Either my hens are crowing... or the hatchery sold us straight run.

Pics
Date sort Score sort
TaylorGlade said:
I worry about people wanting them for cock-fighting purposes if I just sell them on Craigslist. How do you weed out the nutjobs?
Click to expand...

My approach, however I sell/rehome/give them away, is that once they have left my hands I no longer have control over them, and I have to make my peace with that.

Someone could reassure me they'll keep the cockerel as a beloved pet and perch it on a gold throne and feed it caviar, and then as soon as they leave, they could kill and cook it or do whatever unspeakable things. I will have no knowledge or control over it.

As much as you'd like to vet prospective new owners, it just isn't possible if you want it to take weeks rather than years to get rid of these cockerels. And you have plenty that need to be rehomed!

It's a cruel aspect of chicken keeping (on us and our emotions), but dealing with surplus cockerels is part of the package. You can only ensure they lived a happy life when they were with you. Anything else is out of your hands.

I've been there and it's horrible. Sending hugs.
 
TheDawg said:
I haven’t read the whole thread yet so maybe someone already told you this but I notice you mentioned the combs aren’t large and look like hens you Googled? Unfortunately, for this age, those combs ARE large and quite red. The females don’t get big red combs like that until they get close to laying. You can’t really compare adult hens to pullets unfortunately. And you do indeed have mostly cockerels. :hugs
Click to expand...
Yep. Agreed. Thank you. To make matters worse, we only have three hens - and will have 2 roosters after we rehome all of them. I'm actually pretty devastated by this and not sure how to fix it. We also have biddies in the brooder - and more arriving. But that is not an acceptable hen/roo ratio.
I actually posed that question here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...ers-make-re-integration-harder-later.1592838/
 
Chicalina said:
My approach, however I sell/rehome/give them away, is that once they have left my hands I no longer have control over them, and I have to make my peace with that.

Someone could reassure me they'll keep the cockerel as a beloved pet and perch it on a gold throne and feed it caviar, and then as soon as they leave, they could kill and cook it or do whatever unspeakable things. I will have no knowledge or control over it.

As much as you'd like to vet prospective new owners, it just isn't possible if you want it to take weeks rather than years to get rid of these cockerels. And you have plenty that need to be rehomed!

It's a cruel aspect of chicken keeping (on us and our emotions), but dealing with surplus cockerels is part of the package. You can only ensure they lived a happy life when they were with you. Anything else is out of your hands.

I've been there and it's horrible. Sending hugs.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the words of encouragement. I'm not even sure where to start. We may sell them at the farmer's market this weekend if we can. Honestly, I feel like we are completely starting over. We now have 3 fully grown hens and two fully grown roosters. The Ameracauna was expected and planned for - along with 10 lovely Australorp hens and Ameracauna hen. Oops! Honestly, though. If someone ate them, I could understand that. And I would much prefer that, over them having a life of abuse at the hands of a cock fighter
 
TaylorGlade said:
Thank you for the words of encouragement. I'm not even sure where to start. We may sell them at the farmer's market this weekend if we can. Honestly, I feel like we are completely starting over. We now have 3 fully grown hens and two fully grown roosters. The Ameracauna was expected and planned for - along with 10 lovely Australorp hens and Ameracauna hen. Oops! Honestly, though. If someone ate them, I could understand that. And I would much prefer that, over them having a life of abuse at the hands of a cock fighter
Click to expand...
I was so glad to read where you are ordering sexed chicks from a Hatchery yourself this time. My friend wanted a special breed of chicken so found one online and brought home not only the chicken but lice and mites with it. Now she is battling that constantly with the whole flock. It is wiser to get them from a hatchery even though I myself have found some on CL and lucked out. Good luck with your chicks. Out of the 4 ducklings I let hatch out this year they all ended up being drakes. They went to feed a friend's family and I was heartbroken to do it but could not rehome them as I tried all over to do that. I will only buy sexed ducklings from now on as it is heartbreaking to have to rehome them. So sorry you are having to go through this.
 
TaylorGlade said:
Thank you for the words of encouragement. I'm not even sure where to start. We may sell them at the farmer's market this weekend if we can. Honestly, I feel like we are completely starting over. We now have 3 fully grown hens and two fully grown roosters. The Ameracauna was expected and planned for - along with 10 lovely Australorp hens and Ameracauna hen. Oops! Honestly, though. If someone ate them, I could understand that. And I would much prefer that, over them having a life of abuse at the hands of a cock fighter
Click to expand...
So sorry you're going through this! Heartbreaking, and I'm sorry this happened to you guys.

BTW if the pics you guys have posted is all the chickens you have, you only have one Australorp hen. The other one that looks similar but has curling tail feathers is a slow developing cockerel /male. You also have one female lavender Ameracauna. If you keep a male Australorp, I'd keep one of the ones that has a fully developed comb and wattles already (also that gives you space/respect, although that could change anywhere between 5-12 months of age once hormones hit). If you keep a rooster that was quick to develop, he may pass this along to his kids, and that will make them easier to ID male/female sooner as chicks.

If you have 3 roos, and you keep them confined all the time due to predators, you'll need three separate coops with 3 separate sets of ladies. The juvenile males will get along until puberty hits around 5-6 months or so (could get along longer, but don't count on it), and then they may start to fight. I've got two 3+ month males together right now, because one of my coops broke, and I figure I've got a month or so to fix it before there will be issues. If they are raised together and you want them to get along (and they do), don't separate them until they are going to be separated permanently. And make sure they have enough space in their coop/run to get away from each other while they're growing up.

You can use chicken wire to subdivide a secure run to separate males/females or use it to separate flocks. If the cockerels start to pester the ladies, you can pen them together away from the ladies (bachelor pad) until there are issues between the cockerels, to give the cockerels and females time to grow up. You can put one cockerel in a really large wire pet crate (48"x32" floor space) so it is inside the secure run, but won't get picked on by the other cockerel, as a temporary measure while you finish your third coop, if you need to pen the males together, and they're starting to fight. You can cover portions of the wire pet crate with hardware cloth, or zip tie house wrap/old feed bags to create a sheltered area and put the plastic crate bottom tray on top of the crate to protect from sun. The crate can share wood chips in the run with the rest of the run. You can stake the crate in place if needed with 12" landscape stakes, and/or put a paving stone on top.

I think you have a lot of options for the future, but first will need to sell/rehome the cockerels. I'd do it as quickly as possible so you can start to heal and look to the future. Do your best to find good homes for them, but you can't control other peoples' choices, so don't beat yourself up about it. So sorry you're going through this.

I raised a batch of 12 roosters a few months ago, and was planning to eat them, but when it came down to it I sold them instead. At least one of them went to a home and became a flock rooster, so I have hope that a couple of them made it. I was reimbursed the cost of raising them, and then some, and didn't have to take the time to process them, or process roosters I'd become attached to, so it worked out. Focusing on the new chicks and the sweet hens helped me not be so sad.

Sending you supportive thoughts.
 
TaylorGlade said:
View attachment 3592665

So, Prince, our master roo, is labeled in the back. He stands tall and proud and has a large comb. The two labeled "Hen?" I'm not sure about. The one with the green band crowed this morning, but doesn't stand tall and doesn't have the large comb. The one with the yellow band isn't crowing, but stands like Prince does. What scares me is that almost all of our yellow-banded (non-crowing) stand like this. So - I hope we don't have all roosters! Even in a straight-run, I wouldn't expect those odds. View attachment 3592667
And ... we have two black australorps that look like this. They don't match any photos of the hens or roos that I've seen. They are much smaller and more squatly built. Is something wrong with them?

We also got several photos of individual chickens. I'll post those next. Still trying to mark up the photos. Been a hot minute since I edited photos and the app I use changed.
Click to expand...
I see one girl .rest are boys
 

Similar threads

J
    • Like
Crowing Hen, or Rooster?
Replies
4
Views
507
ShrekDawg
ShrekDawg
Beccalovescoffee
West Coast Grange Co-Op - Straight Runs?
Replies
4
Views
397
Beccalovescoffee
Beccalovescoffee
N
Hen or Roo x four
2
Replies
10
Views
2K
MichelleNonCompliant
MichelleNonCompliant
O
Update -- sexing "production reds"?
2
Replies
13
Views
2K
Rose_adamaj
Rose_adamaj
uisceros
    • Like
    • Love
Is my Serama a cockerel??
2 3
Replies
23
Views
2K
RoostersAreAwesome
RoostersAreAwesome

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom