Need to Vent

[JedJackson]

Not like a chicken's vent... I just need to get some things off my chest and I figured that fellow chicken people would be good folks to vent to. I know many of you will think this is silly and some may get a good laugh out of my naiveté but that's ok. I like making people laugh and at least I'd be good for something.

I killed my first birds today.

As I mentioned in a previous post I ordered 8 chicks from a hatchery about 5 months ago that claimed a 95% success rate in determining the sex of the chicks. Three of the 8 turned out to be cockerels. I tried to re-home them but craigslist can be a strange and scary place. I got a few text message replies that may have been AI bots (broken English, run-on sentences, no capitalization and no or wrong punctuation such as exclamation point where question marks should be). The one person that I spoke with on the phone was oddly terse and rude. He basically demanded I give him all three roosters even though he admitted to having no coop, no other birds, and generally sounded sketchy.

I was remained hopeful I would find a home for them eventually but things started to go bad behaviorally. One of the cockerels - a Buff Orpington - would get aggressive and peck at me when I went into the run to give them leftovers/treats. I actually found it funny and enjoyed sparring with him but I'm a full-grown adult. I have young kids as well as young nieces and nephews that I did not want to be attacked. Then this morning another of the cockerels - a "Green Queen" - who had been increasing aggressive towards the hens attacked a fellow Green Queen hen and gave her a small cut on the left side of her head right at the base of her beak.

That was it. I knew they had to go.

I had studied up on how I would dispatch a bird when the time inevitably came so I had a plan.

I caught the first bird, lowered it into the cone I had screwed to a tree and placed a string with a loop at one end around its neck (not tight) that I used to keep the neck ever-so-slightly stretched. The other end of the string I attached to a screw that I had drilled into the tree about a foot below the cone. This was just to keep the head and neck still. The bird was comfortable - there neck was not overly extended and the airway was not blocked. Then I took a brand new (aka very sharp) pair of tree loppers and cut the bird's neck. I repeated this two more times.

Now I am experiencing waves of guilt. If it had been someone else's birds I think I would feel much better about it. But these birds I raised from small chicks. They trusted me and I can't help but feel I betrayed that trust. I know that probably sounds silly. Heck I had a chicken kabob salad for dinner last night. But I can't help but feel that after putting so much time and effort and - quite frankly - love into making sure these birds had a great life (ie building a massive coop with windows and a huge, predator-proof run, buying the best feed, keeping them warm with heat lamps when they were young, etc, etc) I killed them just bc they were born the wrong sex. It just seems... I don't know... like a betrayal.

Yeah I know it's dumb. I'll get over it. But does anyone else ever feel this way? I've eaten THOUSANDS of chickens in my life, so it's silly to feel this way about these birds. But I miss my buddies. I'm sorry guys.

Ok thanks for letting me vent. Gotta go. I've got a hot date with Mr. Daniels.

I am sorry you had bad experiences with the hatchery and on Craigslist. You absolutely did the right things, and I am glad the cockerels are no longer a threat to the little ones in your life. I really hope you'll have better experiences going forward.

 

[HeatherChickenMom]

I had my husband cull one this past weekend and I have been racked with guilt as well. He was young (2.5 months) but was already super aggressive. I carried him outside and could tell he was scared. Broke my heart.

 

[Parront]

I had my husband cull one this past weekend and I have been racked with guilt as well. He was young (2.5 months) but was already super aggressive. I carried him outside and could tell he was scared. Broke my heart.

I know, it is difficult. Here is one of my cockerels on his last day. They are loved and cared for by us backyarders, unlike they would be down at the meat plant where most chickens have to go.

 

[AtlanticCity]

I had my husband cull one this past weekend and I have been racked with guilt as well. He was young (2.5 months) but was already super aggressive. I carried him outside and could tell he was scared. Broke my heart.

I'm sorry you had to experience this tough decision and the associated guilt as I did but, as others have reassured me in this thread, if he was indeed "super aggressive" you did the right thing and I'm sure you gave him a great life for as long as you could - waaaaay better than he would have had in a factory farm-type environment.

Not easy to kill.
But the food they give you(I hope you ate them) should alleviate the 'guilt' into satisfaction.

I didn't eat them but here's what I DID do: I took their carcasses deep into the woods behind my house and left them on a fallen tree. We have a fox den somewhere nearby. I've tried to find it but haven't been able to. I know it's close though bc we seen the kits playing in the neighbor's yard. There are also Barred Owls and Red-shouldered Hawks nesting on or near our property (I HAVE found both of those nests!) and I figured those animals need to eat and feed their families too.

On Saturday I worked up the courage to go back there and see what remained of the cockerels and found... nothing. Not even a single feather.

I wanted to process them myself and eat them but, even after watching many videos, I didn't feel confident in being able to do so. I hope to convince someone with experience in processing chickens to allow me to help them so I can get the hang of it and learn under their expert tutelage. That way the next time I have to cull a bird I can clean and eat it.

My conscience tells me that it is a waste, and somewhat dis-respectful, to just discard the birds after culling, but for this first time I feel ok about providing a good meal (or three) for some other conscious creatures, whether they be canine, aves or anything else that desires to feed itself and it's young.

A friend admonished me for leaving the birds out in the woods behind the house for animals to eat saying I was encouraging predation on my remaining birds but I don't agree. I figure any predator worth its fur or feathers is already well aware of the delicious chickens I have in my yard. That's what the fort-knox-like run is for.

 

[Parront]

I'm sorry you had to experience this tough decision and the associated guilt as I did but, as others have reassured me in this thread, if he was indeed "super aggressive" you did the right thing and I'm sure you gave him a great life for as long as you could - waaaaay better than he would have had in a factory farm-type environment.



I didn't eat them but here's what I DID do: I took their carcasses deep into the woods behind my house and left them on a fallen tree. We have a fox den somewhere nearby. I've tried to find it but haven't been able to. I know it's close though bc we seen the kits playing in the neighbor's yard. There are also Barred Owls and Red-shouldered Hawks nesting on or near our property (I HAVE found both of those nests!) and I figured those animals need to eat and feed their families too.

On Saturday I worked up the courage to go back there and see what remained of the cockerels and found... nothing. Not even a single feather.

I wanted to process them myself and eat them but, even after watching many videos, I didn't feel confident in being able to do so. I hope to convince someone with experience in processing chickens to allow me to help them so I can get the hang of it and learn under their expert tutelage. That way the next time I have to cull a bird I can clean and eat it.

My conscience tells me that it is a waste, and somewhat dis-respectful, to just discard the birds after culling, but for this first time I feel ok about providing a good meal (or three) for some other conscious creatures, whether they be canine, aves or anything else that desires to feed itself and it's young.

A friend admonished me for leaving the birds out in the woods behind the house for animals to eat saying I was encouraging predation on my remaining birds but I don't agree. I figure any predator worth its fur or feathers is already well aware of the delicious chickens I have in my yard. That's what the fort-knox-like run is for.

The predators/scavengers will remember where they found the meal, which was far from your coop, it sounds like. You might have an older neighbor who knows how to process your birds. I have taught others, hands on experience helps, practice helps. Us old peeps like showing the next generation, they way we learned from our Grandparents.

 

[Sally PB]

I had to cull two cockerels last summer. It was very difficult, and I cried. Hard. I couldn't process them, just didn't have the stamina. I buried them in my garden to feed the soil. I thank them for their contribution. It wasn't their fault they were born male.

Yeah, they had a better life than the male chicks who are sorted out and turned into chicken meal.

 

[TJAnonymous]

Not like a chicken's vent... I just need to get some things off my chest and I figured that fellow chicken people would be good folks to vent to. I know many of you will think this is silly and some may get a good laugh out of my naiveté but that's ok. I like making people laugh and at least I'd be good for something.

I killed my first birds today.

As I mentioned in a previous post I ordered 8 chicks from a hatchery about 5 months ago that claimed a 95% success rate in determining the sex of the chicks. Three of the 8 turned out to be cockerels. I tried to re-home them but craigslist can be a strange and scary place. I got a few text message replies that may have been AI bots (broken English, run-on sentences, no capitalization and no or wrong punctuation such as exclamation point where question marks should be). The one person that I spoke with on the phone was oddly terse and rude. He basically demanded I give him all three roosters even though he admitted to having no coop, no other birds, and generally sounded sketchy.

I was remained hopeful I would find a home for them eventually but things started to go bad behaviorally. One of the cockerels - a Buff Orpington - would get aggressive and peck at me when I went into the run to give them leftovers/treats. I actually found it funny and enjoyed sparring with him but I'm a full-grown adult. I have young kids as well as young nieces and nephews that I did not want to be attacked. Then this morning another of the cockerels - a "Green Queen" - who had been increasing aggressive towards the hens attacked a fellow Green Queen hen and gave her a small cut on the left side of her head right at the base of her beak.

That was it. I knew they had to go.

I had studied up on how I would dispatch a bird when the time inevitably came so I had a plan.

I caught the first bird, lowered it into the cone I had screwed to a tree and placed a string with a loop at one end around its neck (not tight) that I used to keep the neck ever-so-slightly stretched. The other end of the string I attached to a screw that I had drilled into the tree about a foot below the cone. This was just to keep the head and neck still. The bird was comfortable - there neck was not overly extended and the airway was not blocked. Then I took a brand new (aka very sharp) pair of tree loppers and cut the bird's neck. I repeated this two more times.

Now I am experiencing waves of guilt. If it had been someone else's birds I think I would feel much better about it. But these birds I raised from small chicks. They trusted me and I can't help but feel I betrayed that trust. I know that probably sounds silly. Heck I had a chicken kabob salad for dinner last night. But I can't help but feel that after putting so much time and effort and - quite frankly - love into making sure these birds had a great life (ie building a massive coop with windows and a huge, predator-proof run, buying the best feed, keeping them warm with heat lamps when they were young, etc, etc) I killed them just bc they were born the wrong sex. It just seems... I don't know... like a betrayal.

Yeah I know it's dumb. I'll get over it. But does anyone else ever feel this way? I've eaten THOUSANDS of chickens in my life, so it's silly to feel this way about these birds. But I miss my buddies. I'm sorry guys.

Ok thanks for letting me vent. Gotta go. I've got a hot date with Mr. Daniels.

I completely understand how you feel. I made the mistake of listing kittens for free once on Craigslist. I later found out that someone who took one of my kittens fed it to their python. Nope. Never again.... I will never ever ever EVER place a "Free to a Good Home" ad on any site. Lesson learned.

I also hate the idea of culling a perfectly healthy animal. We culled a Pekin duck that we received with a group of females last fall. We simply had too many males and needed to do it. I felt AWFUL about it. I now need to cull two more Pekin males and a GLW rooster that I raised as babies. Not looking forward to it.

I guess my only advice is that you can mourn the loss and then move on. Thankfully the guilt doesn't stay around forever...

 

[bobbi-j]

My conscience tells me that it is a waste, and somewhat dis-respectful, to just discard the birds after culling, but for this first time I feel ok about providing a good meal (or three) for some other conscious creatures, whether they be canine, aves or anything else that desires to feed itself and it's young.

I wouldn’t say it was disrespectful at all. You were very intentional about what you did with them.
I agree that you did the right thing. I’d rather have my chickens live out their lives here, where we know that they have had the best life possible, and die by our hands (DH does the actual dispatching), than sell them or give them away, not knowing what kind of conditions they’d be living in. Here, they have a great life and one bad moment. I catch them, and them to DH and the whole thing is over in less than a minute.

 

[TheresaV]

Thank you for posting this. It's helpful to learn how you managed and to read the replies. I think you did a wonderful job.

Not long ago, we had a rooster I got from my friend. He only stayed with us for 2 days. From the start he was so aggressive toward me that he was making life miserable and he was also scaring my hens.

My friend didn't want him back and we had agreed beforehand that we would go ahead and dispose of him if he didn't work out for us. I thought it over and realized I was so stressed out from dealing with him that I couldn't handle the additional stress of seeing him dead. Also I know nothing about humanely killing or processing a chicken.

I made a deal with my hubby- I dug the grave ahead of time and he killed the rooster- I know the rooster never even realized he was dead, which was the most important thing. Hubby popped him in the grave and then I could move on. I didn't feel guilty because I was confident we did the right thing.

I know I need to be able to humanely kill and process chickens, just like pioneer and farm women did long ago. it's part of good animal husbandry. Next time I will be ready and mentally prepared.

 

[Parront]

Thank you for posting this. It's helpful to learn how you managed and to read the replies. I think you did a wonderful job.

Not long ago, we had a rooster I got from my friend. He only stayed with us for 2 days. From the start he was so aggressive toward me that he was making life miserable and he was also scaring my hens.

My friend didn't want him back and we had agreed beforehand that we would go ahead and dispose of him if he didn't work out for us. I thought it over and realized I was so stressed out from dealing with him that I couldn't handle the additional stress of seeing him dead. Also I know nothing about humanely killing or processing a chicken.

I made a deal with my hubby- I dug the grave ahead of time and he killed the rooster- I know the rooster never even realized he was dead, which was the most important thing. Hubby popped him in the grave and then I could move on. I didn't feel guilty because I was confident we did the right thing.

I know I need to be able to humanely kill and process chickens, just like pioneer and farm women did long ago. it's part of good animal husbandry. Next time I will be ready and mentally prepared.

Good job. We are still able to process our own food, no need to be a pioneer. Modern improvements make it a lot easier now. It is just a normal part of keeping chickens.