Incubating birds just to kill the unwanted chicks.

[kartking22]

I have seen a person trying to sell pheasant hen chicks here. Alot of people are interested with the low cost for these chicks but I just wanted to let everyone know what and why they are so cheap.
The DNR can not control a non-native species. The ring neck pheasants are NOT a native bird so they had to relinquish thier brooding facilities to private owners. These private owners also have ties with hunting clubs that purchase and raise chicks for thier sport and want roosters only.
What happens to the hen chicks? You can buy as many hen chicks as you want for a mere nickle each. They are the cull of a big market for them. Roosters are thier money maker.
So, what happens with the hen chicks? If they can't sell them, they are euthenized and killed. As many as 8,000/ week or more with the bigger farms.
My question is why they don't give the birds away if someone is willing to raise them?
The ASPCA doesn't need to get involved if thier tactics support their criteria of killing living birds for the need of making a profit by the selling ONLY the half of a total production.

 

[Gazinga]

can you give me teh infortmation about where to find these people? i would take alot of teh pheasants and rasie em out! i have a lot of land and love pheasant.

 

[firedove]

The hatcheries end up killing lots of roo chicks and processing them for stuff like dog food. For chickens everybody wants lots of pullets and only a few roos. Breeds that are not a meat type breed leave lots of unwanted roo chicks. This is why hatcheries have no problem throwing in a bunch of packing peanut roos and your one free rare chick through MM. It's just stuff they have left over from the hatch that no one wanted to buy. Just saves them the trouble of killing them all.

So for pheasants it's everyone wants roos for hunting, few want hens (although they still make great eating you can't legally hunt them). So if they can find farms willing to raise the hens for later eating it's a better option than having to put them down.

Any commercial hatchery operation has consequences to some of the chicks. It's sad but it's a fact of life. When it comes to animals like poultry, some lives are more monetarily valuable than others.

 

[yotetrapper]

So... does that make me evil because I hatch out hundreds of chicks in the incubator, and cull the roos for the table?

 

[firedove]

everybody's gotta eat

 

[the_eagle69]

Quote:
if they go to the table they are not culls they are friers.

 

[walkswithdog]

Quote:
if they go to the table they are not culls they are friers.

They're Culls. Cull means taken out of the gene pool. Cull actually originally only meant kill. You eat it, you culled it. It's not going to reproduce.

Point to the OP - to euthanize is to kill. So an animal that is euthanized then killed would be killed twice.

All livestock markets create stock that are culled. Mostly for food. But not always. Excess stock costs money if reared. I happen to sell, excess mutt stock, or birds I don't want to raise for meat.

Sure they could offer the hens to the public, at five cents all they're doing is recouping some of the electricity to hatch and the food they've fed. That's practically free.

So help them network their excess stock, fine and dandy. They're livestock. If they're unwanted then euthansia is their answer and I accept that.

The foals produced for Premarin, the packing peanuts, the mutts sometimes produced here it's part of having livestock, and having a purpose for some of them.

While I'm not fond of the Premarin foals situation, really chicks of any sort are just potential and as long as they're culled humanely that's the industries business.

You start demonizing the production of excess birds, you're going to eventually dictate what, how many killed, how many produced, what they're produced for?

Thanks but no thanks. Good intentions eventually hurt everybody. See Nais and the New Castle's laws.

Sure I'd buy some at that price and better networking would get another fraction of them longer lives but it's the market that influences their production for the hunters. Hunters want to hunt males.

Of course if you mean it's wrong to hunt, that's a whole 'nother whopper of a discussion.

They're livestock, they're chicks and they're culled. As long as it's done humanely I don't have a problem with it and it's entirely likely the majority of what is produced that way is in the petfood you feed, or that someone feeds. Most carnivore foods for zoos include whole ground birds because the predator would eat the whole thing and needs that nutrition.

I wouldn't mind getting 5 cent hens. But demonize their production? Nope.

 

[CARS]

Quote:
So I can go out this morning, out of hunting season and shoot a pheasant? I highly doubt it.

I am going to have to argue with your statement. YES, the DNR has control of the pheasant population.

I may be looking at this from a sportsman standpoint but to say what you said is not accurate and misleading.

 

[WoodlandWoman]

http://www.wnrmag.com/stories/2009/feb09/pheasants.htm

That gives a little information on the current DNR activities. What private individuals, organizations and businesses are doing, particularly on private land, is a separate topic. This may be a better topic for the Random Ramblings section, since it seems to be about ethics, rather than how to raise chicks.

 

[kartking22]

Quote:
So I can go out this morning, out of hunting season and shoot a pheasant? I highly doubt it.

I am going to have to argue with your statement. YES, the DNR has control of the pheasant population.

I may be looking at this from a sportsman standpoint but to say what you said is not accurate and misleading.

The DNR in this state controls the season for hunting pheasants in WI along with also charging hunters with needing a special stamp to harvest a pheasant. This is the dumbest thing that I have ever heard of since anyone can buy, raise, and butcher thier own pheasants legally without needing a special game farm liscense. I personally prefer my birds without the extra lead required to hunt them.
I totally respect the sportsmans point of view as well to be able to hunt the birds and train thier dogs also. I just find it off the wall that the DNR can charge hunters a fee for something that they are not responsible for nor is in any way affiliated in the harvest, population of, or control of these birds.
As a private owner of pheasants, I am concerned about what may happen if some of my birds escape from thier pen. I could be fined for releasing a non-native species into the wild in thier eyes.
What next? Take away our guns too?
Why can't the pheasant farms raise and market the sales of pheasants. I'd rather eat a good lead free pheasant than these chickens and turkeys raised on high protien fat and growth hormones.
A good corn fed bird has no comparison to anything else for taste.
Just my opinion.