Roosters in town and sex links

[brig125]

Are you stirring the pot or just being judgemental? We are new to raising chickens and bought four bantam chicks this spring. We wound up with two roosters. Would I do things differently next time and buy sexed standard chicks instead of bantams? Yes.

I made the best decision I could at the time. Your judgement only makes me feel worse about the situation.

 

[bigz1983]

Are you stirring the pot or just being judgemental? We are new to raising chickens and bought four bantam chicks this spring. We wound up with two roosters. Would I do things differently next time and buy sexed standard chicks instead of bantams? Yes.

I made the best decision I could at the time. Your judgement only makes me feel worse about the situation.

I think the hatcheries and farm stores should do more to educate the public about gendering chickens the oridances and laws. Upsides and downsides of certain breeds. The possibility of getting several roosters out of straight run chicks.

 

[Aunt Angus]

Are you stirring the pot or just being judgemental? We are new to raising chickens and bought four bantam chicks this spring. We wound up with two roosters. Would I do things differently next time and buy sexed standard chicks instead of bantams? Yes.

I made the best decision I could at the time. Your judgement only makes me feel worse about the situation.

Don't feel badly. It happens to everyone. Well, not everyone, apparently... But most people have a similar experience. It's nearly unavoidable with bantams, unfortunately. Just learn and make future decisions accordingly.

 

[Thomas70]

I know I might be stirring the pot here a bit..

I see a lot of people on the Facebook chicken sites posting,
"I live in town that doesn't allow roosters and I got a rooster as a baby chick"
"I didn't know it was a rooster"
"I cant have any roosters so here is a free rooster"!

My question is if someone lives in a town that doesn't allow roosters than why would they get one in the first place?
Why not get a color sex link like a ISA Brown, Black sex link, cream crested leg bar, barred rock etc?
You can prevent getting baby roosters by going directly to the hatchery/farm store(don't special order)and hand picking the color sex links yourself.

Don't trust the store employees to gender them and do your research on how to gender them before hand.
Or better yet if your gonna get a non auto sexing breed buy them at a age old enough to gender?
Why risk it?

I know... I know...
"My favorite breed isn't a sex link"

I still don't think its a good idea to buy straight run non-sex link chicks if you can't have roosters.
That's a waste of time. Then there's the drama/hardship of finding the roosters a new home.

I think the reason I have such strong feelings on the issue is my Mom would go down to the farm store and get straight run chicks(non auto-sexing)and then we would end with 10 roosters and living in town the neighbors would complain.

It was embarrassing for me. My friends picked on me over it.

We were the original reason a ordinance was made against roosters in my home town.

Ok rant over.....

If you buy chicks at Tractor Supply or the Farmers Coop they are straight line and you never know what you are going to get. I bought 15 silkies from the TN Farmers Coop and got 11 roosters. I have a friend that bought 6 reds from Tractor Supply and got 5 roosters. We know from experience that most of the hens have been removed from these straight lines and sold as sexed for more money. If you want to avoid roosters you have to pay more for sexed ones from a hatchery. Another solution is to eat the roosters. When young they are very tasty but when they start crowing they are not so tasty.

 

[so lucky]

Are you stirring the pot or just being judgemental? We are new to raising chickens and bought four bantam chicks this spring. We wound up with two roosters. Would I do things differently next time and buy sexed standard chicks instead of bantams? Yes.

I made the best decision I could at the time. Your judgement only makes me feel worse about the situation.

One way to look at is that your two roos have had a heck of a lot better life than the standard boy chicks that get culled at hatching.
At this point, you might find a chicken lady who would love to be given all four chicks. Then you could start over with 4 sex-link or at least 4 sexed chicks. Just don't get into the situation that I did, and get the chicks at such a busy time in the store that the guy getting my chicks out did a very hasty job. No way could I have checked his work at the time, or picked out a particular chick out of the bin for him to catch.

 

[Thomas70]

Are you stirring the pot or just being judgemental? We are new to raising chickens and bought four bantam chicks this spring. We wound up with two roosters. Would I do things differently next time and buy sexed standard chicks instead of bantams? Yes.

I made the best decision I could at the time. Your judgement only makes me feel worse about the situation.

You did not reply to anyone so I am not sure who you are considering judgemental. Several of us myself included stated that you never know what sex you will get in a straight line batch and there is a good chance you will get more roosters than hens. That is true with bantams or standard chicks. I read some good answers here and did not take them to be judgemental. You are in a learning process like the rest of us went through so you must learn from experience like we did. I had bantams and my hen hatched 4 eggs and I got 3 roosters, but that can also happen with standard chicks. It is the luck of the draw which eggs will get fertilized. In my case mostly rooster eggs got fertilized. I like bantams and may have them again, but now I am into silkies which are a part the bantam breed. The answer is not to buy sexed standard chicks next time instead of bantams. If you like bantams like me buy sexed bantams.

 

[FowlWitch]

Look it all boils down to this..
I think that people who live in towns that have ordinances against roosters should take better measures to prevent getting roosters.
If that offends you then please don’t post on this thread.

This is an open thread. People can respond however they want; why bother starting a discussion if all you're going to do is complain that people are disagreeing with you? You've posted this exact response, copy-pasted more than once. If you're ego can't handle contrary opinions, then you may want to find yourself an echo chamber to hear your own point of view parroted back to you.

 

[Mybackyardpeepers]

I paid a hatchery a premium for female chicks. I still got a cockerel. ::shrug:: It happens.

This happened to my daughter.

 

[Thomas70]

This is an open thread. People can respond however they want; why bother starting a discussion if all you're going to do is complain that people are disagreeing with you? You've posted this exact response, copy-pasted more than once. If you're ego can't handle contrary opinions, then you may want to find yourself an echo chamber to hear your own point of view parroted back to you.

I agree with you 100% and bigz1983 has an ego issue. Everyone has opinions and are sharing them with the group. Whether you agree or disagree it really makes no difference at the end of the day. If I don't share someone's opinion I ignore it. It is so simple to just agree to disagree and not get your panties in a wad.

 

[Aunt Angus]

You did not reply to anyone so I am not sure who you are considering judgemental. Several of us myself included stated that you never know what sex you will get in a straight line batch and there is a good chance you will get more roosters than hens. That is true with bantams or standard chicks. I read some good answers here and did not take them to be judgemental. You are in a learning process like the rest of us went through so you must learn from experience like we did. I had bantams and my hen hatched 4 eggs and I got 3 roosters, but that can also happen with standard chicks. It is the luck of the draw which eggs will get fertilized. In my case mostly rooster eggs got fertilized. I like bantams and may have them again, but now I am into silkies which are a part the bantam breed. The answer is not to buy sexed standard chicks next time instead of bantams. If you like bantams like me buy sexed bantams.

It's so interesting how sex is determined by the egg rather than by the rooster's contribution, isn't it? Wouldn't it be great if we could look at an egg and determine the sex of it? Forget sex linked chicks, egg sex should be determined by color. Haha! Come on genetics ppl, get on that!