Heritage Large Fowl - Phase II

[hellbender]

If any of these predators want to eat something, a predator is going to kill the rooster in a hot second. I have had racoons demolish an O Shamo male and they are tough customers. Mine are 30-32" tall and weigh 17-20 pounds. They are made to defend and have centuries of breeding to make them aggressive. If a bird like that can't defend itself ,how is some wimpy large rooster going to defend anything? That is just foolishness. If you haven't lost a rooster yet you will and the hens too.

It is very bad advice to let people think a rooster can defend the hens. He may slow down the killing, as he will be the first to go, but that is about it.

Walt

Ok guys, I know I could order more chicks and sell the extras/roosters on Craigslist. But I feel like there are a lot of shady people on Craigslist that will do shady things to my babies.

If that's what I have to do I will do it, but I just don't like it.
I am the kind of person that doesn't break the rules, so keeping illegal chickens a secret also kind of bugs me.

Thanks for all the help and leads though. You guys are awesome!

Technically, you might not be keeping them illegally. If you go the route of ordering 15 chicks, that's what you'd have...chicks...not chickens. No one can hear chicks if they are in a brooder, somewhere in your house.

Perhaps some chicken fancier lives near enough to you to come to your house (out of pure kindness) and sex the birds. You could keep 8 , extra 2 for insurance or error. Then when the birds are all young pullets and not crowing (?) you could chose the 6 you like best and sell/give/eat the other two...or 8 is not that many more than 6 and could be kept until...the freakin' cows come home!!!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

X3

I grew up eating the beef, pork, chicken and pheasant we raised.
When I got chickens as an adult, I realized they don't lay forever and knew eventually I'd eat all the birds that a predator didn't beat me to. That was when I decided not to name them. My birds have names like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, ... 96, 97, 98.

It's difficult for someone that had never had exposure to raising animals for food to wrap their heads around.
Industrial agriculture has them right where they want them.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Technically, you might not be keeping them illegally. If you go the route of ordering 15 chicks, that's what you'd have...chicks...not chickens. No one can hear chicks if they are in a brooder, somewhere in your house.

...

good point

 

[gjensen]

Killing chickens is part of keeping chickens. Raising livestock is not for everyone.

I guess that we have become so far removed from reality, into an "alternate manufactured" reality, that we can't grasp that anymore. I guarantee that if we were hungry enough, we would lose those sensitivities pretty quick.

 

[bnjrob]

I am pleased to report a group of Mottled Javas is on their way to a new home today. They are the first ones that we bred/hatched and had available for someone else to have. They are "pet quality", aka culls from my breeding program, but the new owner was only interested in having some nice looking pest control chickens and she'd been wanting to try out Javas but had not found any. Hopefully she will enjoy them as much as we do and perhaps others will see them and we can get more people interested in these terrific old time birds.

 

[thedragonlady]

Technically, you might not be keeping them illegally. If you go the route of ordering 15 chicks, that's what you'd have...chicks...not chickens. No one can hear chicks if they are in a brooder, somewhere in your house.

Perhaps some chicken fancier lives near enough to you to come to your house (out of pure kindness) and sex the birds. You could keep 8 , extra 2 for insurance or error. Then when the birds are all young pullets and not crowing (?) you could chose the 6 you like best and sell/give/eat the other two...or 8 is not that many more than 6 and could be kept until...the freakin' cows come home!!!

Chicken Math. Been practicing it for years !

 

[Strevale]

I know that many people are not at the point in their lives where they can process their own chickens - to them it sounds cruel and they would just rather not think about things and buy chicken that comes packaged in plastic at the store. But if you are going to get chickens, you really need to evaluate if you can actually handle the loss and unhappy moments that comes with keeping chickens.

Chickens of all ages can die for seemingly no reason at all. Chickens get killed by other chickens, they get killed by predators, they get killed accidently in all kinds of ways (I know someone who's child fell on top of a chick and squished it), even when you think you have protected them from every situation. Chickens are a dime a dozen. They are so easy to reproduce and there are aren't rules about "chicken mills" regulating chicken reproduction. Relatively few males are needed to actually fertilize females that are used in the commercial chicken industry. Most male chicks are killed, probably in ways you have not even been able to imagine or read about to inform yourself of what really goes on before those chicken McNuggets make it to your mouth. With the backyard chicken industry booming, there are an increasing number of unwanted chickens.

Everybody wants their little rooster to go to a home and be a pet and once their hatchery-stock egg laying machine no longer lays, they want that hen to live out its life as a pampered pet. It doesn't work that way. Shelters are already overburdened with dogs, cats, and other animals and are killing these unwanted animals by the thousands daily. They don't have the resources to take in all the unwanted chickens too. And with Easter coming up, cute bunnies and chicks given in baskets will be killed by the hundreds if not thousands come May and June when those chicks and bunnies turn out to be more work than people thought and the kid isn't interested in taking care of it. Whether you like it or not, chickens are livestock and can be eaten without a stigma. Having Little Red Rooster be processed humanely for food is by far better than having him live a brief but frightening life trying to survive "in the wild" when someone decides to dump him down a country road.

I don't mean to sound harsh but the reality is that there are more chickens in this world than can ever find a home where they can live forever being pampered pets. Have you actually thought about what will happen to chickens that you get if you have to move and can't take them with you? Or what might happen to the chickens after they no longer lay and you want more laying hens but you are still stuck with the 6 chicken limit? Those egg laying machines are gonna run out of eggs in just a couple two/three years and then what happens to them? What happens when you wind up finding one of your chickens has the entire top of their head pecked off and skull showing because there was a little tiff over a nestbox that bloodied her comb, and the blood was so enticing, that the rest of the flock pecked the chicken until it was nearly dead - just out of curiosity of "what's all that stuff on your head"? Chickens can have some pretty ugly fights sometimes and they can kill one of their own that shows weakness or just because they didn't realize they were killing their coop-mate with their curious pecking. Are you going to be able to kill that chicken that is suffering with severe injuries to prevent it from dying a long painful death? And if you do have a bully that is hurting everyone, are you going to keep it and allow it to continue to bully and injure other chickens? What if that hen decides that it enjoys fighting with people and is constantly pecking you or small children and drawing blood? What then? If you have an injured or ill chicken that either needs veterinary medical care or to be euthanized - do you have the money for a vet or can you euthanize the bird yourself?

I encourage you to really evaluate where your comfort level is with the answer to these types of questions BEFORE you get any chickens. Chances are, you're gonna have a chick die on you, particularly if you have not had them before and still need to learn the ropes of chicken husbandry. That's hard enough if you aren't accustomed to it. And if you are not comfortable letting go of chickens and giving/selling them, you need to have a plan in place with what you are going to do when an unhappy situation arises. And there will be one at some point if you keep chickens long enough. I see many posts on BYC of people frantically trying to deal with these situations and are just heartbroken because they didn't think everything through and prepare themselves for the realities of keeping chickens and some hard decisions they needed to make. And if you don't think that you can let go of chickens enough to be able to sell them on Craigslist because the buyer may eat that bird (or use it as prey for training fighting dogs, or worse), how are you going to deal with all the other issues that go along with keeping chickens?

Please take a bit longer to really think through what chicken keeping really is. Everyone wants a chicken but not everyone is at the point in their comfort level where they can deal with all the things that come with being a chicken keeper. If you take a closer look at where you are in the comfort of dealing with these things NOW, it will be better for you and chickens if you decide that you still want to get them.

I think you misunderstood my comment. I do plan on eating the chickens when their egg production starts slowing down. I also know that with any animal there is a chance for injury, sickness, disease, and death. I also know that chickens can peck each other to death just because they see red. I know that chickens have a lot of natural predators and I may lose all of them. I do not have an ethical problem with slaughtering animals for food or because they are sick, diseased, or injured. The problem is that there are people out there who like to beat animals to death with bats, or cut chickens' heads off and keep them alive by forcing food down their exposed esophagus. I was saying that I am not comfortable giving away animals to just anyone for those reasons. I realize I may need to in order to achieve my dream of raising my own Buckeyes from chicks. I was was just stating that I don't like it, and would like to avoid it, if possible.

 

[hellbender]

Killing chickens is part of keeping chickens. Raising livestock is not for everyone.

I guess that we have become so far removed from reality, into an "alternate manufactured" reality, that we can't grasp that anymore. I guarantee that if we were hungry enough, we would lose those sensitivities pretty quick.

If this country were to suddenly be stricken with a chronic sociopolitical crisis, I can assure you, there would be 'pelts' of all description, hanging from high-rise condos and lofts in Manhattan and other such areas...just before the hordes began to make their way into the countryside.

Everyone really should learn a little bit about self reliance....Remember the Grasshopper and the ants.

'People who like to cut chicken's heads off and keep them alive.....' That would be amazing.

 

[gjensen]

Chicken Math. Been practicing it for years !

How did the city council thing go? What was the results?

That is why I do not live in town. When it comes my way, I will go out farther.

 

[ronott1]

I think you misunderstood my comment. I do plan on eating the chickens when their egg production starts slowing down. I also know that with any animal there is a chance for injury, sickness, disease, and death. I also know that chickens can peck each other to death just because they see red. I know that chickens have a lot of natural predators and I may lose all of them. I do not have an ethical problem with slaughtering animals for food or because they are sick, diseased, or injured. The problem is that there are people out there who like to beat animals to death with bats, or cut chickens' heads off and keep them alive by forcing food down their exposed esophagus. I was saying that I am not comfortable giving away animals to just anyone for those reasons. I realize I may need to in order to achieve my dream of raising my own Buckeyes from chicks. I was was just stating that I don't like it, and would like to avoid it, if possible.

You are well on your way!

You can usually stop the weird ones by charging even a small amount for the chickens.

Look for a Small animal exchange in your area too. Those have great people at them!