Should I harvest or cage bullying roosters?

[NatJ]

@NatJ @3KillerBs how do you kill them? I'm so embarrassed, I tried breaking one rooster's neck this morning like in the movie and it just flexed.

I do about the same as @Ridgerunner :

I use the ax and stump method. It doesn't have to be an ax, I use a hatchet, some use a machete or meat cleaver. The stump is important.

I've used a machete, a hatchet, or an ax. It needs to be a tool I can control properly, so I cut through the chicken's neck on the first swing, and do not cut myself or anything else accidentally.

I am right handed, so I hold the chicken with my left hand: both legs and the big feathers of both wingtips. I pretend I have all the time in the world, being gentle and calm, tucking a leg or a wingtip back into my hand as needed. When the chicken is hanging calmly upside down, not struggling, but held securely by my left hand, I lay its neck on the chopping block, pick up my hatchet and line it up right, and make one hard chop that goes all the way through the neck into the chopping block.

If you are already comfortable chopping with an ax or similar tool, this method works quite well. If you are not comfortable chopping things, it's best to practice on other things first (like sticks of wood), or choose a different method of chicken-killing.

 

[goats-n-oats]

Nope, you don't have young roosters, you have immature cockerels that are pretty much doing what immature cockerels do. I generally don't see gang rape even when I have over a dozen cockerels that age but it does happen. I generally don't see bare backed hens like that but when I do I eat them so they can't reproduce. We all have different ways of handling things.


If you are showing them or maybe breeding to sell you need to build coops and pens so you can keep the breeds separated for breeding. If you are hatching them for meat or eggs there is nothing wrong with a barnyard mix. You can sell a barnyard mix but might get more for pure breed chicks.


A lot depends on your goals. You have an older rooster that obviously was able to keep enough of the hens fertile to hatch out a bunch of chicks. I don't know how many hens you plan to keep. That Swedish Flower rooster attacks you and if I remember right isn't all that big, not compared to the cockerels you have. If you are going to eat chickens (I like that solution) I'd suggest you eat that Swedish Flower rooster and keep one of the cockerels. I assume you are done hatching this year. By next spring that cockerel will be flock master, should give you larger cockerels to eat, and hopefully won't be attacking you. It's a little harder for one cockerel to gang rape hens than it is for four.

I don't have a recommendation as to which cockerel to keep. Any one of them are just as likely as any other to turn out to be a good rooster when they actually mature into being a rooster instead of a hormone driven cockerel.


There is a lot of information in the meat bird section of this forum on different techniques. Look at the top in the stickies section.

Some common techniques involve using a killing cone. You can slice the jugular to let them bleed to death or take off the whole head maybe using pruning loppers, knives, or something else. I use the ax and stump method. It doesn't have to be an ax, I use a hatchet, some use a machete or meat cleaver. The stump is important. The broomstick method is popular with some people. Wringing the neck works but a lot of people don't like that. Some people use cervical dislocation, sounds like what you tried. Any of these methods can work but there are details to make them work right. Before you try any of them get with somebody to talk about those details, either on this thread or start a new thread in the meat bird section.

Thanks very much for all this information

 

[Ridgerunner]

I do about the same as Ridgerunner

My technique is a little different. I drive two large nails in the stump to form a Vee maybe 3/4" apart at the base and 1-1/2" apart further up. That's worked for pullets and a Midget White tom turkey. I gentle lay the head/neck in that Vee and gently stretch the neck out. Very gently, no real tension. That holds the neck in place to make it easier to hit it. If you are gentle it doesn't panic the bird.

I'll repeat the warning, if you are not comfortable you can hit what you are swinging at this method is probably not for you.

Another detail. You want to cut into the grain of the wood so the blade sinks in a bit. That way you generally get the head clean off. If you cut against the grain the blade is likely to bounce back and you may not cut the head totally off. If you cut into a stump you are cutting into the wood grain. If you cut into the side or a tree trunk you are cutting against the grain. Don't try lumber like a 2x12. It will almost certainly bounce.

 

[Sussex19]

I use the the broomstick method as well, and I taught myself from youtube videos.
If you try it, the first time you should take the head completely off; don't try to keep it on, as I found at first it was imposable to tell how hard to pull but if the head comes off, one knows one pulled hard enough.
Once ones done it a few times, one can keep the head on, which contains the bleed out in the skin, so its very tidy.