DemeterAD9
Songster
- Mar 21, 2024
- 739
- 1,477
- 193
This is a thread to help me (and perhaps others) come to terms with culling birds for the health of the flock and to fit my flock goals. I am currently trying to manage my flock to steer them towards a nice dual purpose group that leans more heavily on meat. That being said, I also want to keep colored layers and individuals with interesting color/patterns because uniformity sounds a little boring to me. Really, I have two projects going on in the same flock. One aiming towards big meaty mutts and the other focusing more on egg and feather color/patterns. I prefer shorter combs over floppy single combs so there's that to consider too. I like bigger stocky birds so a lot of my decision making will be based off how the birds look and feel. Health is of course a top priority so any who are poorly should go. I'll have to put hands on everyone and see how they look, check their feet and do the finger width test
Behavior of males trumps their looks and size, if they're mean to me and the girls I don't care how perfect they are otherwise. Really, if I have to think whether or not to cull a bird for more than a few minutes the answer is to cull.
The original 21 adults I raised last year have led to 23 incubated chicks, 14 broody-raised chicks (3 more on the way) and then another 13 I bought. Through culling the obvious choices (spare cockerels, subpar hens) I have gotten my numbers down to 58 (plus 3 cooking). The plan is to only have 30 (2M/28F) chickens by late fall so 28 more have to go. Now sorting through the decent birds and ones I kinda like has me torn between what my heart wants and what logic says I should do.
Bantams, do they really even count towards the total? I have a cockerel, 2 pullets and their mother who is an EE and a certified good broody. I won't count them towards the total so let's say I have 54 birds to choose from.
There are 7 cockerels to choose from but 6 of them are still young at about 12 weeks old and not showing any male behaviors yet. It will be another month or so before I decide on them. Only one will be chosen so 54 becomes 48.
I have 2 hens who are 100% unproductive in that one has never laid (frizzle) and one stopped laying early on (dark brahma) so I suspect she has a reproductive issue. I am attached to both due to their personalities but I know the DB has health issues likely to worsen as she ages and the frizzle is half bald and unlikely to survive winter if she stays mostly naked. The DB will be culled due to her repro problems and the frizzle... if she doesn't get all her feathers in before it gets too cold she will also go.
2 BJG hens are likely to go as well because they never really got "giant" as advertised but they do lay well and are now producing bigger eggs than this spring. Just feel a little bad culling healthy, productive hens.
1 light brahma has stopped laying, possibly for the molt, and she is the smaller of the two with the smallest eggs. But her eggs are speckled which is neat. Then again, I've tried incubating 4 of her eggs and none were fertile so she isn't a very good candidate for breeding. Plus she always yells at me when I go to lock them up for the night which is rather annoying. She will go.
1 SLW hen is petite but a reliable layer. I have a son and one unidentified child of hers who may be keepers. I don't much like her simply because of her size, plus of all the layers her shells are pretty darn thin. I may cull her just to get numbers down.
So after culling adult birds and spare cockerels I would be down to 42 birds, 12 more to get rid of.
Then there's the pullets I hatched this year. 19 to be exact excluding the 2 bantams. 6 broody raised ones are between 12-13 weeks old. The 13 I hatched are 20 weeks old and only 1 seems to be laying unless the escapees are laying somewhere around the yard. The tentative plan is to try and sell the ones I can do without and those that should lay colored eggs but don't. I'm giving all but the brahma crosses till 24 weeks old to lay, then I'll either be trying to sell or cull the ones that aren't laying. I have 4 already picked out who I can live without so that brings me to a total of 38.
I bought 12 pullets but only really like 7 of them based on size alone, they are all about 19 weeks old. One is a cornish cross which is for the meat bird project (2 eggs of hers are under a broody). The rest are just runty looking things who I don't want to cull all that much mostly because I paid for them. So again, they'll get the 24 weeks to lay rule and whoever is slacking may very well get culled. One barnevelder is to be culled due to her overall form, she just looks off and is a slow growing so not something I want to breed from. That would bring me to 37.
I'm waiting for the pullets to start laying before culling any older birds so I'm not going down on egg production. Also waiting to see who lays what colors so I can thin down their numbers even more based off that, statistically half of my EE/OE mixes should lay a colored egg so that means ~6 will not. So that should bring me close to the targeted 30 birds...hopefully. Current culling dates are going to be set for September 13th (cockerels and some hens) and September 27th (for pullets and hens). Plans may change if the cockerels act up sooner than later, at which point I may end up culling hens and cockerels early.
Behavior of males trumps their looks and size, if they're mean to me and the girls I don't care how perfect they are otherwise. Really, if I have to think whether or not to cull a bird for more than a few minutes the answer is to cull.
The original 21 adults I raised last year have led to 23 incubated chicks, 14 broody-raised chicks (3 more on the way) and then another 13 I bought. Through culling the obvious choices (spare cockerels, subpar hens) I have gotten my numbers down to 58 (plus 3 cooking). The plan is to only have 30 (2M/28F) chickens by late fall so 28 more have to go. Now sorting through the decent birds and ones I kinda like has me torn between what my heart wants and what logic says I should do.
Bantams, do they really even count towards the total? I have a cockerel, 2 pullets and their mother who is an EE and a certified good broody. I won't count them towards the total so let's say I have 54 birds to choose from.
There are 7 cockerels to choose from but 6 of them are still young at about 12 weeks old and not showing any male behaviors yet. It will be another month or so before I decide on them. Only one will be chosen so 54 becomes 48.
I have 2 hens who are 100% unproductive in that one has never laid (frizzle) and one stopped laying early on (dark brahma) so I suspect she has a reproductive issue. I am attached to both due to their personalities but I know the DB has health issues likely to worsen as she ages and the frizzle is half bald and unlikely to survive winter if she stays mostly naked. The DB will be culled due to her repro problems and the frizzle... if she doesn't get all her feathers in before it gets too cold she will also go.
2 BJG hens are likely to go as well because they never really got "giant" as advertised but they do lay well and are now producing bigger eggs than this spring. Just feel a little bad culling healthy, productive hens.
1 light brahma has stopped laying, possibly for the molt, and she is the smaller of the two with the smallest eggs. But her eggs are speckled which is neat. Then again, I've tried incubating 4 of her eggs and none were fertile so she isn't a very good candidate for breeding. Plus she always yells at me when I go to lock them up for the night which is rather annoying. She will go.
1 SLW hen is petite but a reliable layer. I have a son and one unidentified child of hers who may be keepers. I don't much like her simply because of her size, plus of all the layers her shells are pretty darn thin. I may cull her just to get numbers down.
So after culling adult birds and spare cockerels I would be down to 42 birds, 12 more to get rid of.
Then there's the pullets I hatched this year. 19 to be exact excluding the 2 bantams. 6 broody raised ones are between 12-13 weeks old. The 13 I hatched are 20 weeks old and only 1 seems to be laying unless the escapees are laying somewhere around the yard. The tentative plan is to try and sell the ones I can do without and those that should lay colored eggs but don't. I'm giving all but the brahma crosses till 24 weeks old to lay, then I'll either be trying to sell or cull the ones that aren't laying. I have 4 already picked out who I can live without so that brings me to a total of 38.
I bought 12 pullets but only really like 7 of them based on size alone, they are all about 19 weeks old. One is a cornish cross which is for the meat bird project (2 eggs of hers are under a broody). The rest are just runty looking things who I don't want to cull all that much mostly because I paid for them. So again, they'll get the 24 weeks to lay rule and whoever is slacking may very well get culled. One barnevelder is to be culled due to her overall form, she just looks off and is a slow growing so not something I want to breed from. That would bring me to 37.
I'm waiting for the pullets to start laying before culling any older birds so I'm not going down on egg production. Also waiting to see who lays what colors so I can thin down their numbers even more based off that, statistically half of my EE/OE mixes should lay a colored egg so that means ~6 will not. So that should bring me close to the targeted 30 birds...hopefully. Current culling dates are going to be set for September 13th (cockerels and some hens) and September 27th (for pullets and hens). Plans may change if the cockerels act up sooner than later, at which point I may end up culling hens and cockerels early.
