Official BYC Poll: What do you do with your roosters?

[RaZ]

Hope he doesn't visit any more, at least not like that!!!
Mary

Yeah. I haven't seen him in about a year now. That's why I was worried about a care taker when I went to hospital.

 

[Kris5902]

I always intend to butcher my excess Cockerels... and now I have 9 Roosters and a whole bunch of very suspicious looking “pullets” coming up. DH has put the foot down (mostly) on more boys. And I have to agree. I have mine done professionally so I can sell the meat, for the most part I’m hatching out layers and they don’t all have the weight needed for a sellable carcass, so I name them “sausage”. It’s hard to part with the ice ones though. If I could find good homes for them I would 100% do that, but I think a good end is better than a bad home for a boy.

 

[Folly's place]

Here we have had no problems handling hens or any birds in the presence of our roosters, ever. Any cockerel or rooster who thought otherwise would have tried bad behavior over other things, and would have been gone already. My flock, my rules!
We also don't harass the birds, run around waving arms, screaming, whatever, and expect polite behavior from them too.
Except for broody hens, who are in a class all their own...
Mary

 

[Stefrrr]

I planned to keep at least one from my last order. But instead of 2/15 males, I got 7/15 males. So I’m now trying to choose between the top three, and the lead is an olive egger because he’s the sweetest to the hens and really good with warning about predators. Three others went to a friend’s farm, and we had one for dinner on Friday.

Unfortunately, all the boys are mature and chasing the immature pullets around the run already, so I moved them into another coop tonight. I’d love to just keep one - the cuckoo marans I ordered, but it would take a pretty aggressive change in personality for the olive egger to lose the top spot. What’s the point of an olive egger rooster??

 

[Sonya9]

That's what I thought! Ill inform the others, thank you. (I love being right!)

Side story that may be relevant. A friend had a pair of white commercial turkeys for several years (she does rescue, can't recall how she ended up with them). Anyway the birds were HUGE but very docile. One day she decided to "play" with the hen for a few moments and pretended to chase her and then playfully ran away when the bird would chase back. That "game" quickly turned serious and that bird immediately became VERY aggressive for quite some time (which was no joke as the bird was huge).

Folks need to remember birds are NOT mammals, I have never seen them playfully chase each other or mimic predator behavior the way young mammals often do. Chicks do playfully spar but that is different. Never act like a predator around them as they don't see it as play and they really don't like it!

 

[Flockincrazy]

I planned to keep at least one from my last order. But instead of 2/15 males, I got 7/15 males. So I’m now trying to choose between the top three, and the lead is an olive egger because he’s the sweetest to the hens and really good with warning about predators. Three others went to a friend’s farm, and we had one for dinner on Friday.

Unfortunately, all the boys are mature and chasing the immature pullets around the run already, so I moved them into another coop tonight. I’d love to just keep one - the cuckoo marans I ordered, but it would take a pretty aggressive change in personality for the olive egger to lose the top spot. What’s the point of an olive egger rooster??

Breeding pure olive eggers

 

[cmom]

In the past we have processed some but now I sell them. We have a local TSC farm swap twice a month and quite a lot of buyers. Most of the time I sell all that I take. I have taken some to the auctions in the past and have done well. I hatch out a lot of chicks every year and it helps offset the feed costs. I have a lot of birds.

 

[Chickenhappy8708]

I planned to keep at least one from my last order. But instead of 2/15 males, I got 7/15 males. So I’m now trying to choose between the top three, and the lead is an olive egger because he’s the sweetest to the hens and really good with warning about predators. Three others went to a friend’s farm, and we had one for dinner on Friday.

Unfortunately, all the boys are mature and chasing the immature pullets around the run already, so I moved them into another coop tonight. I’d love to just keep one - the cuckoo marans I ordered, but it would take a pretty aggressive change in personality for the olive egger to lose the top spot. What’s the point of an olive egger rooster??

How many hens/pullets do you have? You could keep two if there are enough females.

 

[LikeTurkeys]

In the past we have processed some but now I sell them. We have a local TSC farm swap twice a month and quite a lot of buyers. Most of the time I sell all that I take. I have taken some to the auctions in the past and have done well. I hatch out a lot of chicks every year and it helps offset the feed costs. I have a lot of birds.

I've heard of these TSC swaps, but how do you know if your local store hosts one? It's not all of them right? I wish ours did it, because I sure would like to participate.

 

[Stefrrr]

How many hens/pullets do you have? You could keep two if there are enough females.

I have 24 pullets (seven are 16 weeks, five are seven weeks, and 12 are almost five weeks). I have plenty of room for more, but I think this is enough for now! I know I could have more than one rooster, but I don’t really want three. I could keep two but I don’t want them to be in constant conflict. Although the Marans seems to have no ambition.

Edit: of course, knowing what I know now, I don’t KNOW I have 24 pullets until they start laying.