Help me feel better please 🙏🏼

[Chicalina]

I can’t see raising males for that long to just waste their life and not eat them…

My animals are raised as pets and for eggs as this is my hobby. I couldn't eat them any more than I could eat my dog.
No shade on those who raise poultry as livestock, but that's not for me.
I did think about processing and feeding the bodies to my dogs but I couldn't face it. I needed to bag them up and not look at them because I felt so guilty. I know. I'm soft!

 

[Chicalina]

A quick end, we should all be as lucky. There are no guarantees that they would have long lives. Could be eaten by a coon, or a neighbor dog. A much more miserable end.

A good life and a quick end. No guilt for that.

There are a lot of real things to be guilty of, but being responsible is not one of them. Let yourself off the hook. Remember them fondly, and enjoy your flock.

Mrs K

You are very kind Mrs K. I appreciate you.

 

[Altairsky]

I had to cull my 2 favorite cockerels this morning. U-bird was growing too big for my bantam girls and Arlequin carried high testosterone genes I don't want to pass.
I processed them and I will eat them. I find to be disrespectful to the bird to let it rot in a bag (and yes, I think it also is disrespectful for humans to rot in a coffin and not be part of the circle of life, but that is a personal religion thing and I prefer to keep it to myself)

 

[ksbkeys]

I've been keeping chickens as pets for many many years, and hatching chicks to renew my little flock and rehoming roosters and any flock members that don't fit in.

This year I had an excess of roosters (not unexpected when you hatch chicks) and I couldn't find homes for them. They were SO noisy and my neighbours were getting really annoyed. It really was an unreasonable level of daily din. I culled them and now I can't stop thinking about it and how it feels wrong to take a healthy life, especially one that you created.

I eat meat but I don't raise my chickens as food. Their bodies were disposed of.

I know in my head that it was the best thing for my flock, for me and for harmony with my neighbours. So why am I racked with guilt and keep reliving the act and feel absolutely terrible and the worst person ever?

I know y'all will understand. Please help me come to terms with it.

When I started keeping chickens, I had a neighbor who had a lot of chickens so I would ask her questions. I asked her about the tough decision to cull chickens. Her reply "You put your "farm face" on and do what needs to be done." That has helped me so much over the years.

Whenever we have pets or raise animals, we have to make decisions for them all the time and unfortunately, like everything, there are tough times and tough decisions that have to be made. You can't have the joy of pets without the heartache. They go together.

I have had to cull roosters before and even did one thinking he was causing problems and found out after the fact that it wasn't him. To top it all off, I had tried to rehome him with no success only to get 2 calls about him the day after I had culled him! I did feel very badly about that. However, I have learned to let things go by placing them into God's hands.

You did your best. Don't be hard on yourself. As I said, pets and difficult decisions go hand in hand. Fill your mind with pleasant thoughts and let this go.

Another future option might be to hire someone to do the culling.

 

[Poultrybonkers]

My animals are raised as pets and for eggs as this is my hobby. I couldn't eat them any more than I could eat my dog.
No shade on those who raise poultry as livestock, but that's not for me.
I did think about processing and feeding the bodies to my dogs but I couldn't face it. I needed to bag them up and not look at them because I felt so guilty. I know. I'm soft!

You shouldn’t be raising chickens if you’re gonna just kill a male because it’s an inconvenience for you and not utilize it afterwards whether it be feeding your dog or another animal. I don’t like older males to eat but I have rats that get the ones that die naturally,a predator or if it’s to tough for me to eat. So their life isn’t wasted.

 

[Ridgerunner]

That's odd isn't it. I had 12 eggs under my broody, only 6 of which hatched successfully and 5 of them were male. I reckon all the females were in those that didn't hatch!

I don't consider it odd, I consider it the odds. This table may help explain it.

1 egg - 1 in 2 will be all male or all will be female
2 eggs - 1 in 4
3 eggs - 1 in 8
4 eggs - 1 in 16
5 eggs - 1 in 32
6 eggs - 1 in 64

But you did not get all males, you got 5 of 6. The odds of that are 6 in 64 times. You have just over a 9% chance of getting 5 males out of 6 eggs when you hatch. The odds are the same you will get all girls. I don't consider that strange at all. I once had 7 pullets out of 7, a 1 in 128 chance. Less than 0.08%.

These odds are the same if you order straight run chicks from a hatchery if you truly get a straight run.

Please help me come to terms with it.

We all have our own set of beliefs and values. Yours are just as valid as mine. I raise mine to eat. That does not make me any better or worse than you, just different.

Others have gone through giving them a good life until they have that one bad day. Make that as quick as you can. They have had a better life than most other chickens. I don't know if that helps you or not. I do not enjoy taking a life but if I'm going to eat them I have to. I try to make that as sure and painless as I can.

When I butcher mine the parts I can't otherwise use are buried in the garden or orchard. That way they feed my plants. Would it make you feel better if you knew they were going to be of use this way. Part of the circle of life.

If you deal with living animals you will deal with dead animals. I've had dogs put down when they outlived their quality of life. It was not easy but it was time. When I trap a predator I kill it. I'm not going to take it somewhere and release it to give other people problems or spread diseases or parasites. I don't enjoy taking that life, but I feel it is necessary to protect my chickens and my garden. You could not keep your cockerels. You tried to rehome them and could not. You did not have much of a choice but to remove them. You dealt with it the best way you knew how.

I've been keeping chickens as pets for many many years, and hatching chicks to renew my little flock and rehoming roosters and any flock members that don't fit in.

How strongly are you affected? Does this make you want to stop hatching? This could happen again next year. I don't know how it works in the UK but when I buy chicks in the USA I buy sexed chicks. You can still get an oops but those are fairly rare. Something to consider.

Would it make you feel better if you contacted a zoo or animal rehab facility and let them use your excess cockerels to feed their animals. It might take some work to find someone that would take them but at least you would not have to do the killing.

I don't know if any of this helps at all. We all have to find our own way. Good luck!

 

[Pebbles25]

I've been keeping chickens as pets for many many years, and hatching chicks to renew my little flock and rehoming roosters and any flock members that don't fit in.

This year I had an excess of roosters (not unexpected when you hatch chicks) and I couldn't find homes for them. They were SO noisy and my neighbours were getting really annoyed. It really was an unreasonable level of daily din. I culled them and now I can't stop thinking about it and how it feels wrong to take a healthy life, especially one that you created.

I eat meat but I don't raise my chickens as food. Their bodies were disposed of.

I know in my head that it was the best thing for my flock, for me and for harmony with my neighbours. So why am I racked with guilt and keep reliving the act and feel absolutely terrible and the worst person ever?

I know y'all will understand. Please help me come to terms with it.

Aww! I would just remember they have a much better life than those in the industry, it’s healthy to feel guilty, it shows you care. In the wild Roos would be killed by predators anyway and probably with some pain. They wouldn’t have felt anything or hated you for it!

 

[Mother of Chaos]

You shouldn’t be raising chickens if you’re gonna just kill a male because it’s an inconvenience for you and not utilize it afterwards whether it be feeding your dog or another animal. I don’t like older males to eat but I have rats that get the ones that die naturally,a predator or if it’s to tough for me to eat. So their life isn’t wasted.

This is a terribly judgmental post.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

My animals are raised as pets and for eggs as this is my hobby. I couldn't eat them any more than I could eat my dog.
No shade on those who raise poultry as livestock, but that's not for me.
I did think about processing and feeding the bodies to my dogs but I couldn't face it. I needed to bag them up and not look at them because I felt so guilty. I know. I'm soft!

You owe nobody either apology nor explanation for your choices or your actions. You did what you did because it was the right thing for you to do at the time and in your circumstances, even though it was difficult and uncomfortable for you.. You came here seeking solace snd support, not harshness and criticism. Take the good from this thread and let it comfort you. Ignore the rest and let it pass you by. There is much truth in these posts. Most of us recognize how difficult and painful it was to cull your little roosters, and many of us have been in those shoes ourselves. You did what you had to do in the best way you knew how, and you can't ask more of yourself than that. Others may "coulda, woulda, shoulda" at you, but they are not you. Let them take care of their business in their way, let it go. What's done is done, give yourself grace to move on.

 

[Seaslug]

I am sorry you went through this and that you could not find homes for your male chicks. I read that a company has come up with a way of testing their eggs for gender and only incubating those that they need. Perhaps this will become more widespread in the future and more backyard roos will find homes.

Another post did remind me, however, for those who are culling birds that are not ill but do not have much food appeal for humans: you may want to see if there is a local wild animal preserve near you that could utilize the deceased animal.
There is a legitimate wild animal rescue less than an hour away from me that takes in abandoned wild animals (they do not breed, just rescue) and their food bills are astronomical. These kinds of places may be able to utilize whole birds because of the nature of what they are feeding, birds with broken necks would be safe for wild animals to eat, and it may bring a measure of utility to an unfortunate situation that benefits a non-profit organization.