ELI5 Why do so many ppl treat chickens expendable??

[JacinLarkwell]

I agree @z3lda3, it's not a rooster's fault that he was born a boy. Just because of a rooster's gender we humans hate him just existing. Just 'cause he doesn't lay eggs and isn't that useful. So we shred all of the innocent little boys up in the shredder at chick factories or gas them And what did they do? They were simply born.

Most people don't hate them solely because they're males.

 

[talkinboutchickens]

Most people don't hate them solely because they're males.

Sorry, my mistake, I should have phrased that differently. I said "we" as in humans, not us personally. Of course a lot of us love roosters I truly didn't want to make anyone upset.

 

[SourRoses]

One of the reason, perhaps the most important reason is the flock. Not all birds live well together. I want my flock to live well and in peace. I will remove birds to achieve that.

What rather appalls me, is people who 'love' their birds too much to cull or remove one, so that they live together fighting, pulling feathers and tearing holes in each other, like that is a good thing?

Animal husbandry is keeping animals well. Always solve for peace in the flock. Often times, removing a bird is necessary to achieve that.

Mrs K

This is so perfectly said, I couldn't agree more!

Personally, I feel very sensitive about my chickens emotional states.
I hate to see a bully. Just hate it. Most cockerels are bullies.
I feel grossly responsible, being that I am the one controlling the fact these birds have to live together. In the wild they could go join another flock. But even free range domestic birds are limited in their social choices by food availability and lack of other roaming flocks.
I once kept a large rooster flock for about a year, with a tall fence separating them from the main flock. The roos could go all the way out to pasture to browse, but they chose to hang out next to the hens.
One day a little leghorn pullet that was about to come into lay, exhibited a fairly normal behavior for pullets of that age and was searching around for nesting locations. Leghorns fly pretty well, so she made it over the fence.
Those cockerels swarmed her. They held her down, ripped feathers out of her neck, took turns jumping all over her... not even letting her up for a moment. I saw them doing this through the window and ran out as fast as I could, but given the distance and various obstacles it took me a couple minutes to get there. By the time I did her comb was torn and bloody and when I shooed the roos away she would not even get up. She was in shock. She did not deserve what happened to her. This may be an extreme example, but it's far from rare...
Many many people getting into chickens think they are being nice by allowing excess roos to stay. They are really just transferring the suffering around the flock. Innocent hens get attacked, held down, pullets get violated before they're of an age... and too many people are blind to the suffering they are facilitating, because it's not expressed in human terms.
I'm always surprised when I see people post pictures where the hens have bald backs and they talk about it like it's normal or just aesthetic. Feather quills are attached to nerve endings, that's how they feel through a thick layer of feathers. Each and every feather hurts when it's pulled out (except molted ones), so a whole back full is like posting a picture of someone's back after a flogging. Probably equal in pain.

So this is the stuff I feel emotional about. I could care less what dead bodies don't feel anymore, or how they're used / not.
I have trouble with culling because of their fear. But we get it done (my mom handles the hard part, I do the catching, lol).
What's essential is that those roos aren't around anymore to turn my flock into some prison style gang of misery.
I pick 1-3 cockerels each season who show kind behavior to the hens and respectfulness to humans. I'm going to breed for perfect temperament if nothing else. At the end of the season I find homes for those nice ones. If some of the extras are nice, I find homes for them too. I've done it this way for 3 years now. But if he's at all picky of the others I don't mind sending him to perdition.
Since this is a long-term breeding project, I also rehome hens. Haven't culled any that were not injured (one was scalped down to the brain by a nasty cockerel). Some hens have a sweet enough personality or contribute (broodies) that they get to stay, our oldest is 5 years old and when she does lay it's the wonkiest egg ever. But she talks to us through the fence, and even though she's actually a bit annoying, she has so much personality and I worry that another home wouldn't value that about her so she gets to stay forever.

TLDR: I have a merit system.

 

[SandyRiverChick]

I’m not wanting an argument I’m genuinely trying to understand. Why are chickens, especially roosters treated so expendable? (Not talking about broilers). I’ve seen and read so many ppl culling their chickens/unwanted roosters and throwing out the body with the garbage. Unwanted rooster, kill it, burn it or bury it. And just recently I read about a person who killed his roosters and used the body for bait. Can someone explain to me why this is acceptable? If it was a cat or dog it’d be cruelty to animals and illegal.

You left out a ton of other animals that people see as expendable. Many, many threads regarding other animals on BYC, especially those thought of as predators will show you how wildly different people feel about specific animals. Opossum, fox, coyote, racoon, rat, etc. etc. People will assert that in defense of their chicken's (including Roosters,) that they're happy to kill a long list of other animals. SO the net is it's personal values, period. Everyone has a different set. It'd be interesting to see an actual poll of what animals you're fine with killing and those you are not. I think results are all over the place.

 

[K0k0shka]

The thing is you don't NEED to kill a chicken that does not want to be friendly, You can easily sell it or give it away, Unless you had problems selling it or giving it away then maybe yeah, Cull it. I was not trying to say anybody who has the hunger for a good chicken noodle soup were monsters, In this case the son is because the hen simply runs away when he approaches it so his immediate thought is to kill it, He did not even sell or give it away according to the mother, He just immediately decided to kill it and throw it in the garbage. Not even eat it. I understand chickens are livestock (Obviously, They are meant to be eaten.) Its good to know that you at least culled the bird for meat and did not throw it into the garbage unlike the neighbor's son.

The neighbor's son does sound unnecessarily cruel, I'd be cautious having a person like that as a neighbor. That's just needless violence, and where it starts with animals, it can easily escalate to humans.

In my case, I didn't attempt to rehome the hen because she was originally from a batch meant for food anyway. So why give up good meat? It takes a lot of time, effort, and resources to grow a chicken to harvesting age, so I would have wasted all that if I gave her away for free. And I wouldn't charge money for her either, because that money wouldn't buy me meat of the same quality and value. Meat from the grocery store is cheaper, but it tastes bland and comes from suffering chickens. Meat from my chickens tastes much better, and comes with the clear conscience that they had a good life while they were alive, and that their end was quick and humane.

 

[z3lda3]

You left out a ton of other animals that people see as expendable. Many, many threads regarding other animals on BYC, especially those thought of as predators will show you how wildly different people feel about specific animals. Opossum, fox, coyote, racoon, rat, etc. etc. People will assert that in defense of their chicken's (including Roosters,) that they're happy to kill a long list of other animals. SO the net is it's personal values, period. Everyone has a different set. It'd be interesting to see an actual poll of what animals you're fine with killing and those you are not. I think results are all over the place.

True. My husband says kill opossums and I’m like nooo it could have babies. He says let black snakes live, I say kill it.

 

[z3lda3]

This is so perfectly said, I couldn't agree more!

Personally, I feel very sensitive about my chickens emotional states.
I hate to see a bully. Just hate it. Most cockerels are bullies.
I feel grossly responsible, being that I am the one controlling the fact these birds have to live together. In the wild they could go join another flock. But even free range domestic birds are limited in their social choices by food availability and lack of other roaming flocks.
I once kept a large rooster flock for about a year, with a tall fence separating them from the main flock. The roos could go all the way out to pasture to browse, but they chose to hang out next to the hens.
One day a little leghorn pullet that was about to come into lay, exhibited a fairly normal behavior for pullets of that age and was searching around for nesting locations. Leghorns fly pretty well, so she made it over the fence.
Those cockerels swarmed her. They held her down, ripped feathers out of her neck, took turns jumping all over her... not even letting her up for a moment. I saw them doing this through the window and ran out as fast as I could, but given the distance and various obstacles it took me a couple minutes to get there. By the time I did her comb was torn and bloody and when I shooed the roos away she would not even get up. She was in shock. She did not deserve what happened to her. This may be an extreme example, but it's far from rare...
Many many people getting into chickens think they are being nice by allowing excess roos to stay. They are really just transferring the suffering around the flock. Innocent hens get attacked, held down, pullets get violated before they're of an age... and too many people are blind to the suffering they are facilitating, because it's not expressed in human terms.
I'm always surprised when I see people post pictures where the hens have bald backs and they talk about it like it's normal or just aesthetic. Feather quills are attached to nerve endings, that's how they feel through a thick layer of feathers. Each and every feather hurts when it's pulled out (except molted ones), so a whole back full is like posting a picture of someone's back after a flogging. Probably equal in pain.

So this is the stuff I feel emotional about. I could care less what dead bodies don't feel anymore, or how they're used / not.
I have trouble with culling because of their fear. But we get it done (my mom handles the hard part, I do the catching, lol).
What's essential is that those roos aren't around anymore to turn my flock into some prison style gang of misery.
I pick 1-3 cockerels each season who show kind behavior to the hens and respectfulness to humans. I'm going to breed for perfect temperament if nothing else. At the end of the season I find homes for those nice ones. If some of the extras are nice, I find homes for them too. I've done it this way for 3 years now. But if he's at all picky of the others I don't mind sending him to perdition.
Since this is a long-term breeding project, I also rehome hens. Haven't culled any that were not injured (one was scalped down to the brain by a nasty cockerel). Some hens have a sweet enough personality or contribute (broodies) that they get to stay, our oldest is 5 years old and when she does lay it's the wonkiest egg ever. But she talks to us through the fence, and even though she's actually a bit annoying, she has so much personality and I worry that another home wouldn't value that about her so she gets to stay forever.

TLDR: I have a merit system.

Bullies are the worst. I don’t even like the simple squabbles, seriously girls there’s more than one green bean! My only active rooster is a bantam and his flock are standards, and the girls have lost 0 feathers from him. The way he has to maneuver himself he can’t really bite/hold on to their necks either. Is he actually fertilizing eggs but all seems to be happy.

 

[SandyRiverChick]

True. My husband says kill opossums and I’m like nooo it could have babies. He says let black snakes live, I say kill it.

Exactly my point. I've even recently read a person sits on their porch with a gun and fires at "not sure what it is," clearly willing to kill a dog. You just have a very wide variety of value systems going on in this country.....

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Sorry I didn't mean it like that and I didn't at all mean to be offensive either I say "we" as in us humans in general. I should have phrased it differently; such as instead of saying "we" how about "some of us." Of course a lot of us love roosters or like them somewhat

Sorry too, shouldn't have been so touchy.

Re-reading your earlier post, I think you're talking about how so many male chicks are destroyed at hatch. Again, this is not an emotional thing (no hate) but an economical one. Say a hatchery has orders for 10,000 pullets and 200 cockerels. So they hatch 20,000 chicks. Half of their hatch is cockerels. What are they going to do with 10,000 baby cockerel chicks? Not practical to raise them, feed them, and hope somehow to find homes for them. They know that's not going to happen. So they (putting this delicately) arrange for them to be made immediately into something like dog food, for example. Simple economics. But it is not because anybody hates them. It may be sad and unfortunate, but it is a simple, practical fact of life.

 

[WaterfowlsPoultry]

Yes. Idk how long meat birds typically live. 18-20 weeks?? Fine, but can they the best 20 weeks of life? And when culling time comes, can it be done quickly and with respect?

idk if you mean the Meat Bird breed (Cornish cross I believe?)
Or chickens that are going to be TURNED into meat birds and you are asking how long until they turn into meat but typically its 18-20 weeks or some people even cull them at 6 weeks if they have a ton of them. (But take my advice like a grain of salt because this is just from some quick web research)

The neighbor's son does sound unnecessarily cruel, I'd be cautious having a person like that as a neighbor. That's just needless violence, and where it starts with animals, it can easily escalate to humans.

In my case, I didn't attempt to rehome the hen because she was originally from a batch meant for food anyway. So why give up good meat? It takes a lot of time, effort, and resources to grow a chicken to harvesting age, so I would have wasted all that if I gave her away for free. And I wouldn't charge money for her either, because that money wouldn't buy me meat of the same quality and value. Meat from the grocery store is cheaper, but it tastes bland and comes from suffering chickens. Meat from my chickens tastes much better, and comes with the clear conscience that they had a good life while they were alive, and that their end was quick and humane.

Good thing the Neighbor's son isn't my neighbor and its just the mother, She sounded pissed when she found out her son was wrecklessly killing poor innocent hens.