I talked to a farmer who said they would cull roos by breaking their necks as soon as their sex was apparent, rather than trying to re-home them. Is this common? Not being judgmental at all, just wondering how it's done these days.
We give away a lot of ours because they come from a good line of Marans and there are a lot of people who want to add dark eggs to their baskets. The ones that shouldn't reproduce, we eat.
A lot of breeders, as soon as they see a fault, cull the bird (kill it). It is a part of breeding to perfection. Some are more strict about it than others. Excess cockerels can be a real problem as well, since much less of them are needed to work on a breed so culling early is not uncommon. Jody
I just culled (by hatchet) 6 half-grown roosters. I hatched 14 out of 15 roosters... USUALLY, I would let them grow out a bit larger so I could at least eat the meat, but in this case they were abusing some of my girls and I couldn't find anyone to take them, so they had to go...one way or another. If you are breeding for a particular purpose (conformation, or for laying stock, etc) then it makes sense to cull - either by selling, giviing away, or humanely killing - your excess roos as soon as possible so you aren't feeding excess stock. Keep in mind that culling doesn't always mean killing - it just means getting rid of birds that don't fit for whatever purpose you have your chicikens. Culling can mean to give them away, or sell, etc.
