think I'll use a cone next time. If I can find one of those machines to take feathers off I'm buying one. I also need to learn about preparing the meat because we were bad at that I think.

 

[LBKS]

This is my first time raising and culling to send to freezer camp, I have already explained why I won't sell them to kids in her FFA class program. And I've already told her she doesn't have to help with the deed. I guess it more bugs me that she's told me that by culling my own birds that I am "torturing" them. I explained the process to her from start to ending (the method I would be using) but it does not seem to have helped...
On a side note May I inquire as to which method you used for your freezer camp prep? How long it took and if you did the task yourself or if you had a helper? My twin will be assisting me but we're curious as to how long we should be expecting the task to take.

Have you had a talk about how letting the large number of boys to girls in the flock is very stressful and can be downright dangerous for the chickens? There are probably a ton of threads for example on it, personally I experienced what can happen there when a free ranging hen found a way to fly up into the barn rafters and then down into a bachelor pen of several mature roosters ready to be culled. As the lone lady they were all fighting over her, injuring themselves and her in the process. She not only ended up with most of the feathers stripped off her back and back of the head before I came home to find what happened, she had a large area of skin ripped off the back of her head where they must have kept getting a hold of her sans feathers, before she found a good place to hide in the pen. Several of the roosters who had no prior reason to fight with no ladies around were rather tore up from just a day of squabbling over the lone hen. All in the span of 8 or so hours, maybe less depending on when she got in there.

Personally that right there was all the proof I needed that processing all those roosters was the best thing for everyone involved. If culling birds is "torturing" them, I can't imagine what you'd call the impact of not culling them. Perhaps explaining the consequences of not culling them would help change her opinion?

 

[LindaB220]

Well, I certainly didn't do it myself because none of that was my idea. My son and his friend wanted to raise chickens for eggs. My son's friends grandpa got involved and wanted the boilers. I followed his lead. Meanwhile I read a lot to try to learn fast. The grandpa did the first two in a manner that I now consider just.... All wrong (the killing part) he calmed the bird then held its head and swung. It was quick (but.. Really?) OK so then I dipped it in hot water and plucked feathers by hand. The grandpa then cut and prepped the bird. We had trial and error on those 4 (mainly error). After the 1st one, the boys did the hot water and feathers and eventually did it all themselves by the 4th one. It took a while but we were kind of figuring it out for ourselves. Once you get it down it goes fast. We had our table, bags, water hose, very sharp knife, pan of boiling water, and gloves all ready. I didn't time anything but maybe an hour for the first one and twenty minutes on the others... It was slow at first. I had dog control going on too.

I think I'll use a cone next time. If I can find one of those machines to take feathers off I'm buying one. I also need to learn about preparing the meat because we were bad at that I think.

Hey, Melinda, we've all been there. MOST important thing to remember is to let it rest in the fridge for up to 3 days. Once the rigor is out then cook it like you want. Older birds 5 mo need to be roasted in 250 degree oven covered for 2 1/2 hrs. Older birds over a year need 225 degrees for up to 3 1/2 hrs. Or crockpot for 12 to 14 hrs. Good luck. I'm learning too and read this the other day.

 

[Cowgirl71]

It really saddens me that we as a nation are so disattached from the food we eat. Does she have any idea how commercial beef, pork, and chicken is raised? Meat doesn't just magically appear on styrofoam and wrapped in plastic. Your roosters have had a wonderful life compared to that chicken sandwhich she had yesterday. Despite your inexperience they'll also likely have a more humane end as well.

Chicks hatch naturally with a 50/50 male/female ratio. If kept at that ratio as adults the hens will literally be raped to death. So what is her solution to this problem? Put the extra roosters in a cage for the rest of their lives? Not only is that a miserable existance, but who's going to pay for all that feed?

I think you're being very generous by not requiring her to participate. You want to know what I and my family did on my 16th birthday? We butchered roosters, 16 of the biggest meanest ones. It was the first time I had participated in butchering and the first any of us had butchered any chickens. Because it was my birthday I got the "easy job," plucker. I knew from day one that the cute fuzzy little male chicks we were raising were destined for the freezer and as an animal lover I really struggled with that. But then they "came of age" and started tormenting my hens and pullets, keeping them all "tree-ed" most of the day, so that they didn't get much to eat or drink and certainly weren't laying. I figured out for myself that there really wasn't any other practical answer but to butcher them. It wasn't going to be fun, at all, but it had to be done.

Here's what I'd tell her, if it were me. First, you don't understand the meaning of the word torment. If butchered properly, like I'm going to do it, they are not tormented AT ALL. Look up the word. Secondly, I want them all gone in x number of days. You can go ahead and find homes for them if you'd like, but be honest with the people that they're not show quality. Also be aware that those people would of likely otherwise gotten a different rooster, which you now just condemmed to the stew pot. Or, if you'd like, you can find and buy or make some cages. I think that would be a pretty miserable existance for them, but if you want to do that, then that's fine. I don't want to hear them crowing, I'm not going to care for them, you are going to purchase their feed with your own money, and you're also going to compensate me for the feed I've put into them so far, since I'm not going to have any chicken dinners. And if they ever get out and I see them pestering my hens they'll disappear. But if you'd like to do that then fine (assuming this is an okay option to you). I don't know her or what her finances are like, but I'm going to guess that within a few months of caring for them and buying the feed she's going to start liking them less and less.

I don't know if this helps or not, just thought I'd share......