How to cull a rooster when you don't want too?

[Xouie]

If you’re eating the birds afterward, it may be easier because they’re serving a purpose. I find it harder to dispatch a bird who’s not going on the table.

Here’s my personal checklist for meat processing day:

1. Have everything ready before you before you start, including researching your method. Efficiency helps you get through it.
2. This may seem silly, but it helps my family: say a prayer of thanks (if you pray) and/or say thank you to the bird for providing food for your family.
3. Don’t hesitate while dispatching. You know what to do and you can do it.
4. Take a break between birds if you need to. Don’t traumatize yourself.
5. It’s ok not to eat the birds the same day. (I always order pizza on butchering day)

 

[JCaseyHammond]

Yeah, I usually always talk to them and calm them
down first and stuff but my mother is always freaking. I will only do it when she’s not home from now on.

Roast them with giblets and then simmer for soup. Good nutrition for you in the heart and liver. The gelatin stuff is good for your joints. I would have given up my best rooster to make soup for my Mom, but her cancer was too aggressive.

 

[JCaseyHammond]

I was able to give my two spare EE cockerels away.

Exactly! All you need is one copy of the blue egg gene to make Olive Eggers

 

[JCaseyHammond]

If you’re eating the birds afterward, it may be easier because they’re serving a purpose. I find it harder to dispatch a bird who’s not going on the table.

Here’s my personal checklist for meat processing day:

1. Have everything ready before you before you start, including researching your method. Efficiency helps you get through it.
2. This may seem silly, but it helps my family: say a prayer of thanks (if you pray) and/or say thank you to the bird for providing food for your family.
3. Don’t hesitate while dispatching. You know what to do and you can do it.
4. Take a break between birds if you need to. Don’t traumatize yourself.
5. It’s ok not to eat the birds the same day. (I always order pizza on butchering day)

This is excellent. When I get one out of the freezer to roast and make soup, I’m not sad any more. I’m grateful for the food

 

[ShrekDawg]

Roast them with giblets and then simmer for soup. Good nutrition for you in the heart and liver. The gelatin stuff is good for your joints. I would have given up my best rooster to make soup for my Mom, but her cancer was too aggressive.

That sounds delicious!! And so sorry about your mom

 

[nuthatched]

Yeah as blunt as this may sound I have to second this. I feel like this is an issue that's becoming more common as more "city slickers" , urban/backyard farmers or people who just don't have experience with country or farm life try it out. I don't really know what to say other than what nuthatched already did. People really need to do it though if it's the best decision, as for how I do it.. quickly and humanely.

I don't enjoy it, I hate it a lot, I feel bad for even days afterwards. It's sort of funny the disconnect and how I'm inbetween these two worlds. I could tell a complete city slicker that I butchered a duck and I feel bad, and they would probably think you should feel bad! That's horrible! But if I told a local farmer that I butchered a duck and felt bad, they would probably think I'm overly sensitive. I guess my feeling on it is that you are doing something right, which is caring for the bird and trying to find it a home first.. that is as long as it's not aggressive and you're just putting a problem on somebody else, it's sick, etc. Empathy is key, I truly believe if you don't have empathy, then what are you doing keeping animals? So yes, you should take it seriously. To others it may be only a chicken, but it is a life.

I suppose something else about that I've noticed is you can go too far, in the pretense of caring for the animal. I've seen that a lot with people who don't have experience with it, they keep an animal that is suffering alive as long as they can under the false pretense of caring for its wellbeing, when in reality they're doing it just so they don't have to take a life as it would make them feel bad, which in reality is actually coming from a place of selfishness.

I know I'm blunt, I'm sorry.
I'm trying to to be more empathetic but it's not really my first nature.
It is hard to cull any animal, but I know that they were happy and had a good life, I hope, regardless of how long it was. I pray that I'm thankful that there were in my stewardship and I hope I did right for them and that they died without suffering any.

 

[docteurshepherd]

I know I'm blunt, I'm sorry.
I'm trying to to be more empathetic but it's not really my first nature.
It is hard to cull any animal, but I know that they were happy and had a good life, I hope, regardless of how long it was. I pray that I'm thankful that there were in my stewardship and I hope I did right for them and that they died without suffering any.

I don't know if being empathetic is something you really try to do, it's just a basic human characteristic, that is unless you have a disorder of sorts. I'm sure you're empathetic enough, at least I hope so lol.

 

[SueT]

I culled an aggressive cockerel a couple weeks ago. I had been putting it off, over and over. I'd give him another chance, try the 'move out of my space' thing over and over, hold him down etc. He'd seem ok, then sneak attack me. So there was no question that he had to go.
I used the broomstick method. Grabbed him off the roost before dawn, before other chickens were up. Picking them up by the feet upside down quiets them instantly, completely. Laid his neck on the ground, the broomstick over the back of it, and pulled hard on the feet. You can feel the neck dislocate. There is no blood. They flap for a few seconds, (even when you chop off the head they flap.) I threw him in a 5 gallon bucket, put the lid on and walked away. I felt my heart pounding. I wanted him gone, but it took a while to calm my nerves.
There is a good article about using ether to cull chickens. Supposedly they just go to sleep. I haven't tried it, but it seems like a non violent approach.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...re-culling-the-injured-and-sick-babies.72140/

 

[EmmaRainboe]

Yeah as blunt as this may sound I have to second this. I feel like this is an issue that's becoming more common as more "city slickers" , urban/backyard farmers or people who just don't have experience with country or farm life try it out. I don't really know what to say other than what nuthatched already did. People really need to do it though if it's the best decision, as for how I do it.. quickly and humanely.

I don't enjoy it, I hate it a lot, I feel bad for even days afterwards. It's sort of funny the disconnect and how I'm inbetween these two worlds. I could tell a complete city slicker that I butchered a duck and I feel bad, and they would probably think you should feel bad! That's horrible! But if I told a local farmer that I butchered a duck and felt bad, they would probably think I'm overly sensitive. I guess my feeling on it is that you are doing something right, which is caring for the bird and trying to find it a home first.. that is as long as it's not aggressive and you're just putting a problem on somebody else, it's sick, etc. Empathy is key, I truly believe if you don't have empathy, then what are you doing keeping animals? So yes, you should take it seriously. To others it may be only a chicken, but it is a life.

I suppose something else about that I've noticed is you can go too far, in the pretense of caring for the animal. I've seen that a lot with people who don't have experience with it, they keep an animal that is suffering alive as long as they can under the false pretense of caring for its wellbeing, when in reality they're doing it just so they don't have to take a life as it would make them feel bad, which in reality is actually coming from a place of selfishness.

 

[docteurshepherd]

Thank you so much!! I was hoping I didn't type that all out just for it to not be read or appreciated lol