@pipdzipdnreadytogo
Thanks for the Sandhill input. Do you foresee ordering again next spring with @racinchickins ?
I just want Dominiques and Buff O's, but not very many.
Oh...
8 cockerels?Whatcha gonna do with 8 cockerels? View attachment 1020048
Great photos of your birdies!
Really missing the email notifications for mentions...
Anyway, I've thought about ordering again next spring, but I think I've reached max capacity for my coop at this point and have to think about the comfort of my girls first. I'd love to get some Colored Dorkings, but it isn't in the cards right now.
As for all those rooster boys, well, I definitely can't keep them all, on top of the 8 roosters I already have. The plan is to raise them up to see who's got the best personality to be in the flock (initially, I wanted to keep a Dark Dorking rooster and a Red Dorking rooster, but the Dark boys are little butts so far, so it may just be one or both of the Red boys...
). The rest of the boys will be given a comfortable place to live, get to free-range when the hens aren't, and be taken good care of, and then we're going to send them and a few of the adult roosters who don't get along in the flock (or aren't safe to be out with my niece and nephew) to process in the fall. Needless to say, this is extremely hard for me to do, but something I think is necessary. I have too high of standards for the care of these birds just to rely on the word of companies or big farms claiming to raise their mass-produced birds humanely.
Except maybe Ramsay, because he's started flogging me, and I just can't have that sort of behavior in my flock with my niece and nephew around. But regardless of what happens to him, I'll still have Roscoe, Rigby, Lucky, and the precious girls. 
