Rooster chicks - what to do with them

[Ren2014]

The best way to tell when they need butchered is simple to watch them, they will start to chase eachother around but not really fight horribly and cause damage to eachother til they are a little older, I butchered my extra roosters a few months after they started crowing, I waited a little to long because by then they were fighting and really obnoxious with the hens, I would wait until they crow for sure then see how long you can tolerate them after that, you may want to kill all of them right then to get rid of the noise, otherwise just keep an eye out and pick them off when you notice they become harmful to the others, don't wait for them to get big because they won't. I found some recipies for a simple brine on here, I mixed one of them up and when I butchered I cut my birds into pieces right away and threw them into a food grade pail of brine and left them sit in my unheated front porch for 3 days, which is colder than my fridge, then we ate one and froze the other 2, even though they were a little old for butchering at the time the brine and using a crock pot to cook them made them very tender, meat fell right off the bone. My roosters were NH reds and barred roc, I purposely threw in 8 more reds with my order for this spring along with some hens the wife wanted so I can butcher them for meat again.

Thank you. Sounds like a good plan if I do keep them.