Flock management - rooster giveaway

[wsmith]

Hi guys,

I know rooster removal comes up quite often and some people have posted to Craigslist, here, or other sources in order to rehome birds or just leave the job of butchering to someone else. My wife and I recently purchased several straight run chicks. We have 2 blue-laced red Wyandottes, 1 blue Ameraucana, 1 EE, and 3 lavender Orpington chicks - all between 1 and 2.5 weeks old at this point. We will only be able to keep the pullets due to city ordinance. Since this is our first batch of birds and my wife's first experience in raising livestock animals, I don't think she would take kindly to the idea of me butchering any birds - I tried to discourage her from naming them, but she couldn't help herself . Since our birds are eggers/dual purpose and not all exactly common coloring, I would be happiest giving any roosters away locally to people who would utilize them for breeding first before giving them away or selling them for butchering.

In your experience, have you been successful with Craigslist or another method and have you given them away or sold cockerels as meat birds ready to butcher just to recoup a little of the cost of the birds?

Thank you for your advice / experience.

If anyone is in the Northwest Arkansas area, BYC users would definitely have first dibs on any (free) boys that show up once these get older. I will post some pictures once they start getting in more feathers.

First of all, there are many different methods of raising and caring for chickens. Each has its own merit and each chicken raiser has different goals and expectations for their flock. One isn't necessarily better than another, but different for each situation. That being said, we are breeders of American Dominique chickens. (the best dual purpose breed around, but that's just my opinion...

)

When you order straight run chicks, you are going to have roughly 50% of them be roosters. When we hatch out chicks, the pullets are pretty much guaranteed a good long life. People want them, and I want them. But I also want the roosters. We need as many roosters hatched out as possible, so we can choose the very best to add to our breeding stock. That means that out of 50 cockerels, we may allow 2 to remain in the breeding flock. The rest we process ourselves. They suppliment our food supply with quality flavorful chicken. Occasionally someone wants one for breeding, that's great, we sell them, but we have first choice. We have also traded some away in exchange for assistance during processing time. I haven't had to go to Craigslist yet, as I have a large freezer.....They are worth way more to me as a food source to just give away. Some folks in my area raise them just to sell to others to process.

 

[ashcons]

Well, a couple months later, here's an update:

Out of the 7 birds we bought straight-run, 6 were cockerels! Two of those birds were very friendly and beautiful, but unfortunately, they all had to go. I butchered one once his crow transformed from a funny, gargling, strangled oddity to an actual crow (increasing in volume). It was a lot tougher for me to do than I thought it would be, probably because he was one of my favorites. When I noticed that the other five roos were crowing several weeks later (they had been either sneaky about it or very quiet), I knew it was time to act on them. I put an add on craigslist, since these 5 were all less common colorings (3 lav orps, 1 BLRW, 1 BlackLRW). I'm pretty sure that 4 of them ended up in one family's freezer, but the BLRW we had went to a farm where the guy picking him up had 2 BLRW pullets and needed a rooster because he wants to breed and sell them. I was happy to get him out to a farm because he was such a beautiful and friendly bird (at 3 months old, he would still come hop into your lap and crouch down to hang out).

The 3 girls we have left (2 of those I bought from the local co-op as sexed chicks) are going to be joined by some younger hens we are buying locally - a replacement BLRW and a silver-laced cochin.

The adventure of starting from baby chicks was fun and also a little frustrating since they spent quite a bit of their grow-out time inside the house. If our circumstances were different, I would definitely do things differently. I think from here on out, though, we'll aim towards spending more money up front to buy pullets rather than going the straight-run chick route.

Still waiting on eggs for these birds to start their ROI (I laugh heartily when I see articles about finances/saving money and the author talks about having chickens in the back yard for eggs)!