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joyfulspirit

joyfulspirit

Songster
7 Years
Jul 13, 2015
50
4
101
Tomahawk, WI
New to BYC and first time chicken owner -- plus two ducks, 2 turkeys. We have meat chickens and layers. Soon we will be . . .I HATE the word killing. . .processing. , .there's no nice word. It will be hard to do this the first time. We have an acquaintance who will be coming over to show us how to do this so we can in the future. My husband has grown attached to the turkeys so we will probably be having them as "guests" for Thanksgiving vs "having" them for Thanksgiving! LOL! I am thankful to have a go to place to seek answers to my questions. We want to raise our birds as humanely as possible and handle them as humanely as possible. We live in Wisconsin where we have very harsh winters and plan to keep the 5 layers, 2 roosters (mistake), and 2 turkeys so am asking, seeking everything we can to make sure we do it right! And make it as comfortable as possible for our birds. So, with that I will look around the site and see you on the threads!
 
Welcome to BYC. You may want to 'process' the least likeable of the two roosters along with the meat birds. 2 roosters to 5 laying hens may be one too many resulting in wear and tear and even injury to the hens.
 
Don't name anything you may end up eating later. I've been told processing ducks is the hardest, they have such beautiful eyes. You might put "processing meat birds."
in the search box. I know there have been many articles written about that.
 
welcome-byc.gif


I haven't had to do that yet, but I can see where especially the 1st time would be the hardest. Nice to have someone show you the ropes.

Good luck to you, thanks for joining us!
 
Thank you so much! I didn't think about "wear and tear" -- just thought it's not fair to the rooster that they weren't meant to be here and we have to kill him. I think we will put a message out on what's called Trading Mart on the local radio station and give him away to a good home; we'll try that first.
 
joyfulspirit said:
New to BYC and first time chicken owner -- plus two ducks, 2 turkeys. We have meat chickens and layers. Soon we will be . . .I HATE the word killing. . .processing. , .there's no nice word. It will be hard to do this the first time. We have an acquaintance who will be coming over to show us how to do this so we can in the future. My husband has grown attached to the turkeys so we will probably be having them as "guests" for Thanksgiving vs "having" them for Thanksgiving! LOL! I am thankful to have a go to place to seek answers to my questions. We want to raise our birds as humanely as possible and handle them as humanely as possible. We live in Wisconsin where we have very harsh winters and plan to keep the 5 layers, 2 roosters (mistake), and 2 turkeys so am asking, seeking everything we can to make sure we do it right! And make it as comfortable as possible for our birds. So, with that I will look around the site and see you on the threads!
Click to expand...
Life isn't about waiting for the Storm to pass . .it's about dancing in the rain.
 
The ducks are majestic, beautiful. Yes it will be hard to "process" them. My daughter would be upset if she knew. (she is 18 and doesn't live with us). One duck died unexpectedly one day out of the blue. Running about just a few hours before and then poof, dead in the pool. Anyway, with ducks it's a wet mess and it would be too hard to keep them through the winter so we plan to process them, Will need to find out how old they need to be for that but will before winter. Thanks for info!
 
joyfulspirit said:
The ducks are majestic, beautiful. Yes it will be hard to "process" them. My daughter would be upset if she knew. (she is 18 and doesn't live with us). One duck died unexpectedly one day out of the blue. Running about just a few hours before and then poof, dead in the pool. Anyway, with ducks it's a wet mess and it would be too hard to keep them through the winter so we plan to process them, Will need to find out how old they need to be for that but will before winter. Thanks for info!
Click to expand...

In case you haven't found it yet, there's a duck forum you might like to check out:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/f/42/ducks
 

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